What I Regret About Having Children

A TIME article highlights parents who regret having children and it got me thinking...

Photo by Charlein Gracia on Unsplash

TIME Magazine recently published an article titled “The Parents Who Regret Having Children”

The author, R.O. Kwon, interviewed several parents who say they regret having their families and wish they’d made different choices for their own lives. 

One woman, a high school teacher in her forties, going as “Helen” to protect her privacy, said she felt pushed into motherhood by societal expectations.

“I don't think that everyone is made for children,” says Helen, a high school teacher in her 40s. And telling people that their purpose is to reproduce is destructive, she adds. It’s what she heard growing up: though Helen wanted to take Latin in high school, her mother forced her to enroll in home economics instead. “I don't think I ever decided to have kids. I was pretty much just told that that's what you do. That's what girls are for,” Helen says.

When asked what she’d be doing without having to spend so much time in child rearing, Helen says she’d write, take walks and go back to school. In one heartbreaking moment, Helen tells TIME that while she loves her children, she wishes she’d never gotten pregnant in the first place. 

“I would have stopped that pregnancy before it happened.” But that’s the part Helen’s never said to her daughters, who, after all, didn’t ask to be born. She’s hell-bent on raising them well, not taking out any regrets on the girls. “I love them. I just don't love the choice I made.”