Almost every parent I know talks up having kids like they are an Easter Show urger, saying “it changes your life!”, “you don’t know what love is until you have a child!” or “it focuses you on what’s really important!“.

However, scattered among those exclamations will be a person who will admit “if I’d known what it was going to be like, I probably wouldn’t have done it” or “I’m really struggling. I want my old life back.”

These disclosures are usually accompanied by a sense of guilt or fear they will be judged a lesser person, or at least parent, because of their “failings”.

The shame of this is that with so few people talking publicly about the negative aspects of parenthood they often come as a nasty shock to new mums and dads, with “why didn’t anybody warn me” being the unspoken message.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates one in four women in this country will remain childless for “a wide variety of reasons … these range from lifestyle choices relating to the pursuit of education and a career, to a preference for a life without children”.

“For some, the cost of raising children, in terms of both time and money, is a barrier, while for others, health concerns such as fear of passing on a genetic defect to a child are contributing factors,” reports the bureau in the 2002 Australian Social Trends study.

I do not have children and I am not ruling them out altogether, but as I get older, the sacrifices faced by my friends who have taken the plunge seem ever more daunting.

First they all get rather fat, their social life evaporates and they look 10 years older from lack of sleep; a little further down the track and the suggestion of international travel is still met with an amused snort, their sex lives have curled up to die under the doona and, as their sprogs sprout further, they become obsessed with backyards and moving to moonscape suburbs…

Candid first-time parents have told me they did not realise the effect their child had on their life until a few months into the process, when the elation of the birth was replaced by a creeping terror they did not know what they were doing. It was not until their children hit about age five that the real drudgery began, the realisation that driving kids to school and soccer practice was their lot in life for the next decade…

If you have found parenthood a nightmare, you are often considered weak or selfish or lacking a certain humanity. Perhaps we would all be better off not shouting down or judging those who have found the experience unfulfilling or nerve-shattering and instead let their stories be heard so the rest of us can walk through the nursery door with our eyes wide open.

Source: The Age, Australia
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