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Comment by close04 | Hacker News Reader

> Agreed. I'm well travelled. Have had a very fun and satisfying dating life. A great career. Accomplished many life goals. Nothing comes close to fatherhood.

I completely agree with you. But I can't say around me, people, movies, society ever sent the message that parenthood is terrible. The way I interpret the message was always "this was hard, this was grueling, but I wouldn't change it for the world". I didn't get this apparent contradiction until it was my turn.

I think the people who miss almost all of these "tickboxes" and can somehow link it to the kids become unhappy with parenthood. If they ever feel their personal time, romance, career, success suffered because of the focus on the children, they will end up in the "disappointment" camp.

I never personally met anyone who was willing to admit regret of having children but I did meet people who were disappointed and put a veiled blame for their failure on the children.

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You'd never hear me say it in person, but I'll admit it here. I'm sure it's great for most people, but it's not for me.

I agree with your assessment of society at large. The prevailing attitude is, having children is the best thing you'll ever do, that you ever could do. The most you'll get is, it's the hardest job in the world but also the best, and totally worth it. I have no idea what the other person is talking about when they say everything conveyed the message that parenthood is terrible. This sort of thing almost makes me wonder if the internet actually connects parallel universes and we just haven't realized it, because that's not how it is in mine.

I was on the fence, but had no support for it. All the media said do it. Everybody around me said do it. There was literally not a single dissenting voice in my life saying, "don't do it if you're not sure." Or even just "if you feel that way then maybe it's worth considering not having kids as an option, or at least waiting until you become more certain."

I feel a lot of regret having had children. Not 100%, but it's always going to be more than 0%. I adore my kids but it's too much for my brain and it makes me miserable a lot of the time. I don't bring it up except to counsellors (or anonymous internet bros, apparently) because (a) it's not actionable - there is no going back (b) it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.

This is one of the things I think about when considering kids++, when does the regret start (if at all)? Or as posted in other comments, will the health lottery have me regret having +1? Time will tell.

> it's a bummer and no one has anything to say about it.

I think a lot of people could have something to say about this but they're afraid of being branded bad parent or bad people.

> it's not actionable - there is no going back

Going back isn't the only way to take action. If you can't change the trigger you can try to control to a degree how you feel about it.

True - ultimately I will have to, as that is the only escape from suffering.

How old are they? I honestly felt like that sometimes for the first few years but no longer now that they are somewhat capable of not dying without constant supervision and are becoming their own new persons

One is 6 years, the other is 6 months.

This is arguably the toughest it will ever get. It's very normal to feel all kinds of tough emotions right now. If this were climbing Mount Everest, you'd be near the top.

Or maybe they’ll run away at sixteen to join a gang.

You are probably right! But you might be assuming I wanted kids before I realized it wasn't all I'd hoped. I never really wanted them but said ok to my partner. I figured that most of the nicer and more fulfilled older people I knew had kids. Then again now I wonder if that's because there are plenty of older fulfilled people without kids off doing their thing and not interacting with the likes of me.

Give it time. It is hard work, but it gets easier as it goes along. I'd brace yourself for about 5 years of it being relentless but slowly getting easier. By which point, although it will still not be easy you should at least be regularly getting some time to yourself to recharge.

85% of women eventually have at least one child. So there are older folks out there without kids, but it's a relatively small group.

I'm sorry to hear you never wanted kids. I guess it's more complicated if you were sure beforehand that it's not for you. I hope you're able to balance the love with the effort.

That's great insight. My sister missed some of these milestones and I hear echoes of what you describe in some of our conversations.

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