Something I never realised about having kids is that you get to re-live some of your childhood as they experience it for the first time. It's almost like being reborn, if that makes sense?
Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#42It’s exhausting and certainly not all a pleasure, but no regrets at all. Wonderful moments in between all the mayhem make it all worthwhile.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#43I don’t regret having kids, they are amazing.
BUT: You are MUCH more likely to regret your choice of WHO you have kids with than the kids themselves. Having kids together ties you closely to that person for a very long time (20+ years), whether you like it or not. Think VERY carefully about whether this is what you want with this person.
Do you really know this person?If you were going to die next year, and you had to spend the whole year with one person, is this who you would choose?
Another BUT: At least for me, it took until my child was about 2 years old to feel she is amazing. I regretted it immensely during the first 24 months (I am a male). I have heard a lot of other reports of this anecdotally - for some men, it takes longer to become attached to the baby. It can be disorienting, especially relative to expectations (like other posts here where the love happens at first sight).
All that said, kids are by far the greatest source of happiness, meaning, and pride in my life (which was not at all devoid of those things before the kids).
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#44Parenting is the most wonderful horrible thing you’ll ever do in life.
This provides the opportunity to share this related poem: “ They fuck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you.” - Philip Larkin: This be the verse
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#45I always say it was the best and worst thing that happened to me
Totally worth it, sometimes you just can't have only the good parts
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#46I'm curious as to what the context here is.
I'd guess somebody childless but considering. It's really not a great question, since if a person was unhappy about having kids, I don't suspect they'd chime in on a forum like this. I think a better question for the childless but considering to ask is for people who never had children, do you regret it?
Good point!
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#47If you want "yes" answers there's a narrative book-length study an Israeli feminist did on the question, with interviews of some mothers who regretted it. I've not found anything on fathers.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#48Do not know how to answer this question. We raised my brother-in-law's two kids when he died. There were known quantities because we have been part of their lives since the days that they were born, and until he died, they spent as many days at our place as their place.
Personally, for various reasons, both my sister and myself and our spouses are zero-growth supporters, but I strongly support the efforts of good people to have and raise children and seek the joys of parenthood.
My biggest regrets about 'having' two children is the loss of their father (My brother in law was a good friend and good parent) and the loss of our lives' works and plans. We worked hard to get to this 'place' in life and were about to wind down to early retirement - that and much other stuff went away. Now at 64, I little to show for my years of sacrifice and working two and three jobs at a time after paying for the health and education and rearing of the niece and nephew.
If you are going to have kids, expect good stuff, but be responsible enough to plan for the worst. If you cannot afford to plan for the worst, then do not burden your remaining relatives with the weight of your excesses and selfish decisions.
Finally, not having children is not being selfish. It is the opposite. You are giving up much for living by your principles.
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#49If you want "yes" answers there's a narrative book-length study an Israeli feminist did on the question, with interviews of some mothers who regretted it. I've not found anything on fathers. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYUTO1A/
... and it's also worth noting that in the introduction of this book O. Donath, the author posts a typical example of one of the interesting death threats, wishes for her death, etc etc that she got from news reports of her original 2015 article that she expanded into the book
Re: Ask HN: Do you regret having children?
#50Definitely not. There is a lot of bad information about child raising on social media sites like Reddit, Twitter, and even HN some times. You can safely ignore anything on the internet that resembles the /r/childfree subreddit. Having kids isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine. The happy child-free couples I know actually like children but decided against having their own. Some of the childfree people, particularly on…
I think though the overly positive replies in this thread are a bit... misleading. And frankly read a lot like something extremely religious people would write about their newfound religion. It doesn't read like rational discourse. Of course, once you already have children , you are not going to be regretting it. It would just feel horrible to do so. The children, no matter how difficult they might make your life, ar…
I am one of those people you are describing, and I actually 100% agree with your assessment! But I think I was fair: as I said in original reply elsewhere (not this thread), it may be Stockholm syndrome, but once you’re in you can’t help but be all-in. It is necessary to remain sane, and thus, it changes you.
The only useful semi-rational heuristic I can ascribe to my general stance is that: before I had kids, life was objectively much easier, but I had many regrets and suffered greatly from causes of my own invention. After having kids, my kids are the cause of my suffering and I have no regrets about it. Biology assists you there because it makes you love them even though they are frequently the cause of your suffering.
One of the other _pragmatic_ reasons for having kids that I didn’t actually notice until after having kids, is that old people seem to often (but not always) become confused, lonely, and out of touch with modern realities and culture. Family creates, for many, a lifelong bond that bucks this tendency. Of course there are other stressful bonding scenarios that do this, like for combat vets, but seldom are they so cross-generational. The perspective shifts are also quite powerful, and there’s an amazing amount of high quality children’s media (especially books) that are no less powerful for being written in an ELI5 way…sorta like how good coders write lots of good code easily and great coders write only a tiny bit of code that seems totally obvious to everyone upon reading, but that was never done before. Anyway, most of that stuff I know I would have missed.
Along similar lines, you get exposed to a much more diverse community: the parents of your children’s friends, and various other child-centered communities. Almost all of my closest friends today, I only met as a side-effect of having kids. There’s probably a counterfactual for the childless but I haven’t lived that life and don’t know anything about it!
There are countless pragmatic reasons not to have kids. I think when people ask, “do you regret this life,” it is their lizard-brain kicking in, nudging then towards “yes it is time.” For those of us who have had them, our own lizard-brains kick in with their own reply. An ancient call and response.
After all, all the people smart enough not to have kids never achieved offspring to carry on that lifestyle, and likewise for the pack/community that discourages ever having kids.
As an atheist, my respect goes out to the “achildists” for bucking the trend: it is a dying breed by definition. As a “childist,” like some sort religious nut, all I can do when confronted with the question “do you regret having kids” is share what is in my heart: having kids is tough but I don’t regret it.
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If someone was asking: “should I have kids?” then the answer might be very different! I’d probably say: “…no, why would you want to do that??” If someone is wondering about regrets, though, then they either have kids and have regrets or they are already feeling the call and asking for a lifeline to resist it. In either case, “sorry bub, your lizard-brain won, it’s too late, but here’s what you can look forward to.”