'I love my son. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me in many ways. But if I could do it all over again, I really think I would have given him up for adoption...'
"People Will Call Me A Monster. I Don't Care": People Are Getting Brutally Honest About Whether Or Not They Regret Their Decision To Have Children
"Choosing not to have kids has been the single best decision of my life. To be fair, it wasn't a 'choice.' I've never wanted kids. I never played with dolls as a child; I only babysat under extreme duress , and from my earliest memories, I thought being a parent was the worst deal around. I only saw negatives, no upsides, to being a parent..."
People have told me since day one: 'You'll change your mind' or 'You'll regret it,' but I am 44, nearly 45, and every day, I am grateful that I never wanted children." We didn't impose any pressure on ourselves to have children; we just lived each day discovering who we were, developing our talents without many restrictions, and being happy. In my mid-40s, he became sick with what we would later find out to be a terminal illness, and he died when I was in my mid-50s. Without children, I had the financial and time resources to take care of him, get him into clinical trials, and give him the best care for the rest of his life.
"... I've never wanted to have kids and never understood the allure of having kids. I would never be happy to devote all of my time, energy, and finances to raising children. Life did get a little eye-rolly in the early 30s when many of my friends became mothers and were incapable of talking about anything beyond child development, nap schedules, diapers, etc., even during those times when they said they needed a break from being a mom.
Now, not a day has gone by since I didn't thank my mum in my head. She gave me the best advice I could've hoped for because my son is now my only family and the light of my life. Incidentally, a few months after our split, my ex-husband texted,' I just want to thank you for persuading me to have a child. I love our little guy so much.'"
I used to have a terrible temper, and when I would dissociate, I had large blank spots that I had no idea what happened. I get around other people's kids, and they love me, love to play with me, and I with them. They still say, 'You should have been a dad.' Now, at 61, for the first time in my life, I think about what will happen when I die. It makes me sad to think that not too long afterward, I'll probably just be a vague memory for a few people.
"...Three, because of my parents' divorce and custody battle, I was raised by my father from the age of seven and didn't see much of my mother. When he remarried, my stepmother was not very nice to me. Because I had never experienced what it was like to be raised by a loving, caring mother, I realized that knowing how to be the mother every child deserves would be hard. Of course, there is a downside to being child-free.
"At forty-four, I honestly regret not having any children. The young version of myself was never in any hurry to get married or become a mother, as according to plan or conforming to what society says were the next stages in my adult life. I have always had health complications, which kept me from having children at a young age, to begin with..."
So, the odds seem to be about one in two in my family. The child of my dreams doesn't exist, and the real children can be difficult. You don't know what you're getting when you reproduce. You just have to love the kid you get, which can be hard. I know that my spouse and I are not ideal. We have flaws that we would certainly pass on to our offspring.
"...My feelings never wavered, not for a minute. In December 2017, right after my fifty-second birthday, I met the woman who became my wife six months later. Even though she was still of childbearing age , she felt the same way about my children. Shortly after we got married, I underwent a vasectomy. We are neither embittered nor lonely. And no, our lives are not empty. Children are an enormous responsibility. Having them changes your life utterly.
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