‘Una trappola a cui non si può sfuggire’: Le donne che rimpiangono di essere madri
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgkvge4rkmo
di FelisCantabrigiensis
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30 commenti
>Having a child means finances are tight, and all her goals and ambitions – travelling, setting up a business and building an investment portfolio – have been pushed aside.
I’m going to guess that if you gave her a time machine and then said, look you can either have your children again, or you can set up a business and have an investment portfolio… well, I wonder what the choice would actually be.
These people appear to be burnt out as much as anything. And I wonder to what extent they have certain conditions which would have caused a similar level of disatisfaction regardless of what they had done in life.
>She now makes time to go to the gym and see friends and is trying to give herself permission not to strive for perfection.
>”I’m finally able to say, ‘No, sorry, I’m tired and I’m going to have an early night. Have whatever you want for supper; Daddy is here.'”
Parents should absolutely be making time for themselves and their hobbies and interests, and both parents should be absolutely taking part in the children’s lifestyles. It’s really telling that the concept that she can say ‘daddy is here’ is almost a final option.
This seems heavily a western problem with the new age of social media as well as non stop work life and not having a great support system or the father of the kids around. Also to factor in having kids later such as 30+ and not actually planning for kids, I think often alot of people aren’t consciously saying this is who I choose to marry and who I choose to be with and who I want to have kids with It just seems to kind of happen and then issues follow after
EDIT – I want to clarify western for those who have issues with this word due to the times we live, when I say western its not only a place its a mentality and that mentality is to work for the system until you are dead and to put family values to the side and to have a lack of togetherness as a community and to put yourself first above all others theres alot more but you’ll find this makes a person far from happy in the end and this mentality is making its way to other countries which in the end brings about no good
Is this a reflection on them, or the world right now. It’s always both parents in work, riding bills etc etc.
Weve not built a society for parents, for infants, for children, or for teenagers. Capitalism and the loss of community plays a huge role. The declining birth rate is understandable in this climate
It’s strange that dads aren’t mentioned at all in the article. As your partner (if you have one) has an enormous impact on whether or not you face burnout and financial worry. I imagine if the question was do you regret your choice of co-parent the answers would be different. One thing I’ve learned from parenthood is that some parents are living a completely different experience to others. If you have involved grandparents and a supportive partner and your kid is in nursery from young your experience will be vastly different to having a lazy partner and uninvolved grandparents.
It feels to me like it’s almost a faux pas to talk about choosing boyfriends/ girlfriends partly on how well you think they’d cope as a parent but it’s so important if you’re somebody that wants children. I can’t overstate how happy I am to be married to a good mum. It would be hell if she wasn’t.
This is why cultures that believe the man in the sky made everything and that women should stay at home are going to ironically win the natural selection race
Baby boomers had a society where you had a community a house a job and a pension. Yes they couldn’t fly all round the world but the benefits outweighed the negatives.
Alot of people as well want to enjoy their lives and not have kids
You used to get married and have kids. It was just part of life. Few people thought do I want kids. What you see now is a result of people choosing.
I think some couples see having children as just “the next step” in their relationship, rather than actually considering the full implications
Imagine burning through the wealth from the industrial revolution in 3 generations by empowering the class that can’t link having children with responsibility.
As someone who has just helped my partner though 4-5months of perinatal depression anxiety much of which routed in ‘I think we’re going to regret this, I don’t know if I should be a mam’….today I’ll be strongly railroading her away from the bbc
I’m 10 months into parenthood now. The day my daughter was born was one of the best days of my life, and I have no regrets about becoming a dad.
However, we don’t have grandparents heavily involved and we’ve only had a babysitter twice in 10 months. My partner and I have been solely responsible for her care, as we expected before she was born. I hadn’t appreciated how exhausting it is raising a child, working full time, all with little support. I’m envious of friends who have grandparents involved. Some of their grandparents even look after their grandkids for whole weekends.
My partner and I talked about having another recently, and I said I don’t know if I have the mental bandwidth or energy to do it. And I’m not the one giving birth to them!
I’m not surprised.
Women are now expected to still be the primary care giver whilst holding down full time jobs or sometimes even being the main earner.
I work an extremely demanding job surrounded by women who are the higher earners in their relationships, yet everytime the children/school/dentist/doctors/clubs etc need to get hold of a parent they are ALWAYS the default.
I’d LOVE to be a father, but I really am hesitant about being a mother
I recommend everyone checks out r/regretfulparents before having children. Think about it, and decide whether children are really for you
My old boss is around 40 and has 2 kids, 5 & 7 years old.
She said she if she could do her life over, she wouldn’t have kids as her entire life needs to revolve around them instead of what she wants to do.
I am a single dad of 3, luckily my parents help when I have to go to the office, one of the most important things is finding the right person and support around you, it’s almost impossible to do it solo
So my child has Autism. I don’t regret having him and he really is my world. I am, however beyond exhausted, not by meeting his needs or caring for him. I’m exhausted by constantly advocating for him and his educational needs. I now suffer from severe anxiety and rarely sleep. There is very little support when raising neuro diverse children. You get the diagnosis and are then left to drown. The terror I feel knowing my child will not only not be supported, but punished for his Autism in mainstream secondary school is making me ill. Mums wouldn’t feel like this if there was support and understanding. Mums don’t speak up because we’re judged and classed as failing our kids. We fight constantly and it’s breaking us.
Women had their village, they weren’t expected to work and look after children at the same time. Young families have been priced out of their home towns and had to move away from grandparents. It’s simply burnout, we were never made to do it all alone. Then we wonder why we have a demographic problem.
I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of how life should be. They want to be money rich, time rich and love rich. It’s very hard to have all three unless you inherit or are very lucky.
And this is what our society does to parents who were able to choose to be one. Imagine how awful it would be if the American evangelicals and their traitor puppets in the UK get their way and take away that right.
Ypu cant force wanting parenthood on people. A lot pf people see kids as a burden
I’m a dad of three autistic teenagers. I regret having them. Not because they’re not the centre of my life, but the struggles they’re going through is crushing me. My eldest daughter is currently sectioned, her fourth time in two in years, my eldest son is 19, leaving school this year, and is refusing to do anything in September, he is so riddled with fear and anxiety he cannot fathom a future. My third kid barely goes to school, she cannot cope with being around others. The world is getting harder, and a lot less tolerant of autistic people, I have no hope for the future.
I think the UK economy has been fundamentally broken over the past 20 years. We have/had an economy that produces comparatively good jobs but successive governments (famously Boris Johnson) have opened up our jobs market to the world. The number of people globally that would move to this country and compete for these jobs, accepting lower wages is almost unlimited. And let’s not forget the largest tax burden since WW2.
On the other side of the equation we have inflated housing costs as over 30 years our governments have added 10-15m people without adding adequate numbers to the housing stock, accommodation costs at least 30% of most young people’s income now.. Due to financial mismanagement over Covid we had a burst of hyperinflation that increased retail prices anywhere from 30%-100%. Our idiot energy policies have given us the highest prices in the developed world. On top of that social pressures to do more and more with your kids at greater expense are heaped on.
I don’t think a metric exists but I’d love to compare housing, living and child raising costs in the 70’s and 80’s, even early 90’s to today. I think the comparison would be eye opening.
It’s just so damned hard. I do not blame young people at all for opting out. But I also feel there is so much to be lost by not having kids. So many good times, so much love.
I’ve heard this said on a pod and couldn’t agree more, having kids doesn’t just increase your love when they come along, they increase your capacity to love. It’s miraculous.
We desperately need our society to change to make it easier to have kids.
One last point. There’s also theories on how birth rate drops when countries develop, particularly first world. I don’t know enough about it to comment but I’d be interested to read more if anyone can suggest anything.
There’s no village!!! I have no grandparents or parents or siblings available for support- doing it alone is hard
I have two daughters – 5 and 7 – and while I enjoy being a dad I also hate it. Love them, but hate the lifestyle. Someone at work (who also had kids) said it so well – “it’s the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me”.
And on that note…I’m off to collect them from their ridiculously expensive 1 hour “tennis” lesson.
An interesting story. But I wonder if it’s just “grass is greener”. Setting up a business can also cause burn out, especially in this economy, and you won’t necessarily be wildly successful. Your relationship might not be better if you spend more time together.
The poorest and most unfortunate are the still having the most children by far.
The thing I see on Reddit most often is about how if we only gave maternity leave, or paternity leave, or more childcare, or whatever it will fix the issue. And to be clear I am against NONE of the above.
But the evidence says otherwise, those who can afford to have children are the ones most often not doing it.
We have made a society entirely about the glorification and gratification of the self and short term pleasure. Children aren’t compatible with that worldview as they demand sacrifice and selflessness. Things that are out of fashion
10 month old Triplets, no nearby family and now my wife’s work refuse to offer anything less than 4 days full time. We could swing 3 days of day care (paying effectively for 9) but the help in childcare fees is a capped total value and not per child.
I’ve secured a promotion to match her wage as the previous bread earner but at the cost of very long work days – we are lucky to have 30 mins together or for ourselves each week.
Neither of us regret the choice of having kids – they bring a sense of purpose and no matter how hard the day has been seeing 3 smiles is always worth it, but I can understand why people would feel trapped.
And this is partly why the birth rate is declining, women can choose to not have children
Reform MPS such as Krueger and their candidate Matt Goodwin may want to reverse that ( taxing childless people, undoing the sexual revolution) but it wont work