I have one daughter, an only child. I feel overwhelmed with guilt sometimes that she doesn’t have a sibling. But my husband and I agree that our family feels complete. Plus, pregnancy and postpartum were SO hard for me. We both work full time in public education. We finally bought our first home, a teeny-tiny little condo that only fits 3. I grew up in a difficult family where I was the oldest child and my parents didn’t have enough love to go around.
So I get stuck between feeling guilty for only having one child, and only having one child because I love her so much that I truly don’t want any more.
I am surprised surviving childhood abuse and neglect hasn’t been brought up as a reason people decide not to have their own children. There are so many people who grew up in horrific situations that they are still recovering from. Many of them decide not to have children because they spend their lifetimes recovering from that abuse, poverty, neglect and so on. For a lot of them, simply keeping themselves alive is a feat of its own.
I turned 30 in 2020 living in Cali (tragic mostly due to missing out on my epic “Dirrty Thirty” plans involving low rise jeans, thongs, and shoe polish) My husband got a job in KY summer 2019, but we were 3 years in and decided we wanted to keep going long distance me staying in LA for now- we were talking marriage around year 5– But COVID wrecked those plans. I was able to finally move to him 2 years later in late 2021, but we missed the “wedding window” and we were not able to get married til 2024. Now i am about to turn 36… most people I know my age are finished with kids in their teens already, pregnant currently, or nowhere near having them.
I don’t know where I fit or if I even want them now…. 5 years ago in 2021 if I was a new bride I would have started trying right away. But I watched the general mom experiences of my friends and female family members, and I question if I want it or if it is just me wanting to heal that deep wound of not fitting in. Said women have been pressuring me so much, saying that “there’s never going to be a right time”—- but I live alone in a state with no family nearby to help and a husband with a very demanding job. I already get mental problems from not being regulated, and I am just so afraid of what the dysregulation of a baby would do to me.
I try to make community where I can and I think I’ve done an OK job at doing that, but the village it takes to raise a child, the trust in people does not exist where I currently live. Even so, we are not in our forever Home OR forever city, and I could be eight months pregnant and my husband gets a new job even farther away from my parents than I am now (4.5 hours 😢)….
All that to say I am in Northern Iowa now, as a Maternity care desert. I am terrified of emergency complications and the consequences..
So many things enter my head in a millisecond when I think about having babies. I captured a few but there are so many more emotions that can’t be captured with words.
Also as an aside—— don’t get me started on the birthday parties and the social media pictures and… Santa 😅 I hated Santa as a child, I remember feeling intellectually insulted by the experience of “kid Christmas” in general. (i was a VERY serious child) and I always promised myself that I would not do Santa if I was a mother—— I don’t even want to unpack the social implications that I would deal with as a result of being the mom whose kid “ruined Santa”. Naturally I have no choice but to homeschool at least through middle school.
The fact that maternity care deserts exist is a travesty. All of those factors you mentioned are absolutely valid reasons to not have a child. I wish the National conversation around birth rates centered more on all of these things (especially maternal care and childcare support!!!). Sigh. I wanted to respond to the part of your comment about Santa. I also have never liked Santa (Creepy old man that comes down your chimney? No thank you.) so we don’t do Santa at all. I have had to have lots of conversations with my kids that they cannot tell other kids Santa isn’t real. So far I don’t think we have ruined it for anyone! 😆. But we also homeschool… not for this reason but it does kind of work out. Haha
I appreciate the pointing out that parenting expectations are so high! To give a tiny example, almost everyone in my neighborhood walks their kids to the bus stop every day. I only do it if my kindergartner is getting on the bus by herself, and that's only because the school requires that - she could absolutely go by herself (and next year when she's in 1st grade, she will). Most mornings, she and my 3rd grader walk to the bus together. My middle schooler says middle schoolers are being walked to the bus by their parents! I thought the pendulum was starting to swing back on helicopter parenting but I guess not. 🫠 And that just leads to more guilt (what does it say about me that I'm the only parent in the neighborhood who doesn't walk their kids to the bus stop, etc.).
I cannot imagine my kids as middle schoolers letting me walk them to their stops! When I used to pick up my son from middle school he would get mad when I would walk over to the school because he didn’t notice me sitting there across the street.
To me, this world feels very “child-hostile.” The way we parent now (“I’ll do everything for you and keep you out of danger”) runs contrary to children’s instincts (“I’ll do it myself and go off alone to take risks!”), so parents and kids inevitably clash.
Plus, twenty- and thirty-somethings are considered the “default” in a way they weren’t in past, multigenerational societies, so people who aren’t twenty- or thirty-something are considered background actors—but children refuse to be background actors. They very much insist on being in the foreground. So when they’re full of their feelings and screaming in restaurants, the rest of the restaurant is thinking, “that brat; why won’t their parent shut them up so we can eat in peace” (at least, that’s what prospective mothers are hearing)?
And you know the constant avalanche of advertising meant to lock you into the consumer spending cycle? Double that as soon as you have a kid, because companies know that childhood consumers are consumers for life, so they arm your kids with shiny commercials to nag you with.
Yessss. to all of this. Ended an engagement in 2020, the year I turned 30. Spent the next 3.5 years single, but on and off dating apps, wanting to meet someone, but nothing stuck. There was a lot of loneliness, pain, happiness, gratitude, longing, patience, adaptability, missed opportunities, fortuitous moments and fun all wrapped up in that time that changed me from the person I was in my 20's. I can truly say I learned more about myself, who I wanted to be and also my beautiful friendships during that time that I wouldn't trade for anything else. (and plot twist, if I'd gotten married to that ex, had children w/ him and likely divorced him, I'd probably say something very similar to what I said above about that time!)
Flash forward to 34, I met my now fiancé when I was logging on hinge to delete the app. I'm now 36, engaged and getting ready to start the IVF process.
We are all just granted our own learning experiences and perspectives from the teachers and opportunities we meet along the way that we then get to share and mirror back to one another. That is what makes the human condition and experience both so unique and so interconnected.
I have one daughter, an only child. I feel overwhelmed with guilt sometimes that she doesn’t have a sibling. But my husband and I agree that our family feels complete. Plus, pregnancy and postpartum were SO hard for me. We both work full time in public education. We finally bought our first home, a teeny-tiny little condo that only fits 3. I grew up in a difficult family where I was the oldest child and my parents didn’t have enough love to go around.
So I get stuck between feeling guilty for only having one child, and only having one child because I love her so much that I truly don’t want any more.
Selfish reasons to have more kids was a great book we enjoyed that eased a lot of the pressure on what being good parents looks like
I am surprised surviving childhood abuse and neglect hasn’t been brought up as a reason people decide not to have their own children. There are so many people who grew up in horrific situations that they are still recovering from. Many of them decide not to have children because they spend their lifetimes recovering from that abuse, poverty, neglect and so on. For a lot of them, simply keeping themselves alive is a feat of its own.
I turned 30 in 2020 living in Cali (tragic mostly due to missing out on my epic “Dirrty Thirty” plans involving low rise jeans, thongs, and shoe polish) My husband got a job in KY summer 2019, but we were 3 years in and decided we wanted to keep going long distance me staying in LA for now- we were talking marriage around year 5– But COVID wrecked those plans. I was able to finally move to him 2 years later in late 2021, but we missed the “wedding window” and we were not able to get married til 2024. Now i am about to turn 36… most people I know my age are finished with kids in their teens already, pregnant currently, or nowhere near having them.
I don’t know where I fit or if I even want them now…. 5 years ago in 2021 if I was a new bride I would have started trying right away. But I watched the general mom experiences of my friends and female family members, and I question if I want it or if it is just me wanting to heal that deep wound of not fitting in. Said women have been pressuring me so much, saying that “there’s never going to be a right time”—- but I live alone in a state with no family nearby to help and a husband with a very demanding job. I already get mental problems from not being regulated, and I am just so afraid of what the dysregulation of a baby would do to me.
I try to make community where I can and I think I’ve done an OK job at doing that, but the village it takes to raise a child, the trust in people does not exist where I currently live. Even so, we are not in our forever Home OR forever city, and I could be eight months pregnant and my husband gets a new job even farther away from my parents than I am now (4.5 hours 😢)….
All that to say I am in Northern Iowa now, as a Maternity care desert. I am terrified of emergency complications and the consequences..
So many things enter my head in a millisecond when I think about having babies. I captured a few but there are so many more emotions that can’t be captured with words.
Also as an aside—— don’t get me started on the birthday parties and the social media pictures and… Santa 😅 I hated Santa as a child, I remember feeling intellectually insulted by the experience of “kid Christmas” in general. (i was a VERY serious child) and I always promised myself that I would not do Santa if I was a mother—— I don’t even want to unpack the social implications that I would deal with as a result of being the mom whose kid “ruined Santa”. Naturally I have no choice but to homeschool at least through middle school.
The fact that maternity care deserts exist is a travesty. All of those factors you mentioned are absolutely valid reasons to not have a child. I wish the National conversation around birth rates centered more on all of these things (especially maternal care and childcare support!!!). Sigh. I wanted to respond to the part of your comment about Santa. I also have never liked Santa (Creepy old man that comes down your chimney? No thank you.) so we don’t do Santa at all. I have had to have lots of conversations with my kids that they cannot tell other kids Santa isn’t real. So far I don’t think we have ruined it for anyone! 😆. But we also homeschool… not for this reason but it does kind of work out. Haha
I appreciate the pointing out that parenting expectations are so high! To give a tiny example, almost everyone in my neighborhood walks their kids to the bus stop every day. I only do it if my kindergartner is getting on the bus by herself, and that's only because the school requires that - she could absolutely go by herself (and next year when she's in 1st grade, she will). Most mornings, she and my 3rd grader walk to the bus together. My middle schooler says middle schoolers are being walked to the bus by their parents! I thought the pendulum was starting to swing back on helicopter parenting but I guess not. 🫠 And that just leads to more guilt (what does it say about me that I'm the only parent in the neighborhood who doesn't walk their kids to the bus stop, etc.).
I think it says you're willing to do what you know is right even when it's going against the grain and that is an outstanding character trait to have!
(Also, I feel guilt when I realize I'm over parenting and robbing my kids of the gift of independence and confidence. So yeah.)
I cannot imagine my kids as middle schoolers letting me walk them to their stops! When I used to pick up my son from middle school he would get mad when I would walk over to the school because he didn’t notice me sitting there across the street.
giving a very un-nuanced opinion as a person without children. release that shit. the kids are alright, and so are you <3
To me, this world feels very “child-hostile.” The way we parent now (“I’ll do everything for you and keep you out of danger”) runs contrary to children’s instincts (“I’ll do it myself and go off alone to take risks!”), so parents and kids inevitably clash.
Plus, twenty- and thirty-somethings are considered the “default” in a way they weren’t in past, multigenerational societies, so people who aren’t twenty- or thirty-something are considered background actors—but children refuse to be background actors. They very much insist on being in the foreground. So when they’re full of their feelings and screaming in restaurants, the rest of the restaurant is thinking, “that brat; why won’t their parent shut them up so we can eat in peace” (at least, that’s what prospective mothers are hearing)?
And you know the constant avalanche of advertising meant to lock you into the consumer spending cycle? Double that as soon as you have a kid, because companies know that childhood consumers are consumers for life, so they arm your kids with shiny commercials to nag you with.
Child-hostile.
And parent-hostile! especially with small and smallish children.
Yessss. to all of this. Ended an engagement in 2020, the year I turned 30. Spent the next 3.5 years single, but on and off dating apps, wanting to meet someone, but nothing stuck. There was a lot of loneliness, pain, happiness, gratitude, longing, patience, adaptability, missed opportunities, fortuitous moments and fun all wrapped up in that time that changed me from the person I was in my 20's. I can truly say I learned more about myself, who I wanted to be and also my beautiful friendships during that time that I wouldn't trade for anything else. (and plot twist, if I'd gotten married to that ex, had children w/ him and likely divorced him, I'd probably say something very similar to what I said above about that time!)
Flash forward to 34, I met my now fiancé when I was logging on hinge to delete the app. I'm now 36, engaged and getting ready to start the IVF process.
We are all just granted our own learning experiences and perspectives from the teachers and opportunities we meet along the way that we then get to share and mirror back to one another. That is what makes the human condition and experience both so unique and so interconnected.
I love this format!