
Mothers Who Regret Having Children - teslacar
http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a22189/i-regret-having-kids/
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otoburb
Raising children is difficult, not only due to the immense amount of direct
contact required to see your children thrive but also while juggling shared
responsibilities and managing the economics of a household.

There was a separate HN thread about rural America seemingly unable to move to
where the best economic opportunities are, but one of the biggest issues a
family must deal with are whether both or only one of the parents should work.
This is a decision that's often based on a variety of childcare factors
outside of a family's control. Sometimes, there's seemingly no choice if local
caretakers (e.g. the proverbial village) or daycare centers are too expensive
during a child's early years which can impact long-term family financials and
take a heavy toll on the stay-at-home-parent who may not be behaviourally
suited to raise a child on a full-time basis.

Often, parents staying at home, whether by choice or necessity, are mothers.
Anecdotally, I find a growing number of SAHD (stay-at-home-dads) often have
either part-time jobs or extremely flexible hours. The article didn't touch on
this directly but the few choice anecdotes seemed to focus on full-time SAHMs
who didn't have the choice to utilize outside assistance.

Speaking from personal experience, while we had the luxury to _choose_ to move
to a city without grandparents or nearby relatives for caretaker assistance,
it was a marital struggle requiring a lot of honesty and heated discussions to
resolve the tension between home-building roles, child rearing and career
trajectories for the both of us.

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bonejelly
Is this really as "surprising" as the article says? I would assume it's
obvious that not every woman is fit for motherhood. The reason why the
majority of women used to have children as compared to the numbers of today
isn't because they wanted it or were fit for it. They had to.

Now that's no longer the case (in our society), of course less women will want
children. And these women speaking up, I guess they're old enough that they
still felt the pressure and gave in to it. I expect that the number of births
will continuously decrease as new generations are born. We still have people
from the 50s living among us after all.

~~~
mcphage
It's not surprising, but it's very difficult to discuss. It's one of those
truths which we're culturally unable to admit; we all pretend it's not true
even when we all know it is.

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Overtonwindow
You've got to be kidding me. If you bring a life into this world you don't
have the right to regret it anymore. You must feed and clothe that child, and
give them the best upbringing that you can. It's not their fault you didn't
understand fully what you were getting into. That's your fault not theirs. Get
over your regret, it's only going to make your life miserable.

~~~
zzalpha
_you don 't have the right to regret it anymore_

Good advice! Obviously the best way to deal with negative feelings is to
invalidate their existence by making them verboten and immoral thoughtcrimes,
and then burying them waaaay down deep where hopefully no one notices them.

What could go wrong?

~~~
pottersbasilisk
Yea but telling your kid you regret them or wish you aborted them is awful as
well.

~~~
zzalpha
Uhh, where on earth did you get the idea that these women were _telling their
kids_ how they feel? That isn't even intimating at in the article.

Strawman much?

