Do you regret having children?

Having children is wonderful—but you have to be able to put someone else first—not yourself, at least for a while. Make sure you have enough time with your husband so you two are solid, and have done some of the things you want to do. Once you have a child, you will be curtailed for a while. My own figuring is that it takes about 2½ years for a child to be pretty independent, and begin to reach out to others their own age, and you will be suddenly in the background. But you do have to give a lot for the first couple of years.

And yes, not only do I love my children, but I would absolutely repeat what I did—I had four children.

^^ What @skfinkel said _and we have 4 kids too.
I also want to add that a pristine home also is put on hold but I still would not give up my kids. They might frustrate us at times but they also fill our hearts with love and our home with life

If I could do it all over again I would have more. I came from a large family and I would love it if my children could have the same experience.

I could not imagine a life where I put myself first. Sometimes it’s nice to think about, but really, I love being a parent, even the frustrating moments.

I would rather have become a father at 22 rather than at 35 as I did. While I know that at 22 I did not have the requisite maturity and patience, I did not have the stamina at 35 that I had at 22.
This only became more pronounced as the other ones followed some four and six years later.

Children are a blessing. When your child is three or four months old, old enough to recongnize you when you come home from work, and she breaks into a huge smile when she sees you, there is nothing else like that. Her face expresses nothing but the purest love and adulation, this feeling can not be compared to anything you might have experienced previously.

And the first time you hear her say, Daddy. Unbelievable. I would not have missed this for the world.

SRM

I absolutely love my kids, and I wish we could have had them earlier, but the riming wasn’t bad either. I want another one too. The only regret I have is that they aren’t closer together, so it could have been easier for them to play together as they get older.

I have learned so much through having kids that I would never have learned if I hadn’t. Yes, sometimes I wonder what insane impulse made me think that kids would be all sweetness and light, but then the good points wipe all that out. We stopped at two because my husband’s health became very poor, but if he hadn’t, we would have tried for four.

I do think it would have been nice to be a bit younger if only for the stamina and the ability to get down on the floor easier, but I am working on that.

I agree with those of you who wish they had kids at a younger age. I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to have young kids at an older age. I’d much rather have kids while I’m still young. If I wait until I’m 35 I think I’ll have regrets. But my mother has always warned me about waiting. She makes it sound as if kids ruin your life and waiting until you’re 30 is appropriate. I disagree but wanted others opinions before making my final decision.

My husband was 45 when we adopted baby number one. 35 ain’t nothing.

Not for one second.

@Darwin I don’t know how you do it! I think my fiancé and I have a certain age that we’d like the kids out of the house and time to sit back and enjoy life. We don’t want to start having children when they should be moving out on their own.

@ItalianPrincess1217 – That ain’t nothing compared to my brother. He is raising a grandbaby. She just started kindergarten this fall.

We enjoyed life, and then had kids. We have enjoyed life a bit differently while raising the kids but we have still enjoyed it. We plan to enjoy life some more after the kids are on their own.

@Darwin I never looked at it that way. I suppose enjoying life before works just as good. I just want to make sure I’m energetic enough to keep up with them!

@ItalianPrincess1217 I have a son that is a senior in high school and a daughter in kindergarten. I love it! It makes life interesting and I would have another child if I could. I can’t imagine our house not having children in it and I’m not looking forward to when that day comes. I’m not going to make a good empty nester :(

I could never regret having my children, but if I had it to do over I may have spaced them out a little more. My first two are only 15 months apart, and the second & third are just 22 months apart. Three kids in four years was quite a handful, and meant I was changing diapers for five years straight. It also means they’ll all be in college at once, too.

My husband and I had been married for 8 years when we started having children, so we had a lot of “coupledom” behind us, and a lot of fun. The first was born when I was 27. My girls are now 15, 14, and almost 12.

Good luck finding someone around here who does.

@Holden Does what? Regret having kids? I figured nobody would really regret having kids but maybe they regretted at what age they did.

I regret not having even more children than I did.

Occasionally I do.. but that’s only in my most stressed out moments.. it doesn’t happen often and I know that I don’t really regret it… it’s just a passing flare up.. basically a temper tantrum.. XD

I apologize, I didn’t read the whole question.. I’ll answer better now.. lol

Many see their kids as a blessing. Do you?
Absolutely! The things they say and do brighten every single day.. even when it’s something they shouldn’t be doing or breaking.. XD

Of course you love them but if you could do it all over again, would you have waited longer?
Yes, I would have waited longer. We had our first less than a year after we got married.

What are some of the things you realize now that you never considered before having a baby?
Parenting is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And I had never considered that I would be spending $60/month on diapers and baby food.. lol

What’s your advice to newly weds who are unsure of when the right time to try for kids is?
Hit it somewhere in the middle. You don’t want to be too old when you start because of the greater risks of problems with delivery, and the fact that the kids won’t be out of the house until you are much older… But don’t have them too early.. enjoy your marriage for a bit.. as unheard of as it may seem now.. make sure your marriage is going to last.. the last thing we need is another kid from a broken home. Understand that no one is ever fully prepared for a child. It is a huge life change.. but it’s one that I am glad that I made despite all the hard work.

Figure out the marriage thing first. Give it a few years to see if it will last. No need to get pregnant on your wedding night.

My wife and I dated for nine years. Then we were married for seven years before we adopted our daughter. In those sixteen years we had a lot of couple time and got a lot done (travelled, bought a house, college, law school, cared for dying relatives, had two dogs, careers).

My daughter was one when we adopted her and it was perfect timing. This new chapter in our life, with her in it is just now hitting it’s stride and parenting has been, surprisingly, much easier than expected. There’s *always• challenges, but I think the time we had together alone (if you will) has made us a more connected couple – more capable of handling it together.

We’re later than expected on adopting number two (wife was laid off for over two years), but we’re hoping to get that rolling next year.

So ‘no’, I don’t regret a thing about being a parent.

No. They are a blessing.

I have never regretted my children even though I had terrible postpartum depression after my first that changed my life forever, even though my body has changed in so many ways, even though I haven’t slept in quite some time…so what? they’re such a joy, they have taught me a lot about myself…I can handle anything because I am a parent…

—
I know this is long but I wanted to give you a better sense of what it feels like…I wrote this not so long ago

My body is a mother’s body. It is not a young girl’s body with its perky…glow and smooth lines from the top of the thigh to the small of the back. Mine is a slightly used kind of a vehicle-warrior, a body of valleys…soft in all the right places, you might say…reminiscent of battles in the uterus, struggles and pain. It is a jagged, unshaven landscape where you, at a distance, might notice some stretch marks…veins on my legs – cowards that collapsed under the new burden of pregnancy weight. Mine is a body that suffered through spasms and ripping…and darkness – darkness after the light of my first child came forth into a Brooklyn day, in July. I rocked this body around the bed unable to loosen myself free of panic and anxiety, irrational fears, insomnia, insom, in…I kept this body close to him, my son, so he’d feel that no matter what was breaking within me, I’d keep him whole…and I did.

My body is a mother’s body. It is not a dancer’s body with its pristine posture and its taut-as-string ankles. Mine is a body that knows what an obsession dance can be but that life, that movement no longer comes first. It is a body that responds to an inviting embrace of the Argentine Tango but it does so with a reluctant and bothered ankle, broken weeks before the light of my second child rushed into the world on the day I, too, was born just twenty-five years prior. I crumbled under my own pressure, onto a mail box at the corner of Kings Highway and 8th…Cursing, I semi-hopped home thinking that, obviously, it makes all sorts of sense to labor with a broken limb. Months later, it is the ankles of my second son that I worry about, researching and purchasing multi-colored keds-looking socks with perfect little white bows on top…

My body is a mother’s body. It is not a yoga champion’s body with its ruthless balance and strength that would make you laugh unwillingly in admiration. Mine is a body that tethered itself to yoga long ago in an effort to rid its system of anti-depressants. Yoga has never failed me though I can’t say the same in return for I have left it behind numerous times…left it twice to have my babies…but now I’ve returned. Sometimes my returns are guilt-ridden since the time I take for my breath, my sweat, and my joints to be bathed in freshly oxygenated blood could be time spent laughing at and with my children…time spent fucking my partner, but I digress…most of the time I remember that taking time for myself helps me parent more steadily, love more deeply, guide more passionately…

My body is a mother’s body. It is not my mother’s body with its frail shoulders and botoxed cheeks. It is a body of risks taken for love, signs of the past…meshed with tattoo ink and piercing holes. It is a body upon which one artist transferred another artist’s work joining me to a movement for a unified cosmic consciousness. I have bruised it often banging into the floor of my bathtub from exhaustion. I have squeezed my hands to my forehead so I can think of something other than both of my children screaming. I have felt anger well in my chest at the sheer inescapability of certain mothering situations. Yet with my body, my tears and heart I can pull through long enough to kiss the person without whom I’d never be able to see the clarity in all the fog. Mine is a body that gets protected and wrapped by a gentle lover’s touch all through the night, a touch I feel through the day no matter how many miles apart we are.

Mine is not always a beautiful body to my eyes but sometimes it is…when the light is right, when the angle’s right, when the mirror’s bribed…nah, that’s not it…though I can claw at my body in frustration because it no longer is what it used to be, I know better than that…what I know is nothing I can explain on these pages…but when I feel both my sons collapse onto my breasts that have struggled to breastfeed, I believe that, undoubtedly, my body’s war wounds have always and will forever remain worth it. My body is my own but it is also my children’s mother’s body and I better learn to respect it.

Love yourselves,
Namaste
—

@Simone…That was great! I’m speechless…

@ItalianPrincess1217 thank you…I just wanted to you to know how it could be…for you…

@ times I regret having my son. It has nothing to with me not loving my son. I love him with all my heart. It is more or less the way I got pregnant and how evertything ended after the baby was born. I was only 21yrs old at the time I had my son. His father left five months after he was born. That separation was hard for me as I was with his father for three years prior to him leaving. I had plans for my life and having a child at that age was not one of them. I wanted to finish my college education before I even thought about having a child. However, his dad did not see things the way I seen them. I often think what my life would be like if I didn’t have a son. Would I have met the people that I have in my life now. Would I still be living at home or would I be out on my own. I love my son and don’t hate him or anything like that. I just regret the way things happened.

I see my friends who are married and want a child and are so excited to have a child when the time comes that I get mad at myself. I get mad because I feel like I was so angry for getting pregnant at that age that I missed out on all the joys of pregnancy. I guess I would say to others that want or are thinking about having a baby. Just know that your life will change. It may seem at times that it is for the worst but let me tell you. My son is a blessing. He has opened my eyes to all kinds of new things.

I am so happy I have children and I wouldn’t change a thing. I was about 26 when my daughter was born, and I think it’s a great age to start. I’d seen and done enough single and I’m still young enough today when they are already older. I’m even looking forward to being a relatively young grandfather.

It has been the best of both worlds for me. I literally, literally, thank God every day for my children.

I’ve seen so many posts on here where people talk about how bad their child is acting, and they now resent that child. If you could ever have feelings like that, I totally take that for regret. I don’t think everyone is meant for Children.
That being said, I’ll never do it. I can’t believe how so many people let their reproductive organs go wild and then divorce a few short years later. Its disgusting.