Even more regret from theage.com

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/having-a-kid-is-probably-my-biggest-life-regret-wife-concurs-20210525-p57v3b.html

Parenting sucks.

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cfdavep
https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/having-a-kid-is-probably-my-biggest-life-regret-wife-concurs-20210525-p57v3b.html

Parenting sucks.

"James says he feels as though he was tricked into having children. “People say how blessed they are to have kids and how they love them. But once you have kids and complain about school lunches, listening to the Wiggles and the lack of sleep, everybody agrees with you. Why do they wait to tell you how bad it is after the fact?"

There are no shortage of idiots who fall for those lines from payhruntz.

I think articles like this are good. People need to be able to tell the truth about all aspects of parenthood, and that especially includes the bad, since 95% of media coverage is sunshine and rainbows and TMIJITW.

The baybee crazy, brainwashed, automaton-pod-people will not give articles like this a second thought, but they should. Everyone should know what they are getting into, and if it keeps fence-sitters from breeding when they don't want to, good.

This woman who calls herself a "perinatal counselor," is quoted throughout the article. The dictionary definition of perinatal is five months before birth to one month after birth. In other words, after someone is already knocked up. (Too late to reverse the decision because it's a done deal.)

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Perinatal relationship counsellor Elly Taylor, the author of Becoming Us, explains that most parents have mixed feelings about having a baby, citing “the loss of lifestyle, the loss of spontaneity and the loss of having control of your life” as significant factors.

“Regret can range from looking at each other and thinking ‘what the hell have we done?’ to people whose relationships have broken down because they didn’t have enough support during parenthood.”

Here we go again with the "PARUNTS NEED MORE SUPPORT" chestnut. Does it occur to this woman that some people could have fistfuls of dollars thrown at them and all the "support" in the world and they would still HATE being parunts?

Genuine support means counseling people before they are knocked up and giving them advice like this:

What's the hurry to breed? Checking it out more is always a great recommendation. Borrow kids and babysit, etc. Observe with their own eyes. Most importantly, know their own minds. If you believe you'd really resent having kids and your personal freedom is important, don't do it.

If you are determined to have kids, waiting to know each other for four or five years before having kids is really stellar advice. (It's not uncommon for people to date a year, get married and get pregnant right after marriage, and they then wonder why their marriage is rocky. How can you really know someone during that period of time? Bad idea.)

"Support" people who choose not to have children or who want to limit their family size. That includes access to sterilization, BC and abortion for ALL, including the CF

Being CF is not a character defect. It should be the default. Stop treating the CF like mentally challenged freaks.

If two people land in a counselor's office in conflict over whether to have kids, stop treating the person who does not want to have kids as "the problem."

If two people land in a counselor's office and they are miserable after ONE kid, appropriate "support" includes telling them that HAVING ONE CHYLD IS COMPLETELY APPROPRIATE AND WARRANTED and nobody ever died from not having a matched set.

If I were a counselor, that's the kind of advice I would give. It's called occupational excellence. How could you work for decades in band-aid mode, knowing that you are addressing problems after the fact and not showing all the options. They may agree with you in the office for 50 minutes, but if they have kids because you've told them that's the only option, or if they have MORE kids because you reassuring them next time it will be different with more "support," instead of affirming what they are telling you, how could you live with yourself? I could not.

(And if they still breed after really thinking about it and knowing all options, that's on them.)

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Here we go with more bullshit
Taylor says she often counsels parents who feel guilty about wanting to leave and being unable to cope with day-to-day challenges.

“They regret having kidS and wish that they never did, and it’s very hard for them to admit that. A lot of parents don’t anticipate how significant the changes to their lives will be. It’s something they are not sufficiently prepared for.

“Some people expect being a parent to make their life happier, or make them more in love with their partner, and we know from research that is not the case. From counselling I know that when a parent can understand the reasons for their feelings and have those reasons validated, it’s almost as if those feelings clear up.”

The text above makes me think this woman is happy to be in band-aid mode. She sees parunts who are miserable and helps them understand the reasons for their feelings, i.e. parunting really sucks, and then they feel better, whatever that means.

No thinking, logical person believes being raised by a parunt with one foot out the door is a good outcome for the chyld. Won't someone think of da childrun?

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James says he feels as though he was tricked into having children. “People say how blessed they are to have kids and how they love them. But once you have kids and complain about school lunches, listening to the Wiggles and the lack of sleep, everybody agrees with you. Why do they wait to tell you how bad it is after the fact? I can honestly say it’s harder than I ever imagined and if I had my time again, I would never have done it.”

Because misery loves company, James. Why would they warn you what a shitshow parenting is if it meant you might avoid making the same mistake? Nah fam, they want to drag you down with them - they don't want you "getting away with" being happily unchilded, so when you say you don't want kids, they attempt to shame you into having them with tired old bingos like "You don't know true love until you've had kids" and accusations of immaturity and selfishness. Some people are so insecure and afraid of being seen as weirdos that they'll make a whole new human being just to fit in like it's fucking high school.

I'm glad to see stuff like this becoming more mainstream because it's about time people learn how awful parenting is before making kids that they proceed to fuck up because they only learn after breeding that they never wanted kids. That whole thing about an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure applies here, only when it comes to kids, there's really no "cure" unless you want to pull a PNA and it's a hell of a lot easier to just not have kids.

And I call bullshit on every single one of those idiots who claims they love their kids, but regrets having them. That is not how regret works. You cannot love someone or something you regret. I think it's just a form of Stockholm syndrome where they think they bond with their captors, because that's what kids are. Most things you do or don't do in life that you regret can be fixed in one way or another, but you can't un-make a child. The better parents in such situations will pretend to love their kids when they wish every day they had never been born and would just disappear. The not-so-good parents will make damn sure their kids know every day how unwanted they are.

We know the regret parunts having while kids are growing up. Obviously, it's much better after they grow up (besides the other annoying probs we already know). But, I wonder if it was socially acceptable, how many divorced (especially) dads, and moms, wouldn't see their adult kids. Like "that is a nice person but I dont want to hang out and make small talk and try to connect, I rather just make connections with people I choose as a friend."

I've had a divorced dad on twitter tell me now that his son is an adult, the son is his best friend. Sure, I'm thinking, becuz while working your ass off and dealing w/ all the kids stuff, you didnt have time to make adult friends and keep in touch. And, you wonder, even if adult kid likes/loves dad and doesnt mind spending time w/him, how much of that is a certain percent obligation and a certain percent guilt at least some of the time. Even families I know that appear very close, there still seems like an underlying guilt complex underneath it all, becuz it is something they 'should do' or dont want to hurt feelings. It is just another social norm people dont want to break, as fear being judged.

And, we already spoke about how many siblings we know dont really want to talk to each other or do so at family obligations only. After awhile, all this stuff seems like a scam. Altho, I guess we can't get born and just be turnt out feral. LOL

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cfuter
But, I wonder if it was socially acceptable, how many divorced (especially) dads, and moms, wouldn't see their adult kids. Like "that is a nice person but I dont want to hang out and make small talk and try to connect, I rather just make connections with people I choose as a friend."

Good point. And I wonder if it flows the other way...how many adult kids wouldn't see their parents. Not because the parents are toxic narcissists or anything, just...they don't click together socially and probably never really will.

I live several states away from both my parents, and while they're lovely people I love them both and really like visiting them, I don't feel any impulse whatsoever to move any closer. And my parents and I DO click pretty well...so I'm sure there are plenty of other adults out there who're actually utterly indifferent about their parents, but keep up appearances.