We also, as a society, put a lot of conscious and subconscious pressure on women in particular to have and to want children. Girls are exposed from a young age

We also, as a society, put a lot of conscious and subconscious pressure on women in particular to have and to want children. Girls are exposed from a young age to overt and covert suggestions that their value is in their reproductive appeal and reproductive potential. Women who don't have children are constantly questioned about it; treated as "less than"; and perceived as having something wrong with them. Women who don't want children are perceived as subversive. (We put some of these same pressures on men, but it's perceived as "normal" for men not to want children.) And then the burden of childbearing and childrearing falls more heavily on women than on men. So it's unsurprising that a lot of women have children and then regret it. What's infuriating is that the same pressures and stupid norms that push women into having children for the wrong reasons are the same ones that prevent them from speaking up about it and warning others once they realize they have.