
Mothers who regret having children are speaking out - gerbilly
http://www.macleans.ca/regretful-mothers/
======
throwaway2016a
If given the choice I would choose to have my daughter again I would. But even
so I can definitely empathize with many of the people in this article.

My wife and i have always been very open communicators. After having a kid
when people would ask us if we are enjoying parenthood we've always answered
honest.

"It's the most work we have ever done in our life" (and I build startups!)...
"We got no sleep last night, she woke up at 2 AM and wouldn't go back to bed."

And it is amazing to me the backlash we got. People who plan to have children
were telling us "all I ever here is the bad stuff!" and essentially saying we
should lie and say everything is perfect.

The fact is, having a child is the biggest life commitment you will ever make
and if you and your significant other are not prepared, you're in for a bad
time.

But at the same time I think this whole "you're not allowed to say anything
bad about parenthood" is unhealthy.

This article talks about people who are willing to speak their truth about
parenthood and I think overall that is a good thing.

Edit: If more people talked honestly about he burden of parenthood we'd maybe
have less unwanted kids. We as a species are well past the point where we have
to have 10 kids just to ensure the bloodline continues. Be honest with people
about how difficult being a parent is. Some people like my wife and I will
choose to do it anyway knowing exactly what we are getting into and other's
won't. And that's OK.

~~~
stdbrouw
All in favor of being open about the ups and downs of parenthood. What I do
resent is when parents try to make their struggles look like some sort of
noble sacrifice they've performed for the greater good, when ultimately having
children is just a personal choice they made. I can sympathize up to a point,
but when parents complain that they hate their lifestyle (or lack of one) now
that they have children, it's hard not to think "well, gee, maybe should've
considered that before making such a momentous decision."

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That’s a bit harsh. First, you really have no idea what you are getting into
when you have a kid, no one can prepare you for it, all of what you think you
know about having a baby is probably wrong (unless you’ve had one).

We are also biologically inclined to ignore thinking about what kind of pain
we are in for and just be...excited. Otherwise, I doubt anyone would have kids
and humanity would just go instinct. Likewise, once the kid has arrived,
nature pulls more tricks to keep us parents motivated (evolved cuteness, for
example).

~~~
iopuy
You can definitely be prepared for what it is like to have a child before
having one. Everything you know is not wrong. Yes, it may be a lot of work but
it is not beyond the realm of comprehension for us mere mortals.

~~~
jdmichal
This is like saying you can learn to write a perfect program, without ever
writing one. Sure, while maybe theoretically possible, I'll take someone with
10 years of experience over 10 years of study everyday. Because at some point,
_experience_ is a thing; having lived through the event and having the scars.
And that experience is really an irreplaceable part of being human and the
learning process.

~~~
Toast_25
TIL I'm the equivalent of a badly written "Hello world".

------
dkhenry
Anyone who had kids because they thought kids would make them happy is in for
a bad time, but that's not what this is about. This is about narcissism and
people not being able to learn from what is going on around them. Clearly even
after kids the people in the headline of this story didn't understand life or
how to live with others. Just the tale of their parenting lets you know that
not only did they not have a good relationship ( claim of 90% of work by one
parent, and spending most days carting the child around to "activities" ), but
then the burden of this unfulfilled and damaged life is placed on the child,
if you could do it again you wouldn't have a child, therefore that child will
see it as their fault they have ruined your life. You can't hide those
emotions for long and they end up with bitterness and resentment. The truth is
even without kids the realtionship was not in good shape, and these people
would have had an empty and shallow partnership. That is how human
relationships work, when hard times come they don't break your relationships
they revel them for what they are.

Motherhood or parenting or children aren't the problem, the basic breakdown of
people being able to live and relate with other people is.

~~~
maerF0x0
The doublespeak is palpable too.

>"I love my son with all my heart,” she says. “My life revolves around this
child.

Sorry, no. Love means desiring what is good for that person. Not existing is
not good for that person... As well, her life revolves around her happiness,
which is why her decision wether or not to do it again is answered by it's
impact on her happiness.

~~~
kevinh
I don't see anything contradictory in what she says. You can love someone, yet
not always take actions that are best for them. Your life can resolve around
someone else, while you wish it didn't.

------
mabbo
The outrage at saying you regret having children seems to me to be evidence
that there's a nerve there to hit. It's a bit like accusing 10 supposedly
straight people of being secretly gay, and one of them losses their mind
screaming denials. 'Methinks he doth protest too much.'

But we've built a society in the west based around worshipping our children.
Politicians can do anything if it's "for the children", no matter how
draconian or insane. It's rude to ever comment on how someone else chooses to
raise their children. It's considered horrible to not do everything you can to
make your children happier, better, etc. Better go buy a house with a yard
because your kid might want a yard, because everyone _knows_ that kids need
yards.

The really interesting question isn't whether it's okay to regret having
children- it's what's going to change when society unshackles itself from this
strange obsession.

~~~
graphitezepp
I agree completely with the outrage being a product of people propping up
denial of their own dissatisfaction with their decisions. Though I am biased
having gone through the homophobic denial thing myself, it seems to be a very
common pattern, and can only really only be addressed by society not signally
so strongly that everyone "should" be a certain way.

~~~
fhood
Maybe that is part of it. But I think it has more to do with the enormous
responsibility inherent in parenting. Because with parenting you _can 't_ just
quit. Becoming a parent is equivalent to deciding that for 18 years someone
else's life is more important than your own, and if you weren't willing to
commit to that then you have made an unpardonable mistake by being a parent.

Now with that said, should parents be able to gripe without repercussions?
Absolutely. But griping is not the same as expressing regret, and expressing
regret can imply you weren't really up for the job.

~~~
mabbo
> deciding that for 18 years someone else's life is more important than your
> own

Intrinsically, deep down, I feel in complete agreement that you're right about
that statement. And then I stop and think "wait, isn't that the very point I
was just trying to make above? That something is wrong with this?"

Why do children have to me _more_ important than parents? Why not 'just as
important'? Consider: if we had a friend who had a new boyfriend and
constantly put the boyfriend's needs above her own saying 'that's just how
relationships work, you put their needs above yours, always', we'd have an
intervention for that friend. We'd say that's not healthy, that there has to
be give and take, that we all have our own needs that are important too.

But make the other side a child and well, now that's just the _right_ way to
do things.

I'm not saying that we're wrong for thinking that- I'm saying we should really
look at that deeply and figure out if we're sure that it's right. How far is
too far? Are we past that point? Maybe our own happiness should sometimes win
out over our children's happiness and that's not a monstrous thing.

------
program_whiz
Its obvious that having children must be a positive biological function that
prior generations somehow wanted to do, or we wouldn't be here. Any species
that doesn't breed goes extinct. So I believe these factors are the root cause
of why children suddenly seem like such a "problem":

1\. Lack of support network -- many people living as just a couple or alone
(and the strain on couple is so high that likely they will be alone soon).

2\. Social emphasis on individualism rather than self-sacrifice or community
focus.

3\. Breakdown of community and trust -- so watching and keeping kids safe is
full time job. Must be driven to and from everything, no playing by themselves
after school.

4\. Increased education -- older parents with more debt and pressure, working
in more demanding and/or rewarding jobs.

5\. Children need more -- expense of having child keeps increasing. The cost
of all goods rising relative to wages, but also the cost of school, daycare,
extra-curriculars, etc. Basically having a child is a huge cost, the medical
bill just to have the child can be $20K in some hospitals. In most of the
world that would mean no one could have a child in a hospital.

~~~
somethingorothr
Great list, but there's a couple of important missing pieces:

6\. Changing norms have greatly increased what is expected of a parent raising
a child. Ignoring external cost increases, this has profoundly increased the
cost and time investment to having a child.

7\. Economic changes (e.g. 30 years of wage stagnation) all but force a family
with both parents working, meaning parents have to work, and then thanks to
#6, also do more at home.

So parents are expected to do far more with far less, with no support from
family, community, or society.

~~~
chillacy
There were definitely large swaths of history where having kids was a net
economic gain (they could work the fields, help with chores, etc).

------
oxymoran
Both my wife and I never wanted to have kids. In fact I tend to dislike most
kids, especially babies. We accidentally got pregnant, but then lost the baby
a few months in. After that my wife wanted to try again. I went along because
I love her and a small part of me did want to have kids. He is now 7 months
old and I love him to death. But holy fuck, what a pain in the ass this is.
And he is a good baby! But he needs 100% attention (not just supervision, but
engagement) or else he freaks out. I can’t imagine what a “bad” baby would be
like. I totally feel what the article is saying about feeling trapped. I feel
like I do not exist anymore, but that everything I do is for him. There are
risks I can’t take now. Ideas I can’t pursue. Hobbies I won’t have time again
for years. Haven’t had sex in months. I see all these dudes, who after having
kids, love kids. I thought that might happen to me, but no, the thought of
having another kid makes my skin crawl. I love my son more than I thought was
possible, but my wife asked if I wanted to have another one and without
hesitation said “no fucking way”. Time to get snipped.

~~~
kcorbitt
> I see all these dudes, who after having kids, love kids. I thought that
> might happen to me, but no, the thought of having another kid makes my skin
> crawl.

I have a 20-month-old. Honestly, for the first ~14 months of my son's life I
felt... responsible for him, but any "love" was more of an abstract,
theoretical thing than a real personal affinity. Babies -- my son, anyway --
under that age are just a black hole of time and attention that require
everything from you and give nothing back.

But over the last six months or so, our relationship and my feelings have
changed a great deal. On a practical level, he's able to entertain himself for
longer periods of time without requiring my input. But more importantly, he's
starting to understand and discover principles about the world. Seeing that
process of discovery is incredibly fulfilling, and I can honestly say I love
my son and enjoy spending time with him and engaging in that learning process,
in a way I didn't during the first year.

His growing emotional repertoire is especially gratifying to see. We went out
to see Christmas lights over the holidays, and as we passed one house with a
particularly luminous display he pointed to it and exclaimed "WOOWW" with eyes
full of awe and wonder. Rediscovering the beauty of the world through the eyes
of a child is a sort of joy I've never before experienced.

~~~
coryfklein
This was me about 4 years ago. Now I have 3 children ages 2-6 years, and I'm
definitely back into the "I feel like I don't exist" territory again. I can
share a lot with all three of them, but if they weren't there I wouldn't
volunteer 5 hours every day for free at the local daycare to develop
relationships with children and cook them food they don't want to eat.

------
virgilp
Most things in life that are worth it are hard. I find that Occam's razor is
deeply misleading - when it comes about the important life decisions, the
exact opposite applies: the easy path is one of superficiality, short-term
gratification, that you will come to regret later.

Yes, raising children is difficult (especially the first one, since in
radically changes your life, you're no longer independent). It's also
rewarding, but it _is_ difficult. And that's for the best case, when you get a
normal child - I don't know if I can even grasp the difficulties of raising a
problematic child (e.g. diabetic).

You should absolutely not do it on a whim; but if you do it, I'd say "go all
in and enjoy it". Don't regret your previous life, fully embrace the new one.
It has its perks, too - and they are not few. And (at least I hope so), it
only gets better as times goes by.

~~~
peeters
What does Occam's Razor have to do with making life decisions?

~~~
virgilp
(I think you edited? People do have a tendency to over-apply it, from my
observations. To extend from "chose the simplest model that explains
something" to "when faced with a choice, chose the simplest solution")

I wasn't trying to say that it's bad/ that's it's an useless mental model. I
was trying to say "don't apply it to important life decisions, if anything,
the opposite of it is true there".

~~~
peeters
Yes sorry I edited right after just to soften the tone.

Yeah I think if anybody thinks that Occam's Razor is anything other than a way
to give weight to two competing theories, they're misunderstanding it
entirely.

However if we were to apply the same logic to life decisions, you need to note
that the premise of the Razor is "given the same outcome...". So even if you
were to apply it to life decisions, it would say "given two paths in life that
take you to the same place, choose the simpler one". Which I think can still
be useful, even if a completely separate idea than Occam's Razor. Having kids
and not having kids are not equal outcomes.

------
Omnius
Kids are hard work, expensive, a huge responsibility (it's your job to make
sure they don't end up entitled little assholes) and you have to give up a 3rd
of your youth. I never wanted kids.

Accidentally got my girlfriend pregnant in my early 20's got married and had
another child, on purpose, 5 years after the first.

I wouldn't change anything and even with all the sacrifice and hard work the
rewards run deep and i couldn't imagine the person i would be had i not ended
up a father.

My oldest is heading to college in next fall and i am already feeling sad
about how her daily absence is going to leave me feeling a bit empty.

It's not for everyone and i can only speak for myself but i never knew i
wanted them or how much more fulfilling my life would be until i had them.

------
anonforasecond
Of the few regrets I have in my life, not getting a vasectomy in my 20s is
probably the biggest. All the financial mistakes I've made (the jobs I didn't
get/take, the investments I should have made, etc) are nothing compared to the
regret I feel about becoming a father. I love my kid but the only reason I
have one is because my wife wanted one and I want her. I absolutely get why
people would want kids (watching a child progress is beyond interesting and
the reactions are often priceless) but the loss of self and freedom isn't
worth it to me. I told myself I'd never have kids but I lost a lot of backbone
when I got married because I love her more than I could ever love anything or
anyone.

The advice I give anyone who asks me and is on the fence is this: "Unless both
people actively _want_ kids, don't do it. Wait until you're both in violent
agreement or it's a bad decision."

I'd never walk out on either my kid or my wife but were I a weaker person, I
might have and my wife can see it in my face. It's a hard place to be.

~~~
dingaling
You are not alone.

I am a stay-at-home father for a 4yo. It can be interesting at times. Mostly
however it is frustrating and deeply lonesome, some days I've gone all day
until dinner-time without being able to talk to another adult other than a
passing "good morning" in the street.

And I look at my childless-couple friends with jealousy, they jump in the car
and go for a weekend break or spend ten hours composing an award-winning
photograph or just spend a Saturday _doing nothing_

I don't mind posting this under my usual ID because it's not something I hide
anymore. Often though it is considered shameful to say "I don't enjoy being a
father". Rewards? An hour here or there when my wife can take the child out of
the house.

------
CapitalistCartr
When we enthusiastically adopted the "Nuclear Family" (along with Levittown
suburbia) after WWII, we knew at the time it was new, but new was Good(tm) and
Sciency! Soon, we seem to have forgotten that it was a recent decision, one we
can change.

But it was never a successful design. Women found staying at home stifling;
teens found suburbia stifling. The lack of a deep social structure deprived
parents and children alike of a massive support structure.

Other social organizations sprang up to fill the void, but clubs are no match
for generations of closeness, and frequent moves made even that ineffectual.
The only segment of society that clearly benefited was and is Corporations.
Having a worker class that can be shuffled around like game pieces allows
easier optimization of cost center locations.

~~~
jimmaswell
>But it was never a successful design. Women found staying at home stifling;
teens found suburbia stifling. The lack of a deep social structure deprived
parents and children alike of a massive support structure.

Do you have any sources supporting this? I'm pretty sure the "nuclear family"
\+ suburbia have worked out fine.

~~~
dkhenry
I am curious to hear your take on the benefits of suburbia? To me I see people
with long commutes, who live in relative isolation. They waste resources and
time they lead to sprawl that destroys landscapes. They have made us dependent
on cars and high energy transportation mechanisms. They have increased the
wealth gap, and increased our segregation. As a follow on to results of their
increased overhead they have made it harder for families to operate in a
normal fashion. Kids have a lower density of fellow kids, and rely on parents
for driving them around to places, parents spend less time with their partners
and family's due to longer commutes and more overhead with doing anything,
because of that overhead we started to outsource all aspects of family life (
childcare, cooking, entertainment ). In general I see the suburbs as an abject
failure.

~~~
anon1979
Not all suburbs are the same. I live in suburban Minneapolis and most things
seem to work pretty well. The schools are great, the houses are fairly large
and comfortable, the commutes for most people I know are not very long, the
yards are big (and enjoyed), there are lots bike rail trails, and weekend
summer days are full of people walking, riding, etc.

The big downside is that kids do need to be driven places, which is less true
"in town", but it's not like the suburbs don't have lots of advantages too.

Even the millennials are now starting to finally get married and have kids,
and guess what: they are moving to the suburbs too.

I don't begrudge anyone their preferences, but all this hipster trashing of
the 'burbs just flies in the face of what most families actual want.

~~~
dkhenry
As one of those Millennials who has kids, I can tell you the push to the
suburbs is mainly due to the supply of houses and the prices in cities not
because they offer any better quality of living. From everyone I have talked
to they would prefer not to be in the suburbs, but because for the past 60
years that is where we built all the houses for families there isn't much of
an option. Take a look at housing prices for three bedroom houses and notice
how big of a drop in price there is once you get outside the city. People
aren't moving to the suburbs because they are better, they are moving there
because that's the only thing they can afford. Developers have no incentive to
build family sized houses in the city as its cuts into their profits and after
decades of family flight to the suburbs there is no one on city councils to
actually make zoning laws to accommodate what people want.

~~~
anon1979
Yes, affordable large homes is one of the benefits of the suburbs. If you like
the city so much, just live in a two bedroom and make the kids share. It's how
it used to work before all those evil developers built the suburbs that
everyone moved to.

~~~
dkhenry
Except its not. The housing stock in cities used to be much more diverse, but
then we spent 6 decades not continuing to build it out because we decided cars
and gas were free and there was no detriment to unchecked waste. The whole
point I am making is that you _could_ have affordable family housing in a city
and not have all the associated problems of suburbs of which there are many as
I listed, but without someone holding those "evil developers" to building it,
they will just do what makes them the most money, and then you have a whole
generation who is watching their house value skyrocket as we run into the
limits of suburban style housing planing and they don't see how they possibly
could have made a bad decision. I guess if its working out ok for you then
everything is fine.

~~~
anon1979
You want something that is intrinsically expensive (a large home in a high-
density urban area) to be cheap, which is understandable if not very
realistic. It is not because of greedy developers, or bad zoning, it is
because of simple market forces. Tiny condos don't sell and in the suburbs and
big SFHs are too expensive in the city for most people. Everybody trades off a
variety of concerns when choosing where to live, but pretending that if only
you were in charge then everything would be better is just silly
totalitarianism.

~~~
dkhenry
Except it's not, building costs are relatively fixed per square foot, but it's
more profitable to sell them in one and two bedroom units, then using the
extra space for a third bedroom. This is why in almost every high density
building project you only see one or two bedroom units. Because that third
bedroom isn't going to bring in as much money as an additional one bedroom
unit. The result is the only place you build those kinds of houses are out in
the burbs, it no more cost effective it's just that no one would buy a one
bedroom house in the middle of no where so they build the only thing that will
sell on the quickly diminishing resource of undeveloped land. Since we have
been doing that for sixty years the only undeveloped land is well outside any
reasonable commuting distance to a job, so you end up with house prices in the
previously developed location soaring, then when the idea that maybe using up
all that space on low density housing was a bad idea the response is there is
intrinsic limitations.

And this goes back to the title of this article, part of the reason people see
parenting as so burdensome is they now have to deal with the added realities
of a Civic planning policy that is a miserable failure.

Edit: To add data, to build a basic house ( 4 corner ) at a Good, but not
luxury level averages $147/sq.ft. , to build a multistory residential unit at
highest quality it averages $150/sq.ft. If you build over 15 stories the
average price can drop by about 11%. Those are raw construction costs,
including labor and materials, and take into consideration most new housing
developments in the suburbs are _not_ basic 4 corner houses.

~~~
harrumph
>Except it's not, building costs are relatively fixed per square foot [...]

100% true. I work as a real estate data researcher. Totally agree suburban
sprawl is a significant failure, and we're seeing in this thread yet another
example of dragging out the old reliable cop-out "market forces" as a way to
pretend that bad decisions made were good decisions. Up is down, sun rises in
the west, etc.

We absolutely have got to get out from under this pervasive market
fundamentalist quackery.

~~~
jnordwick
You can't really evade market forces, you can only dodge them for a limited
time. The only solution you are really going to have is fixing housing prices.
Sounds like a winning plan!

~~~
dkhenry
You don't need to evade market forces, you just need to actually think about
the implications of your zoning laws. Allow more high density houses to be
built and require them to have family friendly units. Stop subsidizing the
suburban sprawl to the detriment of urban development and fix the broken
school systems.

~~~
jimmaswell
Unchecked density isn't a good solution. You can find lots of examples of how
that works out in places without zoning laws.

------
neverminder
This reminds me of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800082)
which in my opinion is relevant to the subject. Today's parents spend too much
time with kids, too many helicopter parents and all that stuff, so it's the
parents who overreact, overdo and exhaust themselves.

Comment from throwaway2016a:

> "We got no sleep last night, she woke up at 2 AM and wouldn't go back to
> bed."

> The fact is, having a child is the biggest life commitment you will ever
> make and if you and your significant other are not prepared, you're in for a
> bad time.

My grandpa had 10 siblings and from his stories I can tell that if he as a kid
woke up at 2 AM and woke his parents (who worked their asses off from dawn
till dusk to support the family) up for no good reason - he'd be the one to
have a bad time and he learned that at a very young age. He did grow up to be
a stand up guy who never complains about anything and the lack of all the
rights, freedoms and attention that today's kids get didn't seem to get in the
way of that.

~~~
DenisM
> never complains about anything

While convenient for others, this is not quite healthy. It's possible to
traumatize a child into quiet and obedience, but times have changed and we
don't approve of that anymore.

~~~
neverminder
I believe he would laugh and say he doesn't have time to be traumatized. He's
86 and still going strong, always working on something, the man is like a
shark (certain species of sharks die if they stop swimming) and doesn't look
traumatized at all. Our generation though, we are a lot less stoic. Times
change.

------
unklefolk
It is very difficult for those who have already had children to consider, if
in retrospect, it was the right decision. Once you have children it is no
longer a cool, abstract decision. The subject in question (the child) has been
made real and it is difficult to reflect on the decision to have children
without considering the living, breathing person in front of you and how that
person would not have existed had you chosen otherwise.

~~~
criddell
Exactly right. Even those that think their life would have been better without
children likely don't want to hurt the kids they do have.

------
GiorgioG
I don't get it. Parenthood is the easiest it's ever been. Diapers show up at
your door. You can monitor the baby with a camera. Some of us work from home,
etc. Yes in the early years they entirely depend on you 24/7\. Be happy if
your children are healthy.

Parenthood can be soul-crushing when your child has a chronic illness. Our son
is a type 1 diabetic which means one of us is always near him (aside from when
he's in school, and my wife is in constant communication with the staff, we
watch his blood sugar remotely using NightScout.) I can't imagine what it's
like for parents who have children with more severe illnesses (cancer,
paralysis, etc.) Just for some perspective for those who aren't familiar with
Type 1 Diabetes, our son's body no longer produces any insulin. If his blood
sugar goes too low without intervention he can pass out and die. If his blood
sugar is too high he can go into DKA and he can slip into a coma. This goes on
24/7 and will for the rest of his life (unless they find a cure.)

He was diagnosed four and half years ago and he just turned six. My wife and I
have been out without him less than a handful of times because he's not old
enough to self-manage his condition and our parents are (rightfully) scared of
caring for him. No sleepovers, no leaving him with a neighbor/family/etc. More
often than not one of us is up several times per night to check his sugar.)
When he's low in the middle of the night we have to wake him up, force him to
eat something (glucose tabs, chocolate, etc.) He'll go back to sleep and we'll
wait 30-60 minutes to make sure his sugar returns to safe levels before going
back to sleep.

We have no regrets. We tell ourselves that we're happy he doesn't have
something much worse. If I were to have a supposed-adult tell me that they
regret having (healthy) children because it's hard, I would have the urge to
tell them to go do something anatomically impossible.

~~~
billmalarky
>I don't get it. Parenthood is the easiest it's ever been.

I'm not entirely sure this is true (for everyone at least), since many people
don't live as close to the children's grandparents as they would have
typically in the past.

All the tech in the world doesn't make up for 8 additional (in the best case
scenario) eager helping hands.

As for the rest of your comment, I have a ton of respect for your handling of
this hardship. I'm not entirely sure what else to say other than I always vote
in such a way as to build a society that makes life easier for people dealt
such an unfair hardship such as yourself and many others.

------
teekert
I think this is a result of the ever increasing age at which people have
children. One of the first things I said after having a son at 30 was: "Man I
could have handled the sleepless nights much better at 23." In fact I often
went out on Friday night, take a shower and proceeded to work 10 hrs in the
super market, this would kill me now (at 35). Moreover, the longer you wait,
the more accustomed you are to freedom and a lot of money. Not having children
at 35 you can work for a small house and travel a lot (where I work now you
can easily get away with 2 months of vacation a year, part of it unpaid) or
perhaps do a lot of gaming of you wish... then you have children and that all
ends, or it doesn't and it becomes hard work.

I have friends without kids and with the adventurous life style and I tell
myself: It'll come again, take it easy, raise kids, enjoy the ride. Still
sometimes I feel myself hoping they reach the age they can ride a Mountain
Bike asap and I can get back to adventurous trips... But it will come, there
are a lot of things to enjoy now, watching children explore the world, it's
absolutely great, but don't compare yourself to people without children, or if
you do make the comparison holistically... do not just look at their Facebook
lives. There are many childless couples that would swap with these regretting
mothers and fathers in a heartbeat.

All that said, I think it is good taboos as in this article are being lifted,
perhaps kids are not for everyone and it is not all fun and roses even though
society almost expects you to say and act like it is. Strangely it is also not
very appreciated if you go on about your deep love for your children either...
these are strange times perhaps.

~~~
menacingly
I think the age thing is because we're all coached to wait until we're
"ready", but in reality no one is ever ready. You just have to dive in.

~~~
somethingorothr
Don't ignore economic factors.

Stagnating wages, delayed careers due to the 2001 and 2007 crashes and
subsequent recessions, and increased debt all conspire to put people in a
position where having kids in their 20s is simply not an option.

~~~
menacingly
That's a fair point, too

------
tabeth
I suspect the main reason it's difficult is because of the individualistic
nature of western nations. In a society where people live with multiple
generations of family raising children is probably much, much easier.

Add to this the fact that everyone wants to have the best schools, houses and
things in general, and the income that's necessary to get and maintain said
things and you see that having modern children is a trap.

------
djaychela
I don't have biological children - I was never in a position where I would
have considered it a good idea to have them (for various reasons, internal and
external), and I've always seen it as about the biggest responsibility that
you can have. However, about 9 years ago I met my current girlfriend, who had
4 kids from her 16-year marriage, and I'm now considered by them to be their
step-parent.

I remember I found it absolutely exhausting when I first started seeing her -
it took a couple of years for that to not be the case - and they are -not-
difficult children; quite the opposite, they are all really wonderful, and we
generally get on very, VERY well. But it's an immense amount of work, and
every time my girlfriend compares herself to where she would have been had she
not had children and committed her time to be (what I consider to be) and
excellent parent, I have to remind her that she's been a full time + (and then
some) parent for about 12 years. Returning to the workplace for her has been
difficult as she now works a full time job as well as being a mum - and one
who cooks just about every night of the week, and has generally impossibly
high standards for herself as a parent; despite her/our eldest now currently
studying at Cambridge University.

I can totally understand why some would regret having children; it's presented
as being a utopian existence that you get immense satisfaction from in many
quarters, and anyone who dares question whether it's the right move for them
(or indeed their prospective children) is given short shrift. It's not for
everyone, but everyone is expected to have children. I have been given long-
winded lectures in the past for not having my own, and I'm sure anyone who
dared to question the experience with said inquisitors would have a very hard
time!

~~~
brango
I honestly never understood why you'd put yourself through all that for
someone else's genes to propagate.

~~~
MrBingley
I think you misunderstand the nature of parenting pal.

~~~
menacingly
I don't know. I've got a bunch of biological kids, and while propagating my
genes is not the only reason I care for them, it's an explicit strong positive
for me.

~~~
goatlover
You really care about their genes? What if they adopt kids or choose not to
have any? Will it distress you greatly that you went through all that effort
just to have your genes not continue to the next generation?

I think it's likely you're applying an evolutionary explanation to your
parenting behavior, but don't really care that much about your children's
actual genes. You care about your children as persons, not their molecular
machinery.

If you really, really cared you would have your genes cloned and be donating
massively to sperm banks and what not.

~~~
menacingly
Oh, I definitely care. I'd prefer at least some of them have biological kids,
but the odds of that are good with my buckshot approach.

I think mine is actually the simpler explanation, and yours is reaching a bit.
We're surrounded by vicious competition for genetic reproduction, I don't know
why humans would be the exception.

And I don't want a clone, I want to pick a partner with all kinds of good
genes to bring to the mix and toss them together, which I did. A partner I'm
attracted to in part because of a lot of cues she gives me indicating her
genes.

I think when you've had the pride of a son or daughter who is the spitting
image of you, or walks just like you, or is noticeably muscular in the places
you are, it's hard to deny exactly where that is coming from..

~~~
goatlover
You're admitting that you want someone else's genes in addition to yours to be
passed on. Someone you're not related to, which is your wife. And then your
kids spouses. Your genes will get diluted each generation.

Anyway, there was an interesting philosophy podcast that rejected
reductionistic evolutionary explanations for human behavior. The reasoning
goes that yes, evolution is responsible for creating our minds, but once we
have the ability to be conscious, to reflect, ask all sorts of questions and
form new ideas and what not, that this is a new level of explanation. Thus the
need for psychology, sociology, etc.

Call it an emergent if you like. Evolution itself is emergent upon physics,
chemistry, geology, climatology, etc.

------
jchw
I'm not sure why this is so surprising. Having children just because everyone
else has children is not a good plan. If that's not what you want to do in
life, why wouldn't you regret it? It eats out enormous chunks of your life for
something you apparently don't want to do. Some people genuinely want to do
it, some people genuinely don't...

Also: It is pretty irresponsible to have a child even though you know you
don't want to take care of it.

~~~
hateduser2
I find t hard to believe anyone genuinely doesn’t want to. I suggest they’re
wrong about their feelings. They only exist because every ancestor of theirs
has children. Every person who exists today shares that quality. It seems like
a critical part of life to have kids or a kid at least.

~~~
jchw
Your logic here reminds me of this Onion article:
[https://www.theonion.com/report-finds-children-of-parents-
of...](https://www.theonion.com/report-finds-children-of-parents-often-become-
parents-t-1819576757)

Nonetheless, common misconception that everyone on earth is having children.
Nearly half of women in the U.S. have never had children. The exponential
population growth that would follow from every single adult having at least
one child every generation would be insane and absolutely unsustainable.

It seems like it could be a natural response to crowding in populations that
people stop having children, or it could just be a result of people feeling
uncertain about their future. Not sure, but either way, I know for an absolute
undeniable fact that right now, I could not want anything less than having a
child. I'd rather go to prison.

Besides, not everyone _should_ be a parent. There's plenty of criminals with
mental disabilities that make them hugely unfit parents even if they _wanted_
to be. The world really would be a better place if said people simply chose
not to procreate.

~~~
ghostcluster
Fertility rate in the US is below replacement rate and falling, as is the rest
of the developed world.

It's a problem that across the world in cities with educated populations, they
are not reproducing at a sustainable rate.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2017/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2017/06/30/the-u-s-fertility-rate-just-hit-a-historic-low-why-some-
demographers-are-freaking-out/)

> If too low, there's a danger that we wouldn't be able to replace the aging
> workforce and have enough tax revenue to keep the economy stable.

~~~
soundwave106
Well, what if our current economic structure in itself bears a fairly large
responsibility for the declining birthrate though? It's something I wonder at
times.

Declining birth rates may not be a problem per se. But if they are, many
economies I think need to adjust some of their policies. Certain countries
seem to have paradigms that are _not_ terribly friendly towards the idea of
families and raising children.

This paper
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/))
identified some socioeconomic factors that might cause a delay of, or even
outright rejection of, having children:

Lack of affordable housing

Lack of flexible and part-time career posts for women

Lack of affordable and publicly funded (free) child care

I'll add that education expenses are rapidly rising for some countries. Also,
said career paths often come with a financial penalty for mothers
(particularly for college women -- it is well known that motherhood in itself
is a big reason for the pay gap between the sexes --
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-
gap...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-
largely-because-of-motherhood.html)).

Small wonder that the birthrate is declining. In fact, in some countries, you
might postulate that the economic system in itself is actually hostile towards
having children.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I'm getting married to my long term partner in a week, and that's the biggest
things that's weighing on our minds. We both want to have children, but we
live in a big city, just bought a house, and our economic situation is quite
dreary.

We'd like one of us to be able to stay home with the kid, but we just can't.
Where I live a programmer isn't the best paid position, and both of our jobs
are important to our financial success. It'll probably be a matter of getting
back to the workforce as soon as possible, and that's really disheartening
when you want to give the little one as much of a chance as you can.

------
whistlerbrk
I'd be interested to see how the age of the children correlates with regret.
That is, do parents regret having children when the child is 2? How about 12?
How about 22? I don't have a hypothesis on how that would play out, but it is
important to remember that people are (ever increasingly) programmed for short
term reward and child rearing is the ultimate long term investment.

------
throwaway0055
It takes a specific type of person to _enjoy_ parenthood. I, however, am not
one of them. I love my children but being a parent fucking sucks. It has its
moments of joy. But the day-in-day-out sucks. If I could do it over again I
wouldn't.

Most people will research a car purchase more than they will parenthood before
getting pregnant. I was one of them. You have that urge and you just go with
it never questioning the reality and magnitude of the commitment you're
getting into.

I didn't want a second child and my wife did. When she said she was pregnant I
was not happy. I resented her for much of the first years of my second child's
life because I never wanted another screaming baby in my house.

My wife used to talk about wanting a big family but on the second pregnancy
she realized that was an idealization - not reality. She thought she would
enjoy staying home with our son when he was a baby. The reality was she ended
up job hunting after less than a year.

We're both happy I got a vasectomy after our second.

------
spiderfarmer
As a father of three young kids I can tell you it's a lot of work, it's not
always fun, it's not always rewarding and it's not always what you want it to
be.

But I can also tell you I never felt love like the love I feel for my
children. I never felt as proud before I saw my children do things that
astonish me. I never felt as close to my wife before I had children.

The feels man. For me it makes it all worth it. I absolutely get that it's not
for everyone, but for the people that are undecided: there are a lot of happy
parents out there and I am one of them.

------
intopieces
I would love to see a comparison between similarly aged mothers in countries
with more equal gender benefits for child rearing (Scandinavia? France?) and
those where mothers are still the de facto responsible for the day to day
labor.

Part of this might be caused by the need for a two parent income to survive.
It means that the default parent has two jobs, whatever their ambition might
be.

------
twobyfour
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.

------
juusto
I married my wife 10 years ago. When we got married she was ready to have "at
least 3 kids". Now she is not even sure she wants 1.

I know it sounds selfish and absurd but we enjoy our life so much: all of our
time we spend with each other, we travel 4-5 times a year to different
countries, on the weekend we go for hikes in some national parks close to us.
I could go on, but the theme is that we enjoy a lot our company and both me
and her we are terrified of changing this.

And if that was not the selfish part here it comes: I am actually afraid for
both me and her when we are old that no one will come to visit or we won't
have friends in this late stage in our life, we have moved to different
countries 3 times.

Those that have more or less the same lifestyle, how and what do you deal with
this? I am quite interested in learning how others cope with the selsifh
feeling that you should have someone to be with you.

~~~
jrwoodruff
Oh man, we went through a lot of this. We've moved to different states, not
countries, but that selfish aspect of 'what happens when I get old' was
definitely a topic.

I think one of the realizations that helped us was my wife's experience
working in a nursing home. She gets grief all the time for not having
children, meaning most of her patients do have children.

The thing is, most of their children rarely visit, or don't visit at all.
Having children is no guarantee that they'll be there in the end, and once
their adult, that relationship is completely different, especially in the
world of cheap travel and communication that we live in.

There was lots of things that went into our decision, not all of them within
our control, but ultimately we decided we should focus on our lifestyle,
making good friends, and saving enough to afford and quality retirement
lifestyle.

------
titzer
Appreciate your parents.

~~~
jdavis703
I don't like to say insulting things on this platform that values civility.
But this is one of the most naive comments I've read this year. Perhaps I
speak from stories, but many of the parents I know in my family aren't
involved in their children's lives, abuse their children or just plain weren't
in appropriate social and economic conditions to have children. Many, maybe
most, parents are just not worth appreciating.

~~~
titzer
I lost my dad when I was 18. I've lived now over half my life without him.
You're being downvoted because you can't differentiate wisdom from naivete.

Appreciate your parents.

~~~
Toast_25
That's really terrible. I lost my mother to mental illness a little younger
than that, she's still around but she's not my mom, she's terrifying. I'm
honestly not sure which is worse.

------
ndh2
This article is a bit of a let down. They repeat the same thing over and over
again. That there are mothers who regret having children, and how they are
criticized by some other people as soon as they voice those regrets.

What the article doesn't address is exactly why they regret having children,
and what could be done to alleviate their problems. Or how mothers who regret
having children differ from those who don't. Is it a personality trait, or
does it have to do with the environment? Probably mostly the latter, but in
what way exactly?

The topic is interesting, the article not so much.

~~~
paulcole
> what could be done to alleviate their problems

Nothing. You can't put the bun back in the oven.

The best you can do is talk openly about how for some people having a kid is a
terrible, irreversible, regrettable decision.

~~~
taeric
That seems defeatist. Healthier/stronger support networks would almost
certainly benefit everyone.

------
gumby
I was a single parent for six years and regret not a minute of it. But my own
mother’s advice to me many years ago was, “Don’t have kids. They mess up your
life and I regret it.” Although I wouldn’t have existed otherwise I am sorry
for her that society 50 years ago dictated that she had to have kids.

I loved this quote in the article:

> One commenter called Dutton “an utterly miserable, cold-hearted and selfish
> woman.”

It’s the commenter who was selfish, presuming some obligation on the part of
Ms Dutton.

~~~
upvotinglurker
> my own mother’s advice to me many years ago was, “Don’t have kids. They mess
> up your life and I regret it.”

Hopefully your mother waited until you were an adult to give you this advice!

~~~
gumby
I was about 18. My dad was annoyed and got her to “apologize” which I think
was unfair: she lives her kids and wants the best for them, hence gave
important advice.

I had no choice in the matter of being born so I don’t feel bad about getting
this advice.

------
nunez
Damn. I’m 30; my fiancee is 32. We are going through this HARD right now.

I’ve asked tons of folks why they’ve decided to have kids and what their
experience with them has been like. Nearly everyone has said that it was
extremely hard upfront EXCEPT for a friend of my fiancee’s who had family
nearby to take care of her child while her and her husband worked. But my gut
feeling is that those that legitimately regret having kids won’t say it in
fear of feeling like they are a monster.

My Mom is guilting me pretty hard into having kids. My fiancee’s sisters are
both pregnant as are many of her friends. It also doesn’t help that most of
the people in our age in our neighborhoods also have kids.

Our lifestyle is mostly: lots of going out, lots of fun, lots of “us” time
mixed with time for ourselves when i travel for work. Whenever the “do you
want kids” question comes up, the answer is never an immediate, resounding YES
on both sides, which means that it’s a no. The thought of never being able to
do what I’m doing now seems like it would destroy me. But “everyone” says that
their feelings towards their kids replaces that, so maybe it won’t be so bad?

But not having them is feeling harder and harder by the day, not because I
want them more and more but because I feel like I need to have them for some
reason and she’s running up against her “soft limit” (35).

------
woliveirajr
In general, I think that readers/posters/commenters here at HNews are above (?
not sure if it's the right word) the average population in terms of reading,
thinking, planning ahead (and are even able to discuss planning strategies
like "should I go waterfall or RUP or Agile or XP or...").

And it's easy to notice that this subject arises many points-of-view without
any effort.

Extrapolate that to the whole population, where some pregnancies happen
without planning, without even noticing, without previous discussion between
the couple, or even without too much thinking ahead for single-alone parents.

Yes, given that each child is different, it's no surprise that hardly anyone
is prepared to be a parent, and that parenthood can last even after you have
grandchildren, becaus yes, even when your child marries and get their own
children, you'll might end up helping here and there.

I really appreciate that people outspeak about how hard is to be a parent,
because the easier way is to do like those who are inside the cold pool.

------
superflit
I am late for the discussion, but maybe I could shine something on this whole
discussion.

Having a kid is the most hard/stressing/demanding thing if you are doing the
best and the right thing.

Kids don't choose when or what disease they get. Have you a meeting in the
morning? That's sucks you are on ER at 5:00 am since 2:00 full of vomit.

Want to move to Nepal and be a monk for one year? Your kid will not wait.

A lot of people outsource or do different decisions, but EACH decision has a
price. You pay now or in the future with interest.

Yesterday was my kid first day after vacations. He was throwing a fit. But
yesterday was different was not a common fit. So I asked what the problem was?
Are the schools? Teachers? Friends? No. he said:

I want to be with you daddy.

That got me, real hard. I started to cry, and he hugged me. I want to be with
him all the time. But that is not life about. He is growing. Soon will be a
teen and later married and have kids. And I will be left missing him. But
still, this is marvelous.

Having kids hurts and it is not for everyone. But I will do everything again
1000x times.

------
baldfat
When people tell me they are having their first kid I send them this song.

"You Ruined Everything" by Jonathan Coulton

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrZ01A6Q_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrZ01A6Q_M)

My favorite title in life is being a dad. I loved changing the dirty diapers
for my wife. I love joking with them about how they puked on head when I was
carrying piggy back down the stairs. I loved seeing them succeed. I have 2
"bios" and 3 "adopts" and I loved all of them deeply.

Sure there are hard crappy things. I hated how my first was super colicky and
cried 8 hours a day. I hated when they were feeling down or hurt. I hated when
my middle son was diagnosed and then 4 years later died of cancer, but I
wouldn't want to trade any of the bad things because I would have missed the
highs and the norms.

~~~
coryfklein
I applaud you for sharing and I'm so glad there are dads out there like you
that just plain love being a Dad.

However, I would highly recommend you never use this narrative in response to
anybody who opens up enough to say they regret being a dad (or a mom).

~~~
baldfat
So if you kids are good I am fine that your regret it, but if you publish it
so your kids can see it I am pissed.

I work with kids. I see neglected kids everyday. I see abused kids everyday. I
don't have much sympathy when kids are neglected or not nurtured. If a kid
feels unwanted the mental trip is bad.

------
romanovcode
Ugh, wouldn't want to hear that from my mother.

------
orionblastar
Raising a child is hard work, when they are a tween or teen it is even harder.
My wife and I found a better system called Love and Logic that made it a bit
easier. It would have been nice if we learned it earlier.

Our son is in college now and helps us out, while I help him with homework and
edit his essays so he gets better grades.

Since 2003 I've been on disability and been mostly a stay at home dad while my
wife works. I taught my son how to fix computers and build them. He fixed his
friends computers and then learned how to fix cars, ECT.

I would go through it again if I had to.

Not everyone is cut out to be parents and children can vary, as you never know
what you are going to get.

~~~
dgabriel
Wait -- you edit your college-aged child's essays??

~~~
orionblastar
I proof read them to check for mistakes.

------
ciconia
Having kids (a boy and a girl, 9- and 8-years old respectively, both adopted)
changed my life in a profound way. I made me much more materialistic (as in
providing for my family), more interested in day-to-day life than the myriad
artistic and intellectual pursuits of my younger self.

Today I cannot imagine my life without my kids, but I also know that once they
start their own adult lives and their own journeys, my life will stop
revolving around them, and we will get back the freedom that we sometimes miss
so dearly today. As much as I enjoy my kids, a part of me can't wait for this
chapter to be over.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
As our kids have grown up we have found our parents becoming more dependent on
us, we are getting squeezed from both sides.

------
Robotbeat
One possible resolution of The Fermi Paradox and The Great Filter are: We
figure out reliable and cheap contraception and raising kids is too difficult
and/or expensive, so everyone basically stops doing it.

...in the meantime, you'd get collapse of social systems as the weight of a
society composed nearly entirely of the elderly brings growth to a halt as the
few young try to take care of the huge number of elderly people.

Luckily, in the West, we still have immigration so we don't have much to worry
about. But when the poorest countries start becoming wealthy and get access to
cheap/reliable contraception, there will be no one left to immigrate into
their countries.

We might get lucky and have the machines take care of us as we age. But thus
ends the human race.

EDIT: My solution is for society to stop treating child-rearing as a second-
rate job and for us to fully support both fathers and mothers as equal
caretakers, giving both full support in the form of leave and childcare, etc.
And universal healthcare, too.

Without massive immigration, childbirth is way too low in the West (and now,
increasingly, in the Far East) to maintain a stable population. I'm a huge fan
of immigration, but not every country in the world can rely on that at the
same time.

------
yequalsx
I don't have kids but it seems to me that the way the U.S. is structured for
middle and upper middle class families exacerbates the issue. Suburbs are not
walkable communities. Kids don't seem to play in the streets in their
neighborhood like I used to do when growing up. It's taboo to let a 10 year
take the bus by himself or to be alone. Activities are much more structured
and that means a lot less flexibility.

------
Gatsky
In my job, I meet a lot of elderly people many of whom have significant
medical illnesses. I wish it could be otherwise, but almost all the people
that have 'aged well' have children.

Many of the arguments against having kids are from the perspective of a 20 -
40 year old. More than half our lives are going to be spent being older than
this, and it is easy to optimize for things that will simply be irrelevant
after a while.

~~~
jxramos
I thought I heard something in this direction once, that a woman adds years to
her life in a linearly scaling fashion with the number of children she bears,
which plateaus beyond some count like 5 or 6 I think it was. I think this news
came around the time they discovered maternal-fetal “chimera” cells which
apparently go in and fix stuff in mama IIRC. Sometimes I wonder about all
these medical records we gather and how they'd contribute to measuring stuff
like you point out. With all the data enumerated in the future it should be a
relatively straightforward analysis right?

~~~
Gatsky
There are definitely tangible health benefits. Giving birth and breastfeeding
reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The protective effect for breast
cancer goes away if the woman becomes pregnant when she is older however.
Pregnancy also reduces the risk of multiple sclerosis. For most of human
history however, the dangers far outweighed any benefits, with maternal
mortality being a major cause of death.

There are probably many other fascinating things going on as you highlight.

I should add that there could be selection bias going on - perhaps those that
have children have existing social, economic, psychological and health
attributes that also predict successful ageing.

~~~
jxramos
Great comment, this provoked some day dreaming about mammalian physiology
around the design of live birthing trading against maternal mortality where
live birthing clearly wins in the risk/benefit evolution of such species. I'm
very curious how maternal mortality distributes across other mammals, is it a
pretty constant thing? I'm also curious about the aggregate extension of life
women have experienced from birthing vs those tragically lost during child
birth, say the sum of the ages of all such lost women, how those two figures
would stack up.

Looking at this hit
[http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/)
gives a figure 385 per 100,000.

"Maternal mortality refers to deaths due to complications from pregnancy or
childbirth. From 1990 to 2015, the global maternal mortality ratio declined by
44 per cent – from 385 deaths to 216 deaths per 100,000 live births, according
to UN inter-agency estimates.

Doing some back of the envelope calculations

    
    
      100,000   sample size
    
          385   maternal deaths in sample (picked the higher figure)
    
           30   average maternal age at death (my own guess, leaning high)
    
       11,550   years lost (385*30)
    
            1   age increase per birth (my own guess, leaning low)
    
       99,615   added years from successful births
    
       88,065   net added years of life to mothers in sample.
    

Even if I choose a more pessimistic mortality rate of 1000 per 100,000 it's
still a net positive with my figures; I roughly estimated that the break even
point is 3226 deaths per 100,000 according to the above calculus. This
analysis only works because the mortality rate is a thankfully such a small
fraction, but tragically not 0. I wonder if there was ever a period in human
history where the mortality was ever above 3%?

------
lasermike026
American child rearing is unbalanced.

Read this: Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of
French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

~~~
dkhenry
I like the concept of that book and it does a good job of explaining a very
different culture in an approachable way, but its important to point out there
is nothing "french" about good child rearing, and nothing "American" about bad
parenting. There are plenty of American parents who can make the bold claim
that book makes, but there are plenty more who refuse to listen to advice and
have very low expectation so of being a parent. There is nothing magical about
having your kids sleep through the night, or play quietly, or be able to
behave in a public place, or eat the food you give them. You just need to put
in the work.

------
bearmobius
> Thomas Gilovich—a Cornell University psychologist famed for research that
> indicates people are far more likely to regret things they haven’t done than
> things they have—examined people with high IQs: not one regretted having
> children; several reported regretting not having a family. That assumption
> has been challenged, however, by the “childless by choice” movement and
> research debunking the myth that babies have a bonding effect on marriage or
> that children bring happiness: a 2010 American Sociological Association
> study found that parents were more likely to be depressed than their child-
> free counterparts, and that people without kids were happier than any other
> group.

Not one high-IQ person studied reported regretting having children, and yet
the objection made here is that another study showed "that people without kids
were happier than any other group"? There seems to be some conflation of ideas
here. Lack of regret and happiness are by no means the same thing. You can
have no regrets about doing something while simultaneously admitting you would
probably have been personally "happier" having not done it. I would say most
sacrifices are like this. For example, you wouldn't fight for a cause you
believe in (say, protesting against a corrupt regime) and put yourself in
great personal danger in order to maximize your happiness - that would be a
terrible strategy. You're much more likely to have a happier life by keeping
your head down, staying quiet and not rocking the boat. You would only fight
for a cause because you believe it's greater than yourself, and more important
than your personal happiness. The belief the pervades this article - both
implicitly and explicitly - is that your happiness is the highest value in
life. If you believe this - and I don't - perhaps not having children is the
most logical choice. It does seem to be the case from the data that childless
people are happier. What can be made of this? Maybe this: having children is
not about making you happy.

~~~
threatofrain
Indeed, children go far beyond happiness. Your happiness dies with your
mortality. What is sacrifice? It is the expenditure of self, as a resource, to
achieve...? Whatever purpose.

------
dctoedt
It's not just that one partner wants kids while the other doesn't. Don't
forget the influence of would-be grandparents who ask, "so when are you going
to give me grandchildren?" Of course grandkids are fun to play with and
occasionally take care of but (usually) aren't a full-time responsibility.

------
natecavanaugh
The saddest part of all of this to me it's just how many marriages and lives
have been destroyed or severely hurt by the inability to have children, while
others can so easily produce them, and either take it for granted or regret
it.

I don't think there's anything to solve here, per se, but there does seem to
be a massive disconnect between our biology and psychology in many of these
cases, but the people most deprived are the kids in these situations.

Maybe the thing to solve is the readjustment of our expectations of genetic
continuity, rather than cultural, moral and personal continuity, so that
adoption and fostering are seen as a valid alternative. I know a lot of
parents do see this as an option, but sadly, it does seem to be treated as a
consolation prize rather than being a decision that benefits society and the
parties involved.

------
jbob2000
Society has lost its way if arguably one of our most fundamental, carnal
functions is too burdensome to carry out. Whether the burden is monetary (day
care, cost of goods) or social (sports, parties), there's got to be a
reckoning coming. There's no way we can sustain this way of life.

~~~
AlexandrB
On the contrary, this is probably good news as we are nearing the carrying
capacity of our planet. I don't think birth rates will ever decline to the
extent that the global population collapses but a declining birth rate is
really something to celebrate.

~~~
mrdodge
It's only declining in the places where people give a shit about the Planet in
these terms.

~~~
lumberjack
They "give a shit" but at the same time pollute a thousand times more (per
capita). So one less American and one more Indian is a net positive for our
green earth.

~~~
thriftwy
I'm not sure about that. USA has a lot of nature preserves and strict
environment laws. 3rd world countries may experience runaway population growth
where no land left undisturbed and nothing is preserved.

If we take CO2 it's another thing, but low emissions won't save you once all
the biosphere is literally eaten.

~~~
dominotw
That has nothing to do with cost to earth. We just export our pollution to
seas and china.

If all countries start living like americans we'd need 5 times the surfaces
area of earth.

~~~
thriftwy
Preserving biosphere is precious. "Cost to earth" is meaningless by itself -
the planet isn't going anywhere. The only fragile thing here is biosphere.

I can see that you don't actually value Earth, just pity that it's so small
you have to ration it.

------
wiradikusuma
I think countries with cheap labor are lucky. We're in Malaysia, and while
maid here is more expensive than in Indonesia, we still can afford a fulltime
maid (from Indonesia). We're middle income family, both working.

Of course, there are some horror stories about maid mistreating/abusing the
baby, but that's minority.

I work from home, working on my startup, still zero revenue for almost 2 years
(giving me stress, _my_ savings almost gone). But it's like blessing in
disguise, as I can monitor the maid and give more attention to the kids.

Having baby is very stressful and time consuming (even with maid), I even told
all my newly-wed friends, "If you can, don't have kids yet." But I told them
it's the best thing I've ever had.

------
pmarreck
Odd that this post was directly above this one in my feed: "The desire to have
a child never goes away":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646)

------
sndean
> Declining fertility rates and older, more educated first-time mothers have
> also contributed to heightened expectations. The fertility rate in Canada
> has dropped from 2.1—the replacement level needed for the population to
> renew itself without immigration—in 1971 to 1.6 in 2016.”

It's interesting to contrast this concern (is concern the right word?) in
Canada with articles about the same thing in parts of Africa [0]. The only
difference being what side of the replacement level the population is on.

[0] [http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-
child...](http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-
closer-look-data)

------
hemling
To anyone who has become a parent recently and wondering what you have done to
your life: I feel your pain.

After my daughter was born I had dark moments. Boy, was I naive about having
kids. It was by far the most exhausting task I ever had to do. Especially the
first year was tough. Relationship with mother, work, self-confidence,
everything went down.

But let me tell you this: it gets better!

My daughter is turning three and she has grown into something splendid.

I didn't expect this, but I can honestly say that she is giving me as much as
I give her. She has her own personality and it is a lot of fun to get to know
her better every day.

I still miss my old life, a lot, but now I get to have fun with this creature
and can learn from her every day something.

------
epx
There is a huge interest from the government that people pursue the white-
picked-fence ideal: three kids, big house, etc. This moves the economy, at
expense of happiness.

But, still, there is a choice - nobody needs to have children if they didn't
really want.

------
pithic
It might be worth exploring the reason why the "taboo" on this subject has
recently been breached. Could it be that how we define life and our
expectations of it have shifted? In a world where the goal in life is personal
enjoyment, of which ease is a precondition, childbearing is more commonly
regrettable.

Perhaps there never was a taboo, just a different conception of what a human
life should aim for.

------
bla2
This is clearly a ruse by Big Childbirth who want to talk other people out of
having children so that their offspring has less competition.

------
Seanny123
This article seemed more like the documentation of a cultural phenomenon
(mothers able to publicly admit regret) than a sociological study. But I still
want to know _why_ mothers regret having children. The comments seemed to be
filled with uncharitable explanations, but are there any publications (other
than the isreali one) that summarises the reasons for regret?

------
subjectsigma
Seems to me like a wider trend of people, for some reason, starting to believe
that life should be easy when in the past people believed that life explicitly
shouldn't be easy. Guess which group was happier.

------
leot
Regret is unhelpful and indicates a lack of acceptance of the past and
present. As such, it is personally irresponsible and shouldn't be celebrated.

Stepping back, norm breaking seems to have gotten even more newsworthy lately.
However, publicizing a broken norm is not always an obvious good. Propagation
of the news of a norm being broken encourages more breaking of this norm. And
often we have little understanding of the work this norm is doing.

Is it damaging for a child to entertain the idea that their parents might
regret their existence? Probably. Is it damaging for all involved to have a
big conversation about motherhood regret and its being ok? Also, probably. Not
every thought deserves to be aired.

~~~
monktastic1
How about remorse? Perhaps even that is not the appropriate word here, but do
you believe there are _any_ circumstances in life where grief is a natural and
even healthy response? If so, why not this circumstance?

I would suggest that if you encounter a situation in life where there's
genuine remorse for a choice you've made, there aren't only two options of
"celebrate your regret" or "suck it up." There's such a thing as honoring pain
without dwelling on it, and if done properly, it actually enables your growth
in a way that's healthy for both you and the world. And if so, perhaps it's
okay for the world to learn from your growth.

~~~
leot
The trouble is that "regret" is doing too much work. It's at once a statement
of fact and an activity.

As a statement of fact it's ok. As an activity it's usually a waste of time.

~~~
monktastic1
Well I, for one, feel that I'm benefiting from hearing from people who regret
having children. So in the right context, I think it's indeed helpful.

------
hosh
Huh, interesting contrast to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16133646)

------
josephjrobison
Any parents here see a benefit in raising children on their productivity in a
weird way?

Some very talented tech people I follow had kids early and it worked out well
for them!

~~~
lhorie
Yep, the lack of free time helps me procrastinate less.

------
kazinator
I regret that ... I don't have access to all the parallel universes so I know
which way things turned out for every important decision I ever made!

------
geebee
One factor here is that people spend much more time with their kids than they
used to. There was an article recently, I think on the NYTimes, and my comment
would be much better if I could find the link with the data, but here goes. I
am reconstructing this from memory, and unfortunately, I have to admit, I may
not remember this accurately...

I read that the amount of time married men spend, on average, with their
children in 2017 exceeds the time that married women spent with their children
in 1960 (hand waiving, I really wish I could find that link). So, now that men
have stepped up, women are able to spend more time on leisure and work, right?
Nope! Women almost doubled their time with children in that time period. I
think it was 54 minutes per day for a woman in 1960, and something much lower
for men. Now, 56 minutes per day for married men, and 106 per day for married
women[1].

The tragic thing here is, I don't think it's even all that good for the kids,
past a point. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, in SF west of twin peaks, and
yeah, even here in SF, we would leave the house, find our pack of neighborhood
kids, and not come back until someone yelled "dinner", at which point the kids
would all start to go home. My parents and grandparents had similar
experiences.

That is gone. At least in SF. There is a little bit out outdoor play, but it's
a whisker of what it used to be. A tiny fraction.

And like I said, the sad thing is, I don't think all this supervision is good
for kids, not to this extent. I see parents, more often women but plenty often
men, standing outside a skate park, bored, browsing their phones, then getting
the kids into the car and driving them off to their next scheduled thing.
Hell, a supervised skate park visit is the most unstructured thing they'll do
that day, more often it's a dance class, then a cello class, then baseball
practice, them swimming lessons.

Oh, this is even more ironic - if the data is correct, women spent less time
on child care back in 1960 when they spent less time at work! So the increase
in child care is coming out of a diminished amount of leisure time, not more.

Yeah, of course this makes people unhappy. And like I said, the real tragedy
is, I seriously doubt it makes the kids any happier. It's not that they don't
want time with their parents, they do, they often love that time. But they
don't need constant supervision - if they knew better (many kids today don't
even know what that play outside freedom feels like), they'd realize they're
happier without constant supervision as well.

Not sure why this all happened. I don't quite buy the theory that we all
became irrationally afraid. I think something else happened here, something
that brought about the collapse of a critical mass of kids. I'd let my kids
play outside, but there's no pack there anyway (of course, in SF, the
population of kids under 18 has collapsed in my lifetime, maybe there are
greener pastures - but I've read this has happened all over the place, not
just in cites that have experienced a huge drop in the population of children
- also, my neighborhood is one of the few in SF that still does have a lot of
kids, they just don't play outside anymore)

[1] This will be the last time I say this - sorry, I don't have the link, this
is as best I can remember.

~~~
michaelvmata
Is this the link?
[https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily-...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily-
chart-20)

~~~
geebee
Yes thank you, it was the economist not the nytimes.

------
covermydonkey
Having a child introduces a stubborn force that presses hard against our own
selfishness.

------
bhouston
Kids are awesome. So much fun.

------
shiven
Well, what now? What are these mothers going to _do_ about it?

------
JustSomeNobody
> She never wanted children (“I was very independent,” she says)—her husband
> did.

Premarital counseling would have caught that.

> “It would have been a deal-breaker.”

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!!! Now you made a new person that you don't want! Shame on
you and your husband!

Kids, money goals, debt, work goals, travel goals, where to live; these are
all HUGE things that need to be discussed, while in the presence of a trained
counselor, before saying "I do."

~~~
reverend_gonzo
Absolutely agree, though I don't think its necessary to have done so in front
of a counselor.

Before we got married, there were a number of things that we discussed and had
to make sure we were on the same page. Of those, the most important were
children and religion.

I personally made it a point to get an understanding before we were even
serious.

Now that we're married, the question isn't "Will we have children?", it's
"When..." and that's much easier to figure out if both people are playing the
same endgame.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I say in front of a counselor because most people just are not honest with
themselves. A trained counselor will help them come to terms with things.

Oh, and thanks for pointing out religion, I forgot that on my (knowingly
incomplete) list.

Edit: I say most, but I probably should have said some.

------
funkythings
What's up with all this "Having children is bad, you will regret it. get a
dog" mentality lately?

~~~
grasshopperpurp
Have you heard the expression, It takes a village to raise a child? We don't
have villages, so many people have to be a village for their child, and it's
very hard and requires a lot of sacrifice. It's good to question whether it's
worth it.

~~~
Torgo
I sympathize with the people, but why is our society like this? A society that
punishes having children is almost by definition dysfunctional.

~~~
sidlls
It's like this because people are inclined to instant gratification. In
America this effect with respect to raising children augments the inclination
toward selfishness (disguised as individualism).

~~~
ajmurmann
Looking at birthrates in other countries I'm not inclined to believe this
phenomenon is limited to the US. In fact it seems weaker than in many other
developed countries. I'm also not sure if I would call it selfish to decide
against reproducing yourself. The other extreme of having children just
because you want them for yourself and then not being able to give them proper
opportunities is much more selfish to me. I think we should try to avoid moral
judgements of people we don't know especially on something this intimate.

~~~
sidlls
I'd be more inclined to agree with you if the language of people who eschew
children weren't so often focused on their selves ("independence", "freedom",
etc.) or simultaneously accusational ("how could you bring a child into this
world!"). "Selfish" isn't a moral judgement in this case: it's an accurate
description.

~~~
vigilantpuma
I think having children is pretty selfish also. You bring a child into this
world... for what? To see yourself continued in the next generation? To make
some future friends for yourself? To have that experience? How are these not
selfish things? Both choices are selfish in different ways. The fact that one
requires some personal sacrifice doesn't make it _selfless_.

------
brndnmtthws
Good for them. I really dislike a lot of the cultural dogmas that exist (at
least in the first world) about stuff like this. We have too many people on
this planet already, and no you don't need to breed unless you and your
partner are some sort genetic miracle. I think nurture is more important than
nature, and if you really want to parent you're better off giving an
underprivileged child an opportunity through adoption than breeding.

~~~
dionidium
It's _remarkable_ that anyone could with a straight face say that the drive
and desire for children is a " _cultural dogma_ ". In the nature vs. nurture
debate, not everything is a tie.

~~~
underbluewaters
There are a lot of folks making this same argument. I studied evolutionary
biology in University and can say confidently that you are on a lot shakier
ground than you think.

There is not necessarily an innate drive to make a traditional family. Sex,
sure. Most people have a sex drive but what happens afterword need not be
familial bliss, or even sticking around to raise the child at all. In fact
there a lot of very successful strategies in nature to offload that work to
the other parent or even fool unrelated adoptive parents.

~~~
burfog
Evolution can go quickly if the selection pressure is high. (example: done in
under 24 hours if we shot everybody without blue eyes)

Our environment has been drastically changed by birth control.

Previously, a desire for sex was essentially equal to a desire for
reproduction. Selection for one would select for the other, so they didn't
need to be distinguished.

So essentially we are now unfit for our environment. We will rapidly evolve to
fit this new environment. People of the future will desire actual
reproduction, not just sex.

