Episode 766: The Parents Who Regret Having Children
Added 2024-05-16 00:01:36 +0000 UTCR.O. Kwon on the Parents Who Regret Having Children | TIME
Why some parents regret having children. - kids
The Two Reasons Parents Regret Having Kids
Comments
I love my kids. I love them more and more the older they get. They are turning into wonderful humans and I’m crazy proud of them. But being a parent was not the beautiful fulfilling all-delightful life that I was sold and had enforced on me by the church and my mom. “A woman’s highest calling is motherhood?” GTFOH with that nonsense. It wasn’t that way for me. If you disappeared my kids today? It would destroy me on every level. But if I could go back in time and flip that switch? I can’t honestly tell you I wouldn’t do it. And I feel SO FUCKING GUULTY about that.
Laura Lusby
2024-05-18 16:53:14 +0000 UTCI’m really glad you guys are covering this issue - the family I grew up in - I have Autism and the family thing didn’t go how they’d hoped - I wish they had gotten divorced and gone on to happy lives (after my mom died my Dad re-married and was actually happy for the last 9 years of life) I’m also asexual and trans - I have literally never in my life wanted a baby … I got a tiny kitten from the humane society when he was 4 hours old and I was SOOOO happy when his first 6 weeks was over - that goes on for what 2 years with babies? Finally, when I got spayed my Dad said ‘I guess I’m not getting grandkids’ I was like ‘what have I ever done in my whole life that made you think I was going to have kids?’ And I’m glad I didn’t - I would have taken it to one of those Safe Spaces after 6 months and been like ‘yeah - no - this isn’t working out …’
Winter wiorkowski
2024-05-18 08:21:26 +0000 UTCI don't think that more people regret having children, I think that we're talking about it more. It's still really hard to talk about, but we can say it, where as my parent's generation would just take all the "benzos" or drink to avoid it
Emma Crawford
2024-05-18 02:01:28 +0000 UTCYou are neither wrong, nor selfish, nor lesser, nor unfulfilled for choosing to not have a child.
Asymetra
2024-05-17 21:41:25 +0000 UTCChef, chauffeur, Sherpa, venture capitalist, planner, and more. Just because someone else has it as tough or tougher doesn't make tough or bad situations go away. Otherwise, only one person in the entire world has problems and nobody else.
Asymetra
2024-05-17 21:38:06 +0000 UTCWhen people say, "You don't know what you're missing." I say, "That's right. I'm not missing what I don't have." I have a child and I would never tell anyone else they have to have one.
Asymetra
2024-05-17 21:33:40 +0000 UTCIt really is super different to have to do it for your kids, I will give parents that. It's just a lot more time and effort and scheduling. It was not even a thing I thought much about before kids, let alone something I had to plan my entire calendar around.
Haeley Curry
2024-05-17 04:35:19 +0000 UTCI did know one woman that got divorced from a man that didn't want kids when she was too old to have kids. She is the only person that ever told me that that was her biggest regret.
Haeley Curry
2024-05-17 04:32:31 +0000 UTCYes! I would have made a FANTASTIC 80s mom!
Haeley Curry
2024-05-17 04:19:54 +0000 UTCMy 28 year old son neurodivergent (we say autistic to make our lives easier) and so thanks for mentioning those of us who are forever parents. Thankfully the only care he needs is having a buffer between him and other humans so it’s more like having a roommate who doesn’t talk to you and doesn’t pay any of the rent. There are things I will never have to worry about that other parents will mostly that have to do with this shitty state of the world. But one of the interesting pressures to breed that also exists is getting your own children to breed. “When are you going to be a grandma?” If I hear that from a coworker one more time….They usually get upset when I say I am glad I will never be a grandparent because now I do not have to worry about them drowning when sea level raises and wipes out the city or suffering a horrible death when they can’t get reproductive care.
Ariadne Jewell
2024-05-16 22:28:17 +0000 UTCThe fight with my "biological imperative" is the worst. I do not want kids but I am still fighting the ingrained sociological standards that say I'm "wrong" Stories and discussions like this are so important l.
CarrieBoo
2024-05-16 16:30:58 +0000 UTCSounds intriguing
CarrieBoo
2024-05-16 16:28:29 +0000 UTCThe "I'm a chef! I'm a chauffeur!" talk drives me crazy. Like everyone else doesn't have to feed themselves and drive places. 🙄
Evelyn
2024-05-16 15:05:15 +0000 UTCYou're so right that it's only ever parents who tell you you'll regret being childfree. Sunk cost fallacy talking.
Evelyn
2024-05-16 14:58:12 +0000 UTC"We thought it would make us happy/bring us joy/fix our relationship". Fuck all the way off. Don't bring a kid into the world with a fucking job!! There's plenty of time for unreasonable dickheads to make crazy demands on them that they never signed up for. Don't have kids in order to breed a labor force to do random shit for you. this isn't the fucking agricultural revolution!!
Bald Weasels Scrotal Manscaping
2024-05-16 04:11:10 +0000 UTCYes that's what taxes are for and I'm happy to contribute. E.g. public education should be mandatory, high-quality, and have a standardized shared national curriculum. Don't make people live next to your shitty uneducated, unvaccinated kids. (I mean the rhetorical "you", not you)
Bald Weasels Scrotal Manscaping
2024-05-16 04:04:29 +0000 UTCProvocative thought- people who don't raise kids, still live in a world where they expect younger folks to exist to pave roads, run stores, put out fires, etc. Should people who don't have kids pay to raise the next generation that they are counting on, even if they don't have kids themselves. This is a huge free-rider problem. You never had to lose sleep comforting kids, but you assume younger folks will exist in society to meet your needs. Everyone should pay for the costs of raising the next generation, not just parents.
We can feed everybody
2024-05-16 01:35:19 +0000 UTCAnyone watch 3% on Netflix, about a fictional society without kids?
We can feed everybody
2024-05-16 01:29:28 +0000 UTCBullshit anyone has kids and it's only a joyful thing. I always wanted kids, had kids (at the best career point for both parents) and it still involved struggle, anguish, pain, anxiety. A lot of great feelings, too, but parenting is never just good vibes. Thought- most parents lived years as people who chose not to have kids (before they had them). Parents understand the choice to not have kids. Gotta say- list all the pains of having kids and it's incredible that anyone chooses it. It would be a human rights violation to force someone to do it.
We can feed everybody
2024-05-16 01:26:35 +0000 UTC
