childfree-regrets

Different take here. I’m 48 and childfree. I got married at 38, and had never wanted kids up to that point. I have always been very career-oriented and felt like it would be very hard, if not impossible, to have time for a career + time for myself + time to be a mom. Also, it didn’t help that many of my friends were stay at home moms, but I was the main breadwinner, and had a lot of anxieties about money, so I had a hard time seeing how it would be possible somehow. Plus I have always found little kids annoying – the cheerios and yogurt everywhere, the din, the Barney or Bluey songs or whatever, the chaos, etc.

Shortly after I got married at 38, my husband and I scheduled a vasectomy. We got there and I felt like it was the wrong idea, so we walked out without doing it. Years went by, with me building a career and us having a great time. When I was about 41, my husband said, ‘we really need to decide whether we have kids. It’s now or never.’ But I was in a great phase of my career, things were finally clicking after years of work and building.

But then I felt my ‘meter’ for having kids going from 100% absolutely not to 90% no / 10% yes. I kept feeling like there was some room for… something else. But the 10% was so new, and I didn’t know if that was fleeting, so I didn’t do anything about it, just observed it. Looking back, I should have explored or nurtured that 10% interest. I was open to quitting birth control and just seeing what happened; I kind of wanted the universe to decide for us. But my husband is someone who makes his decisions and sticks with them. So we didn’t do anything.

When I was 44, we adopted a dog. And Covid happened. I was actually quite glad to NOT have a kid during Covid, since it would have been so so hard.

I had thought that once it was less possible to have a kid, the angst about whether I should or not would go away. That has not been the case. I spent a few years feeling like, ‘Should I *have* a kid? Or should I *have had* a kid?” Along the way, though, my aging parents started needing help. It felt like it would be selfish to have a kid later in life at the very time my parents needed help.

Fast forward to now, at 48. I am very open to adopting or fostering, but my husband is less open to it. We are able to have him stay home, taking care of dogs and pursuing his independent dreams, and I work (this is a privileged situation, I realize, and one I would likely not have if I had not poured so much into my career.). I still feel like something is missing, and if I could, I would turn back the clock 10-12 years and worry less about career and money, and just have a kid. After all, when I look at the lives of people who are super-successful in careers, many of them have kids.

I’d say that during the weekdays, it is probably a good thing we don’t have kids. Life is busy! The weekends are mixed, usually good, with activities and seeing friends and work and dogs. Holidays can be quieter than I want, so I have found we have to sort of plan ahead to have the kind of time we each want. Vacations can be mixed –it is great to be with my husband, but I feel that something missing in the form of the next generation. I am an auntie, and I love those kids, but I have found as they have gotten older (teenagers now) they are less focused on family and more on friends at this stage.

So I have a career I have given a ton of effort and energy and sacrifice to. I now make plenty of $$ and can afford the nice house, the dogs, to support my husband, the nice clothes, and I have a lot of flexibility and feel a sense of achievement. I can likely retire in my 50s at this rate. Huge privilege. But I increasingly am resentful of it because I feel like the cost of this is me not having kids. I know I didn’t want kids when I was at the age that made sense to have them, but I wish I *had* wanted them then.

What’s also hard is I feel less relevant now. I have friends with and without kids, and I can say that when it’s a mixed group, there is less interest in the people who don’t have kids, and it sometimes feels like the people with kids have more vibrant lives.

Here’s what I would advise:
– Talk to people with and without kids, and people who regret it and don’t regret it.
– Realize that the Cheerios and yogurt everywhere phase is just a few years; it gets different over time.
– Read the book ‘Decisive’ by Chip and Dan Heath. It has a great framework for how to make a big decision.
– Realize that yes, with kids, maybe you won’t have as much time for you – but that is temporary. And with one kid, you can probably build some time in for yourself/your friends/exercise/travel/pets.
– Think of how you can ‘scooch’ towards a decision… getting your fertility tested, for instance. Toss the birth control for a month just to see how it feels. Freeze your eggs, for optionality, as others have said.
– Talk seriously about whether you could/would do the adoption or fostering route. If you ‘age out’ of having biological kids, there are still options for becoming a parent, and plenty of kids that are not infants that may be more ‘age appropriate’ matches at that point.
– Embrace pets! I absolutely love being a doggy mama. I wish I had gotten a dog sooner, since I may have realized sooner that I could be a fine mama to a human baby.
– Realize that your relationship with your career can change, making room for other things.

I hope this helps. I know it’s a minority view here. Very open to feedback.