It would depend on the person, the exact way it’s said… If life is decisions, parenthood is bigger decisions, and an enormous amount of decisions made for another person; many of the most important ones are made before that person can provide an opinion. And sometimes, a decision made with the best of intents turns out wrong; sometimes a choice takes you to places you never wished to be. Sometimes, even if the child turns out ok, the parent just happened to hate parenthood itself. I’d need to know the details before I can form an opinion.
But I’d give a similar response to people asking what is my reaction to someone saying they regret their choice of major, or their marriage, or moving from Place A from Place B. Why do they have that regret, what are they doing about it, is what they’re doing about it harming others… are all part of what will shape my opinion.
Almost by definition people are unqualified to make life’s major decisions. If the decision is still in the future that’s pretty much proof positive you don’t yet have the experience to make it.
As **Manda JO **and **Nava **just said, this applies to choice of college and major (or not), choice of where to life, who to marry (or not), choice of career, etc. You (any you) can’t really know enough to make a smartly-informed choice beforehand.
To be sure, just because you’re not an expert chooser doesn’t mean that you’re just randomly guessing. It’s pretty easy to identify some bad options. Minoring in Marijuana Consumption and Road Trips will be hard on your major GPA. Marrying somebody who punches you harder than your Dad did is unwise. Etc.
Whether they choose yeah or nay, having kids is just another major life decision made mostly by experientially incompetent people. The decision re kids that bothers me is the folks who dislike parenting and their first kid yet decide to keep having them. Whether deliberately or by default.
It might not be abhorrent, but I’d feel a little sad for that person. And maybe they can still be an awesome parent, but I’d feel pretty sad for their child, too.
The difference in your choice of college or major, of course, is that it really only effects you. Even in marriage, sure another person is involved, but that person is an adult and hopefully doesn’t rely on you to exist.
Nope, both of those have downhill consequences. The choice of major affects anybody helping pay for your college, it affects your contributions to your household; if it leads to a job you hate, you end up in negative emotional states which again affect those around you. And in marriage, very often there are these people called “children”, and being in a shitty marriage affects how you interact with others outside the house as well.
Same here; in my experience it’s standard for a parent to regret having had kids in general or a specific child at one point or another; the human condition is too varied and long-lived for there not to be a regret about a life-changing event that flits across one’s mind once or twice. Including my own delightful dad, I’ve heard more people complain about kids they had than kids they wanted to have but didn’t; and considering our failed experiences in egg donation and surrogacy and the social circles I was in for those several years that’s saying quite a lot.
All parents (of people) are human; few are monsters.