[taco.vidal]

http://www.macleans.ca/regretful-mothers/

At first glance, Amy* is like many busy young moms—she’s 34, lives in Alberta, works full-time and is devoted to her five-year-old. “I love my son with all my heart,” she says. “My life revolves around this child.” Four nights a week from May to June are spent at a sports field, she says. “All his schoolmates do it, so if he doesn’t, he’s left out.”

When discussing motherhood, however, Amy deviates from the maternal script: if she could make that choice over again, she says, she wouldn’t. She never wanted children (“I was very independent,” she says)—her husband did. “It would have been a deal-breaker.” Parenthood put an untenable strain on the marriage; her husband wasn’t as involved as she wanted; they separated. Life is difficult, Amy reports: “Our child has two homes and I’m still doing 90 per cent of it on my own.”

Regret requires choice. So there’s little surprise that expression of parental regret mirrors the arrival of the pill, and with it the decision to delay or even forgo reproduction. The first indication came in 1975, when advice columnist Ann Landers asked readers: “If you had it to do over again, would you have children?” Of more than 10,000 responses, 70 per cent said “no.” The few attempts to quantify parental regret since have shown mixed results. A 2002-03 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that three per cent of parents disagreed with the statement: “The rewards of being a parent are worth it despite the cost and the work it takes.” A 2016 German study found eight per cent of 1,200 parents polled said they would choose not to have children again.

I think this article can generate some good discussion. Its worthwhile to read the article before commenting that kids are the best thing that ever happened to you and how could someone else think otherwise.



-