https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/regret-having-children-stripped-life-meaning-2320093

A really well written article..

The child-free movement is growing across the UK, with an increasing number of online communities dedicated to celebrating and supporting those without children. Laura*, a 34-year-old mother of two children (aged nine months, and two-and-a-half), tells i she wishes she could go back in time and resist the pressure she felt to become a mother.

"The idea of my two kids not existing is traumatic, as I do love them very much, but if there was some sort of time machine that would also erase my knowledge of them, I would absolutely go child-free.

I was always on the fence when it came to having kids, and I used to say I’d be child-free. Yet I also felt the pressure of everyone telling me I’d change my mind, that I’d be so glad I’d have children. I wish someone who had regretted having kids had actually told me what their experience was like.

Everyone talks about this incredible love you’ll feel for your kids. My mother said: “you won’t know what love is until you have kids”, how it’s “hard work but worth it”, and that having kids will bring your life meaning. I’m sure this is true for some people, but I have never felt this way.

I love my kids, yes, and will do anything for them, but is it this all-consuming love that feels like nothing I’ve known before? Has it brought my life this new meaning? No. In fact, I feel like it’s stripped away all the other things in my life that gave it meaning, and now there is only one purpose, it feels, which is to be in service to my children.

I wish I had known that not everyone will love being a parent, and that it is very common for parents to regret having kids. I wish I had known just how extreme the impact on my life would be. Everything that made my life what it was, has been burnt into ash.