Relationships Does anyone regret having kids?

Protectandserve said:
Love my kid. Absolutely hate his mother.

Dealing with family court and department of child services for child support and the like absolutely makes you regret having kids though.
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Isn't it more that you regret the failure of your relationship with the mother that led to your interactions with child services? Those issues seem downstream of maybe choice in partner and maybe personal development reasons for the choice?

I guess it all goes back to genes anyway.
 
TSO said:
I regret having a kid at 15, but I don't regret having my son at all. I just wish I had been an adult.
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There’s advantages to having kids early. I had mine late (35) and they’re now HS Juniors.

My friends kids are in their mid 20’s
 
Phlog said:
Isn't it more that you regret the failure of your relationship with the mother that led to your interactions with child services? Those issues seem downstream of maybe choice in partner and maybe personal development reasons for the choice?

I guess it all goes back to genes anyway.
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I regret being a fucking moron and getting involved with her in the first place.
 
I wish everyone here the best. Life's tough whatever path you choose. None of us here can really offer up anything other than our feelings about this stuff.

The people saying they don't like kids so no thanks are missing the point. I don't like kids either, but my kids are fucking great. Partly because they're part of me and partly because of they start to annoy me I let them know and help them not.

Darth_Inv1ctu5 said:
See, I disagree with the "should" imperative here. Why "should" anyone do something for the sake of the prosperous continuation of a specie? The notion that anything is owed to this nebulous idea of mankind is foreign to me. I'm concerned about the environment but not so much for the sake of humans - more for the sake of animals who have no conscious agency in preserving it, and are, by that token, innocent, so I can get behind saving it for them, but for humans? I don't feel the obligation to produce better humans, even if the hope of outnumbering idiots in the future was not already infinitesimally slim. Also, in raising kids you increase risks to your health, starting with added stress that no good parent can escape. I've no way of telling whether the accumulated stress of rearing a child - protecting it until it's old enough to fend for itself and then worrying for the rest of my life about them either way - will reduce my lifespan. Why should i allow that, that makes no sense? I'm sure my parents, too, wanted to believe that their sacrifices would result in a better life for their progeny - me - so where's the sense in me taking on the same stressors - or worse, given the world we live in today - and just doing the same thing they did, paying it forward ad infinitum? The outcome of that is the extension of a lineage and the specie, but to what end?

If I have a kid, it won't be out of some misguided sense of duty to mankind, or so that I can have company and care in my old age (which is the #1 worst reason I have heard so far - no child should be saddled with that sort of responsibility), it will be more "just because", with zero reflection on "mankind", zero expectations of them and for them, zero illusions or denial about what I'm undergoing (i.e., none of the "this is fine, I am fine" self-soothing bullshit), and with zero unsolicited & bullshit "wisdom" for would-be parents.
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What do you owe? Nothing, everything, it depends on your pov. Personally I wanted to experience what life is actually about, I loved being a child and I wanted to make the world better, making a good family with my wife seemed the way for me to do that. I couldn't miss out on what's to offer.

It just so happend to do all that and improve the lives of their grandparents. My kids report that they love their lives so alls good. Wife didn't want kids into her 30s and I was resigned to it. Realised just in time and I know for a fact it was the best choice she ever made.

None of this is to try to convince you, just to answer from my pov.

Darth_Inv1ctu5 said:
I can say indisputably there's no greater bond than that of a parent and his/her child" - And? Is this to say that people who cannot have kids are somehow doomed to less fulfilling lives? Don't make me laugh. You have a bond with your kid, people have bonds with their pets, with their friends, family - who gives a shit, if it makes you happy, who are you to rank that happiness in a completely arbitrary and subjective fashion?
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Evidentially. Obviously. That's not to say they cannot find fulfilment or a valuable life, but by it's very nature a life without children is less, in the same way that a life without a parent is definitively less. And it's up to him to rank happiness as he subjectively sees it, it's fine for him to think it's even reasonable given the data.

Berserker13 said:
No, the reason for all the misery is the mother's
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The reason for that is the you that chose that mother.

If having children isn't an opportunity for self reflection, it's nothing. Usually speaking you make a person with a person you choose and raise them within reason, how you see fit. How can any of that be someone else's fault.

You can say you could have known better what the woman was like, but probably should have known better is more accurate. Unless one is a simpleton, a victim. I don't like the victim narrative personally.


One can say it's all just an unceasing river of no free will. But that's not all the story. I don't think one has to feel bad about oneself now for making a poor choice in the past either. That was a different you. Recognising ones mistakes is part of preventing further ones.
 
Phlog said:
I wish everyone here the best. Life's tough whatever path you choose. None of us here can really offer up anything other than our feelings about this stuff.

The people saying they don't like kids so no thanks are missing the point. I don't like kids either, but my kids are fucking great. Partly because they're part of me and partly because of they start to annoy me I let them know and help them not.


What do you owe? Nothing, everything, it depends on your pov. Personally I wanted to experience what life is actually about, I loved being a child and I wanted to make the world better, making a good family with my wife seemed the way for me to do that. I couldn't miss out on what's to offer.

It just so happend to do all that and improve the lives of their grandparents. My kids report that they love their lives so alls good. Wife didn't want kids into her 30s and I was resigned to it. Realised just in time and I know for a fact it was the best choice she ever made.

None of this is to try to convince you, just to answer from my pov.


Evidentially. Obviously. That's not to say they cannot find fulfilment or a valuable life, but by it's very nature a life without children is less, in the same way that a life without a parent is definitively less. And it's up to him to rank happiness as he subjectively sees it, it's fine for him to think it's even reasonable given the data.


The reason for that is the you that chose that mother.

If having children isn't an opportunity for self reflection, it's nothing. Usually speaking you make a person with a person you choose and raise them within reason, how you see fit. How can any of that be someone else's fault.

You can say you could have known better what the woman was like, but probably should have known better is more accurate. Unless one is a simpleton, a victim. I don't like the victim narrative personally.


One can say it's all just an unceasing river of no free will. But that's not all the story. I don't think one has to feel bad about oneself now for making a poor choice in the past either. That was a different you. Recognising ones mistakes is part of preventing further ones.
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Won't even let me see my kid at christmas.
 
She would rather put us both throw her elaborate bs rather than to give us a happy father daughter moment
 
Berserker13 said:
Won't even let me see my kid at christmas.
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So make Christmas another day when you do get to see the kid and go all out. I think success is the best revenge, in this instance success with ones kid.

In this house we celebrate Xmas until Candlemas in February.
 
Protectandserve said:
I regret being a fucking moron and getting involved with her in the first place.
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You can never really predict women other than guaranteed illogical drama, it’s biological. Even with five kids, twenty years married, if I don’t keep a certain edge, my wife would find a way to screw me over. I basically have to boss her around unintuitively for her to keep the faith. It’s dumb but the plus side is that I don’t recall her even threatening divorce ever, not that i would grant it lmao. She’s one of the types of people that looks down on divorced people, which is a good partner to have, and it’s silly that i have to go through the occasional drama to get respect, including keeping her in check in front of her own family. My once divorced coworker in his fifties tells me the same with his long term GF, just letting go and relaxing is not an option.
 
chardog said:
You can never really predict women other than guaranteed illogical drama, it’s biological. Even with five kids, twenty years married, if I don’t keep a certain edge, my wife would find a way to screw me over. I basically have to boss her around unintuitively for her to keep the faith. It’s dumb but the plus side is that I don’t recall her even threatening divorce ever, not that i would grant it lmao. She’s one of the types of people that looks down on divorced people, which is a good partner to have, and it’s silly that i have to go through the occasional drama to get respect, including keeping her in check in front of her own family. My once divorced coworker in his fifties tells me the same with his long term GF, just letting go and relaxing is not an option.
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This is pretty pathetic and a miserable way to live life. And yes, before you ask I am married 15 years with kids
 
newms84 said:
This is pretty pathetic and a miserable way to live life. And yes, before you ask I am married 15 years with kids
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I’m not saying i know it all or anything, however if i don’t become that dominant figure my wife expects, then my wife loses sexual interest and tension. It’s what it takes to keep things going, any maybe my inner feminist thinks that is a bit much, however it keeps things well functioning outside of the unintuitive nature. Sex is often, kids are plentiful, life is good, the method to make it happen may not make sense but it works
 
Don't regret having kids. Regret getting married though. If I could do it all over again, I'd have probably left and accepted the 50% paychecks for freedom. But then I doubt my kids woud have grown up the same so I guess it all worked out. They kind of resent me, even hate me a little, but that's ok. I was always difficult with them to prepare them for life. It seems to have worked. They are both descent and responsible human beings, and that's all I care about whether they like me or not.
 
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