Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids
I was one of those ppl that made the decision of not having kids. I am a 40 yr old man now. This was the single worst decision I've ever made in my whole life. My spouse is 39 so the window has closed for biological children, more or less.
My life is now dominated by regret every day. I just can't get over that feeling. I've tried many things like therapy, counseling ect. It only helps for a little bit but I am still doing therapy. Some nights I wake up with panic and stay up all night with shallow breathing and high heart rate.
I used to LOVE working and all things tech, now just make do and do bare minimum to not get fired. I 've gotten few promotions here and there but nowhere near my potential of where my career could've been. Everything is just secondary, nothing is interesting.
I am constantly triggered by families and young kids. Even reading that post sent my heart rate soaring (apple watch) with anxiety . I just don't know what to do, its too unbearable. I fantasize about things like getting cancer and that seems to calm me down a little bit. Sometimes I fantasize about leaving my spouse, who I love to death, find someone who I can have a child with.
367 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 286 ms ] threadAlternatively, you can consider adopting a kid which will give you the exact same dad feelings.
Nothing to regret yet, just do it!
Not only biologically but also There are thousands of younger 30ish women who'd see 0 problem have a kid with a mature 40 y.o. (rather than a 30 y.o. whos head is not there yet)
Of course you probably wont have the same relationship with your wife but thats your life, not hers. And if you wake up with panic attacks over kids you HAVE to do it or youll never forgive yourself in 10 / 20 years.
And if you feel guilty about reversing your decision to be childless, think that same way that you can give and take back consent any time, you have the right to change your mind anytime.
Marriage was invented when there was no contraception and life expecancy was half of what it was now.. No one should be miserable for the sake of "being married".
Marriage is between adults and life expectancy for adults was nearly the same as it is now.
I would expect HN to know that life expectancy in earlier times was suppressed due to child mortality.
Invented is such a terrible word. It was a contract. And within that contract was a place for love to grow without the idea the person was going to leave. And within that love was a place for family.
Today some celebrate the inverse. Have family. Then love. Then marry. Then divorce. And leaves little to no safe place for any of the above.
In some case yes. "Hope for the best, plan for the worst as people say".
The OP regrets not having children. His younger self made that decision. He is not too old to go and have kids with someone else or adopt (say as a single dad even).
Go have kids man! If your wife doesn't want to then get divorced. If she does then work together. IVD, adoption etc...
You remain faithful to the contract, or you are violating the contract in bad faith.
There’s no requirement to give a reason or even have a reason to end a marriage.
Marriage is not some form of slavery. It's painful to have dissolved... But very doable if the situation is bad enough.
Now the problem with op, is that it appears he is depressed and burnt-out, and is transferring the depression to a biological drive for children. To do this would be unhealthy for everyone, including any children they bring in the world.
> And if you wake up with panic attacks over kids you HAVE to do it or youll never forgive yourself in 10 / 20 years.
No, that is definitely not set in stone, you may not find fulfillment in that, please that possibility also in mind.
> but thats your life,
No, it is also your wife's and your eventual future child's life, but I'd not take this advice if only for your life unless your current relationship is already broken. The sudden you regret your childlessness, the same you may regret this decision and consequences soon.
In PARTICULAR, wanting or not children is probably the n°1 important criteria to be in a relationship or not. Im not telling him to leave his wife but its an option that is very likely to appear, and also that "staying because of past decision to your wife" might bring more pain to him on the long run than leaving her to have a child. Its a purely rational decision (which of course is not to be rushed either).
People (like you?) seem to believe in the "soulmates for life" dream but practical experienxe has shown me its not for everybody and many people end up miserable by saying in the same relationship out of principles or fear while they had so many good other options at some point..
Choose wisely.
Barring that, fostering is a possibility, but the requirements to do so and the ease of it vary on where you are. Fostering is not something to enter into lightly, but it seems to be highly rewarding. I have a friend adopting the child she fostered, it wasn't always easy, but she's very happy.
Good point about IVF.
You are depressed, anxious, and have lost sight of what you want out of life. I don't know if kids are the bandage here. At the least, you need to figure out yourself before, or at least in parallel, to working on introducing young children into your family.
It's hard to offer specific advice on such a broad topic to a stranger. You've taken the right steps (therapy, counseling), but you have yet to find your inner peace. What do your social connections look like? Genuine social connection is usually highly correlated with happiness. Those connections can give you a sense of purpose (which is part of having kids) and a "place" in this growingly isolated world.
I'd start there, if you have not. Investing in people and in the relationships you have is absolutely critical to ones happiness. I'd be curious to hear more about how you see this part of your life.
It sounds very likely that even if you magically had a baby with your SO tomorrow, this would not be the "solution" you are looking for. Maybe it wouldn't be long until you feel the same level of regret over having had a kid, only now with an additional level of guilt.
Raising a child should be about the child first and foremost, not about you trying to resolve your existential crisis.
> Sometimes I fantasize about leaving my spouse, who I love to death, find someone who I can have a child with.
The solution, then, is to figure out a way to achieve them.
This isn't to say that the OP is wrong, but rather that in their communication, they focused more on their longing than their parenting, implying that the want of parenting is more important to them than the parenting itself.
Consider also that this thread didn't come from a day's ponderings; it's a reaction to another article about how most of the time spent with children is before the child reaches 12 (as quoted in the OP). Such a trigger could suggest more fear-of-missing-out than inherent regret.
I never wanted to parent (that's simply a necessary constituent part), but I've always wanted to have kids, a family, a legacy, teach them, raise them, provide them a warm safe cozy family environment (that I remember from my childhood).
So far I'm very happy with the decision and 0% regret (only 10 months in though).
Forty is often that turning point in life where the end starts to look closer to the beginning. You have a lot more of your life to look back at and less to look forward to. We joke about mid-life crises, but they're a real thing.
The OP sure sounds to me like they're going through exactly that, and children have become a fixation.
And if they're struggling with anxiety and depression now, I can't imagine what they'd go through as a parent.
At minimum, they should not be making any decisions until they get a little healthier. First, it's very unlikely any decision they take, today, would be rational. And second, if they did choose to become a parent, they'd be doing so at a time when they're incredibly mentally and emotionally fragile, which is a recipe for disaster.
I'm not going to psychoanalyze someone by a single text message, but I also thought it was unusual to swing that hard. Probably the decision was not thought well and hence the regret, maybe the neighbors have beautiful babies and FOMO brings regret, maybe it's a mid-life crisis where we worry about our legacy, only they know.
I can only contribute my experience deciding not having kids. We both agreed to not have them, we're 50 now, the window has closed indeed for us, and we don't regret that decision at all. It's fantastic to age together and be the center of our own little family. What little need for forging a malleable mind is left, is fulfilled by the sporadic visits to/from our nephews and nieces.
Whatever OP does, I hope he doesn't do it on impulse. It's immensely better to regret not having kids, than regret having them.
It makes me laugh when people talk about having a "legacy"
99.999% of people are unremarkable. There are currently just over 1M Wikipedia articles about living people. Meanwhile, there are 7.7B people on the planet. Even if you made the incorrect assumption that all 1M were about living Americans, with the US population being nearly 330M, that means you'd have to be in the top 0.3% to even have a Wikipedia article about you.
Unless you become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or at least a state-level politician, or become a high-profile criminal, you will probably be forgotten entirely within three generations of your death.
It surprises me that some people have a hard time coming to terms with this.
I might never have a wikipedia article about me, but at least I had kids and they will have kids and so on. Of course, I will eventually be forgotten (I don't know who my great great grandparents were) but if it weren't for them I would not be here today. One of the defs is " something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past".
Your children will have 1/2, or .5, of your DNA. Your grandchildren will have .25, great-grandchildren will have .125, then .0625....after 10 generations (about 300 years), your descendents will have 0.000977 of your DNA. After 30 generations (900 years) your descendents wil have 0.000000000931 of your DNA.
What kind of "legacy" are people thinking that they are leaving behind? All traces of your DNA will effectively disappear from all your progeny. You are gone, not a trace. Your DNA vanishes.
It is something special. I have a kid now and another coming in the next few weeks. It is both the most time consuming and expensive thing I can do but also the most meaningful. I never thought I would feel this way 5 years ago. It is definitely dismissive to tell someone hey your feelings are rooted in other problems. It is not like OP is longing for a cupcake or something. So I support the OP and if it is really something you need, do it!
In addition to the importance of a sense of community and purpose (whether derived from children or not), I'd also like to contribute another lens through which to view anxiety and depression.
Things like lack of exercise, poor sleep, nutrient deficiencies, caffeine/nicotine/alcohol abuse, under-exposure to sunlight and nature can all cause physiological cascades which result in depression and anxiety irrespective of ones life achievements or circumstances.
And yet, at least in my experience, when feelings of depression and anxiety are present, the first thought is of life circumstances. If only I had a better job, better spouse, loving children, fame, fortune, I would not be anxious and depressed.
It's all too easy to latch on to a perceived lack of something in your life and blame it for any and all of your negative emotions and moods.
Like most human beings, I struggle somewhat significantly with a few specific regrets from my past, as well as the anxiety of navigating important life decisions as they come up.
When I'm feeling particularly anxious or depressed my mind is more inclined to ruminate over past regrets, or to dread upcoming life events. If I'm not present, I still often fall into the trap of believing that I'm depressed and anxious BECAUSE of these regrets or upcoming circumstance in my life.
What I've learned though is that at least for me, it's helpful to first attribute feelings of anxiety and depression to core fundamental needs like sleep, exercise, nutrition, sunlight, etc rather than to jump to and ruminate over regrets and fears.
I suppose a way to refer to a framework like this would be something like 'physiological anxiety and depression' vs 'circumstantial anxiety and depression'.
I believe it is totally possible to have anxiety and depression caused by issues to do with sleep, nutrition, substance abuse, and for your brain to trick you into believing that you're unhappy with your life circumstances.
This all being said, I in no way want to downplay circumstantial anxiety and depression and insinuate that they are not real. It's vital to have things like purpose, community, and to be generally satisfied and excited about ones path through life.
To OP: This opportunity can be leveraged even though it wasn't necessarily the situation you thought you would be in at this age. Life is funny that way.
The key is to find out about yourself first, and only then decide what you want to do. If you have not found your inner peace yet, it is very difficult to make good life decisions.
My own background: self-harm and substance abuse. The key to leaving these things behind was to spend time doing hard work on myself. We all hate hearing this and I hated it too at first, but there is no way for things to get better without hard work. The miracle cure will never work, no matter how hard we wish.
I got a lot out of this Buddhist lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-jiIpcYMZw
Paraphrasing the video: a cure that works instantly without having to do any work is really a person saying "give me a drug that feels good forever."
That said, are you sure you are otherwise ok? What you write sounds like you may be dissatisfied of your current life in other dimensions as well as not just "having kids". Please don't get kids just as a bandaid, if the motivation is that your life sucks and you imagine getting kids will make your life better - because it likely wont.
Speaking from experience - especially dreaming of an easy way out (I wish I had cancer) sounds like you may have mental health issues. When I was into clinical depression I used to dream of getting a disease and dying out. I really suggest you talk to a professional about these feelings.
If your wife doesn't want kids, I'm afraid that you will have to make a difficult decision either way. But, you can still become the cool uncle if there are kids in your family: take them to trips, attraction parks, movies,... and offer the parents a deserved break.
Secondly, you should absolutely find a therapist (edit: missed that you're doing that already), perhaps one that specializes in these issues, and also a psychiatrist to help manage your anxiety.
You have been in the two extremes of parenting. From deciding not to have kids to miserably missing the kids you didn't have.
So, my question is: Is this really about having/not having kids, or is it some kind of existential crisis projected in the absence of kids in your life?
Start IVF now.
Look at overseas options ie Thailand if you need a donor and it's tricky locally.
[Start looking at surrogacy] - This is hard
Continue counseling. There's something bigger going on, a kid won't solve your problems.
And who knows, maybe in 30 years time you can do it. I'd bet aging might be reversable by then. It might just cost $. I have heard rumors of cloning, also needs $, start with IVF.
But you should also consider adoption. You can love them just as you can love your biological children.
Is she on board though? If not, you don't need to stay with her. Your goals in life are worth more, and you don't want to resent her for the rest of your life "you're the reason I don't have kids and I regret it always"
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/cdc-birth-rates-middl...
Parents who models ignoring them when small will teach them they shouldn't listen. That comes home to roost when they are older and become assertive of their place in the world.
Another is to carve out family time every single day. They will get wrapped up with friends and other things. You want family bonds that are stronger than ties with ephemeral friends, and that takes serious investment. We always have family dinner and discussions every night, with only very rare exceptions allowed.