I’ve regretted it often. I love my daughter, but I wasn’t ready for a child.
No regrets, just a sincere wish for more hours in the day and an owner’s manual at times. If I could go back in time, I would have had more than one child. My daughter thoroughly enjoys being an “only” and it’s very nice, now that she’s a teenager, not to have to be hands-on 24/7, but if I knew then what I know now in general, I would have had more kids.
CalMeacham - that is a GREAT story.
I wish I had been able to wait. I had my son when I was so young. If I could go back and put one, two, ten years between my pre- and post-child life, I would. I feel like I’ve missed so much, and I hate to think about it, because it depresses me.
But if I had to choose between having him the way I did, or never having him at all, I’d choose the former. It’s a self-centered reason, but I believe I’m a better person for having been his mom.
I don’t regret it, but I will be glad when he moves out. (And he’s only 5 now.)
I love my kids. I love the some of the changes they’ve brought to my life, the many joys. However, with anything you love, they have the ability to cause pain.
One of my kids is a special-needs kid. He’s got SID, ADHD, & will forever be bald. These conditions come with their own set of challenges - and the battle gets tiring after a while.
My little girl is sweetness, beauty & light. Sometimes, too, she’s mischievous, defiant & rebellious. My new baby boy is beautiful - but babies also have a lot of demands and the annoying characteristic of complete selfishness.
Perhaps yearly I get to leave town on business for a week or so. The first days of this working vacation are wonderful - it becomes some “me” time - a rarity in a family. After a week or so, though, I’m ready to return back to the roller coaster that is my family life.
Doesn’t make a difference, even if I wanted to give 'em back. I lost the receipt. 
Seriously, however, there are times that I wonder how different my life would have been (in terms of financial and physical freedom) if we didn’t have kids. And there are times that I want to trade one or all of them in for potted plants. But never did actually regret having them, nor can I see doing so.
Zev Steinhardt
He lives with you?
It’s the hot tub, isn’t it? He wanted to live in a house with a hot tub.
(Uh, sorry for the hijack)
Never a regret on my part. Two sons who are great people, and out on their own.
It is nice to live outside of myself.
Do I regret having children? Not for one second. I desperately wanted more.
We’ve just moved in with my fiance and since my two are both away at college I’ve been putting all their things away in their new rooms. Nearly everything I picked up to place on a shelf or put in a drawer had memories attached. The nostalgia nearly took my breath away and brought me to tears several times. I’ve wished many, many times I could go back in time and hold those soft, velvety, babyfaces in my hands again for just 5 minutes (man, I’m crying now!).
I’ve been a single Mom for 13 years and I can’t begin to describe the tough times we’ve had both emotionally and financially. If you’re a single custodial parent, you know what I’m talking about. I’d do it all again in a minute, though.
My boys are the greatest blessing in my life. Being a parent has made me more patient and understanding. Being a parent has made me humble. I’m more sympathetic and empathetic than I was before I became a parent. Being a parent has enhanced my love for my own parents and for other parents (and just other people in general). I’m a better person for being a parent.
On reading this over I realize it sounds a bit over the top. It’s truly how I feel, though.
As sunglasses says, sometimes being a single parent has been the hardest project of my life.
There have been those moments of despair and frustration which made me ask “why me !”
On a different note, sometimes when I contemplated the state of the world, I wished I had not brought them into such a mess. I wished that I had not brought them into the world to suffer (as everyone must, from time to time). I’ve probably thought that more often than thought about the me aspect of it.
Did that make sense ?
Yep.
The thing about kids is you don’t understand until you have them that you can love them with all of your heart, and barely be able to stand the sight of them - and this isn’t contradictory at all. You can think they are the joy of your life, and the bain. You can’t wait to be with them if you are seperated, but with them too long and you begin to wonder if you’ll ever be able to finish a book in one sitting again - or see a rated R movie. Knowing they are growning up, you try to cherish them being two - but the tantrums can make that a special challenge. You can’t wait to see how they grow up, and you cry when you see how big their socks have gotten. You can wonder how you can stand to watch them fall off their bikes while learning to ride without training wheels - every fall hurts you worse than it hurts them - and that doesn’t even get into watching them go through the really painful parts of life - and yet absolutely know that you wouldn’t trade it for anything - regardless of how much pain you or they go through - how many sleepless nights, how often you clean the vomit from the floor at two in the morning…
Well said Dangerosa, I agree completely.
I do regret the near total loss of “me” time. I was never one before to think I needed “me” time, as I grew up one of 5 children and hated being alone. But now that I have none, I miss it. I hate that I can’t just stop and run errands without a 3 year old in tow on my way home from work. I regret that I can’t agree to go to last minute business dinners. I feel guilty leaving him with babysitters for nights out since I work full time and don’t get to see him much as it is.
But in all, I would rather have it this way than without him. Dangerosa said it best. Once a week I do have time to myself and he is asleep by the time I get home. I miss him terribly. I have had to travel on business for a week away from home and I hate being away. I could never take a vacation and not bring him along. He fell off the bed and bit his lip the other day and I still get teary eyed to look at his fat lip - the first real flesh wound he has ever had. It doesn’t bother him at all.
I would never give back the experience of carrying him. Of having that little body inside me, squirming to remind me he is there. I would not give up those moments he would look deep into my eyes while I was nursing him. I would not give up those times he looks up from his blocks to say “I love you, mom” for no particular reason. I would not give up hearing his point of view of the world. Having him around reminds me to have fun, to not take things so seriously. My cousin’s three year old daughter died in a car accident Christmas eve. I don’t think I could remain sane if I lost my son in a similar way.
I do not regret being a mother. You can’t appreciate the good if there is no bad for comparison. You take the good for granted otherwise. I took too much for granted before he came along.
No never.
Not when my first child was diagnosed with a fatal syndrome. Not when she died.
Not when I accidentally dropped my second down a stairway and thought I’d killed him (He’s ok :))
Not when they make me so angry I literally see red.
I sometimes wish they’d behave better. I often wish we could spend more money on babysitters. But I thank God for each of them every single day, and also that I get to stay home with them.
Thanks so much, everyone, for all of your answers. I don’t have kids myself but I sometimes think about it. In growing up, I recall many memories along the lines of, “Oh, if I had a child they would love this or that.” I have a nephew who is the most adorable kid in the world but in taking care of him for any extended amount of time I become overly exhausted. Whew…that’s tough work. Hats off to all of you parents out there.
I always figured I’d have kids one day but then when it actually comes down to it that question keeps getting in the way. Because once you’re a parent (unless something unexpected occurs) you are a parent for life and there’s no going back.
For any of you who said, “Yes, I love being a parent and don’t regret it at all,” did you have those feelings of wanting a child long before they came along or is it just something you were, in a way, fortunate enough to feel after their birth?
On the side, I’m also a high school tennis coach and have grown to love those kids and sometimes hope I have a kid like this particular one or that one or that other one over there. But…still…that question nags me for some reason. Perhaps having that question alone tells me I’m not yet ready.
Woeg, what a beautiful sentiment. I’m sure you’ll say you are just being honest but that’s how I hope to feel but am somewhat afraid to take the chance because I value my time to myself just so much.
Bren_Cameron, hmm…interesting perspective. For the most part you are content with your decision but you go through bouts of regret soon to be replaced by contentedness once again. I can see that. I would just hope that the times I’m content with my decision would outweigh the times when I’m not.
CalMeacham, 
That story was too funny!
Inddygirl, do you think had you waited longer before having her you would have felt differently? And…why do you suppose you feel that way?
Chrisk72, so perhaps the trick is to make it a point to schedule “me” time? With me I KNOW I need that time and that’s part of my worry.
In writing all of this, I do realize that at the current moment in my life I’m am not at all ready but in a couple of years I think I could see things differently after I experience a few more things on my own. One part of it is that I feel, for some reason, that I’ve not really experienced time on my own. Granted, I did live with my SO for a very long time before knowing that I was somehow missing something I needed to find on my own. But in feeling so free and alive now, I would be hesitant to go anywhere near feeling the way I felt before. Does that make sense?
carlotta, you just about made me cry at work.
Whetherman, I never once thought about having kids until my wife became desperate to have some. I never had one of those tender thoughts “Gee, I wish I had a kid.” Or, “I wish I had a kid like that one.”
I have five kids. I wanted to stop waay earlier. I’ve never regretted any of the kids. Yeah, without the kids, I could afford a nicer home and a nice place at a ski resort. And who would I fill them with? Without kids, I would probably be some geek physicist. Because of them, I have a different, more monetarily rewarding career, that has provided me with all sorts of new experiences. When they were really young, I got to be a hero for doing nothing. Now, I get to be one every day. Just for playing! At least one of them is always glad to see me.
I understand my wife much better now that I have a few half clones running around. (I swear I only contributed eye color to one of them.) In fact, I understand and like women more now than before, when I could not seperate my physical desires from the woman. I think my wife understands me more.
Yeah, they drive me up the wall. No one pisses you off like the ones you love. I sure could use some peace and quiet; I’m pretty introspective. No time for reading, no time for thinking - I’m getting dumber by the day so I can be stupid when they are in high school.
No regrets whatsoever.
I don’t know. I think it might have been better if I had waited, but I’m not sure.
My daughter is mentally retarded. It’s been so incredibly difficult for me the last 7 years. I love her, I really do. It’s just that sometimes I don’t think there’s a real connection between she and I. She can’t communicate very well verbally. She’s never said, “I love you.” At times, it’s as if she’s still a two year old. Sometimes she throws terrible fits and embarasses me in public. I don’t want to feel that way, I just do.
I do everything I possibly can for her. My life is pretty much devoted to her 6 days of the week. Saturday nights I go out with friends and feel like I have a bit of freedom. The rest of the week I work and take care of her.
Don’t misunderstand, she has gotten better as she’s gotten older. Her behavior has improved and her communicaton has come a long way. I miss her when she’s gone and I wouldn’t want to be without her. But I always wonder, what if? What if I had gotten pregnant just a few days later? Would that have given me a normal child?
It’s hard for me to be around my girlfriend’s boy. He’s 4 and talks and talks. Sometimes he says the cutest things, and I think, “Why couldn’t my child be like that?” It’s hard, but I do the best I can.
My first child wasn’t planned. In fact, we were using birth control (note: if you put in a birth control sponge, and have long fingernails, you could puncture the sponge). But when I found out I was pregnant, it took me about 30 seconds to decide I was happy about it, and another 5 minutes to decide that my new goal in life was to be a good mother. I’m very fortunate that I have a husband who works from home most of the time, and is more than willing to lend a hand when things get overwhelming, as they sometimes do. Now I have three girls, ages 15, 12, and 3. They sort of compete for the postition of “biggest pain in the neck”, but I’ve never regretted any of them.
I remember an episode of Roseanne, where DJ says to Roseanne, “Mom, was I an acciden”
“No, DJ, you were a surprise.”
“What’s the difference?”
“An accident is something that, if you had it to do over again, you wouldn’t. A surprise is something you didn’t know you wanted til you got it”.
Sums up my feelings about my one “surprise kid” beautifully!
Indygrrl, I can only dimly imagine what you are going through. Does she ever give you a bright smile and glowing eyes? Or run for a hug?