- Therapist reacts.
There's a Buzzfeed article that I just read about
"Parents Who Regret Having Children,
They're Making Anonymous Confessions Online,
And It's Taboo But Important."
That's the full title of the article.
And boy, do I relate to this one.
Not that I regret having children,
but I don't regret with a capital R.
I sometimes regret with a lowercase R, right?
If you look at it day in, day out,
I'm so glad that I'm a father.
I'm so glad that I have kids.
But if you go in the macro,
like on the whole big picture.
But on the little picture, the smaller moments,
sometimes it's exhausting.
Sometimes it's infuriating, and sometimes it feels hopeless
and I could totally relate to these parents.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pick the top seven,
the highest voted comments on this Reddit thread
and I'm going to address these parents
who regret having children, or if it's not that strong,
but you love your kids and you love being a parent,
but man, sometimes it just burns you out,
I'm gonna give my pointers for how to cope, how to deal,
how to make the best of your situation,
the best of your life, best of your family,
and to actually enjoy parenting again.
The first one, "I love my kids,
and I'm told I'm a pretty good dad,
and sometimes I enjoy it,
but most of the time it's just draining.
I understand that there are people out there
who enjoy spending time with kids,
just like there are people who enjoy talking to strangers
and suffice it to say, I'm just not one of them."
So Alicia, if you follow "Mended Light" you've seen Alicia.
Alicia became a mother because of a spiritual experience,
an experience with God where she felt called to be a mother.
But as far as what she wants to do,
as far as what she gets joy from, it's career,
it's profession, it's research and study and learning
and making a difference in the world and using her talents
in advancing and progressing and setting goals
and achieving those goals,
and kids get in the way of all of that. (laughs)
Kids, I mean, literally
it's like the train track is broken, right?
And then the train just gets derailed.
And so she especially can relate to this one.
I can relate to this one in the sense of,
I love being a dad, but I didn't know
that I had an angry side until I was a father.
And I didn't know I could feel so helpless or so hopeless
or so inadequate until I was a father.
The advice that I would give this person who wrote this is,
it's okay to be real with yourself.
There's different types of parenting experiences.
And just because you don't like kids per se
doesn't mean you can't love your kids.
We love who we serve.
We love who he sacrifice for
when we invest time and energy into people.
We find our love for them.
And that is no more true than in the case of parenting.
The next one, "I have custody of my brother's kids.
I don't want them. I already have one of my own.
My brother's kids are not as well-behaved as my children.
It is very frustrating. I love them.
I will protect them and take care of them.
I find myself very upset by the fact that I just can't seem
to love them as much as my children.
It's depressing and I hate myself because I feel this way.
I try so hard not to let my nieces and nephews see
that I struggle with this, but kids are smart,
and I know they pick up on it."
Oftentimes the behavior precedes the emotion, right?
We show love.
That's not fake it till you make it.
It's, love is an ability. It's not just a feeling.
And sometimes we show love for people
even if we're not necessarily feeling it in the moment
because we know it's there at the bedrock.
We know it's there at the core level.
Showing love to these kids will help the feeling of love
to return, but it may take a long time,
and it's not a competition.
It is completely 100% okay for you to feel more natural,
loving feelings towards your biological children
then towards any children in your care.
If you're watching this at home, maybe you have step kids
or you're part of a blended family
or you've adopted or you're fostering.
Feelings don't just come naturally.
An old friend of mine once said,
"You can't force matters of the heart."
And that's not just in dating. That's also in parenting.
So allow yourself to be okay
with whatever you're feeling at the moment.
Remember, you are choosing to give and to sacrifice.
You are choosing to love and to serve and to raise.
You are choosing to be there for these people, these kids.
That is incredible. That is love.
And the fact that sometimes you don't like them (laughs)
because they're not very likable or sometimes the fact
that you feel more drawn to your biological children,
there's no shame in that.
Just like there's no shame in,
you feel drawn to certain people to be your friends
more than others or you're more close
to one sibling over another.
We can't control exactly what we're feeling all the time,
but we can control how we show up for people.
"I have a son who I didn't want.
His mother treated me terribly when we were together
and we only found out she was pregnant after we separated.
Being able to finally escape an abusive relationship
only to be pulled back in with pregnancy was devastating.
That being said, my son and I have an incredible bond,
and while my relationship with his mom never recovered,
I'm glad she made the decision
to keep him against my wishes."
Yeah, it's hard when a child reminds you of a parent
who you no longer love or a parent who hurt you,
when you can see it in their eyes
or in their facial structure and their mannerisms
or in their behaviors, especially, it is very, very natural
to project involuntarily feelings from the one to the other.
It's vital to remind yourself day in, day out,
I am dealing with the person in front of me
and they are not responsible for the behavior of the other.
"I don't like being a mom.
I'm a single mom and they are with me always.
I never get a break.
One adult, three kids. I'm tired.
I'm counting the days until they are all moved out and gone.
I constantly imagine
how great my life would be without them.
And then I feel like a horrible person
because who thinks like that?
I'm such a good mom to them too.
No one would ever guess I think like that. I'm a fake.
You're probably not a fake.
We take door number one, we take door number two,
we take door number three.
It's natural to wonder
what the other doors might've held for us.
That's true in our romantic partnerships.
That's true in our friendships. That's true in our careers.
That's true with parenting, but be careful about fantasizing
the grass is always greener.
My life will be better when I don't have kids.
Odds are these challenges
will just be replaced with these challenges.
These struggles will just be replaced with these struggles.
These struggles will just be replaced
with these joys, right?
It'll just all be new stuff.
There is no, my life is so great now.
There's, we love, we live, we strive, we struggle.
We experience joys and successes.
We experience blows and crushing, crushing defeats,
and we live but that's okay.
It's okay that, yeah, when your kids are grown,
you will have a different life.
And there are things you will get to do now
that you didn't get to do then.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing bad person about that.
Most of these that I'm reading is people feeling crushed
by societal expectations of what it means to be a parent
and not giving themselves permission to just be,
to just feel, to just experience, to just fantasize.
It's okay.
Are you showing up for these kids? Are you loving them?
Are you supporting them? Are you raising them?
Are you providing for their needs?
Are you showing them love?
If the answer is yes, you're a good parent.
Even if sometimes you don't feel it here or here.
"I love my kids. I would die for them.
But after having them,
I realized I don't want to have any kids.
I can't seem to enjoy them. I'm too serious with them.
I think it's because I have to make sure
they grow to be good people.
I'm responsible for them.
I wish I could enjoy them,
but I have a hard time getting out of my seriousness."
How your kids turn out isn't entirely on you.
They are autonomous beings who will grow up
to make their own choices.
A lot of parents feel like how a kid turns out
is a reflection on who they are as a parent.
And while sometimes that's, I mean, there is truth to that,
but it's not that black and white.
Again, your kids are gonna make their own choices.
And if you're too serious about who they grow up to be,
if you're too stressed about them being good,
you'll forget to give them what they need
that helps them to be good, which is acceptance,
which is belonging, which is hope,
which is self-esteem that comes from, I'm good enough.
Enjoy them.
When you stress about making them just right,
you're gonna screw 'em up. (laughs)
Not always, but that is how we often, we screw kids up
either by going too far into apathy
or too far into rigid anxiety.
Now, if you're hearing this and you're like, "Uh-oh,"
don't panic, set it right.
If you care enough to be involved,
if you care enough to teach them
and to give them consequences, that's enough.
You teach 'em,
you teach them that choices have consequences.
You teach them mortality,
and then you just enjoy and love them
and they're going to make the choices they're going to make.
"I don't feel like a mom. I feel like a caregiver.
I get little joy in taking care of my daughter
and am constantly worn down, I'm exhausted.
This pandemic has destroyed what little sanity I had left
as I can't even get a small break
because there is no school."
Yeah, I think we all can relate to that a little bit.
I mean, yeah, nap time, outside play time, right?
COVID restrictions are lifting.
And so time with friends, time outside,
depending on your neighborhood, right?
Time reading, time listening to music.
And then the biggest one is getting your kids to bed early
so you have a couple of hours for yourself
before you go to bed.
I know in some families that's easier said than done,
and it's not that cut and dry, but for a lot of people
having the discipline to get them down
and to keep them down will do wonders for your life.
And if you don't feel like you're a caregiver, I mean,
if you don't feel like a parent, you feel like a caregiver
indulge in play more often, and not just for your child.
Like, sometimes we play with our kids half-heartedly
because it's like, uh, okay, I need to do this
so they'll leave me alone.
But if you actually play with your kids,
but you do it for you, you do it to enjoy the moment,
you do it to laugh, you do it to get some exercise.
Don't see it as just another check-off
but as actual engagement.
There's joy there that we can rediscover and rekindle.
"It set the tone for the rest of my life.
One of those hindsight is 20/20 things.
I honestly believe that if I'd never had a kid,
particularly when I was as young and alone as I was
in a very socially backward area,
I'd have made a lot more of myself.
Both of our lives could have been a lot better
had I either waited to have her
or let another couple adopt her like I wanted,
but I was forced out of the choice."
This person is trapped in what if.
And yes, like I said, we do explore,
I wonder what would've happened
if I had gone through door number two, right?
But there's a difference between meandering down that road,
once in a while and living in that space.
You do have this child. You did choose this life.
Whatever might've been, focus on radical acceptance
which is, I'm gonna divert my energies
to the things I have control over,
the things I can directly influence.
That's what I'm gonna do.
That's what I'm gonna work on.
That's where I have my biggest impact.
So yes, it set the tone for your entire life.
The good news is, even if it's not the life
you would have chose yourself,
could you do it all over again?
It's the life you have and you can make the most of it.
And as cheesy and as Hallmark as that is,
I legitimately believe that's true.
Embracing what is instead of fretting over what isn't
is a great way to find peace.
Folks, it's not always "Full House" moments.
Parenting is hard.
It is the hardest thing my wife and I have ever done,
either of us as a couple but also as individuals.
It's the hardest thing we've ever done.
There's joy there. We love who we serve.
But being okay with, it's hard.
Sometimes I don't want it anymore.
Sometimes I feel disrespected, unappreciated.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, sad, hopeless, a failure.
Normalizing these things and not thinking.
What I loved about this thread is, I mean,
there's hundreds of these comments in this Reddit thread.
You're not alone. This is a common experience.
What people post on Instagram and Facebook
of how happy their family is,
it's not necessarily a lie, but sometimes it is.
Other times, it's a moment in time.
Look at these happy snapshots.
Our family photos that make it on social media,
there's a bunch of rejected photos
that I'm not allowed to post. (laughs)
That because it's real and it's hard
and it's okay to not love it all the time.
It's even okay not to feel the emotion of affection
and love towards your kids all the time.
You show it and then you feel it.
And sometimes it takes time.
There's a lot more to say on the subject,
but I hope this was helpful to someone today.
If you are enjoying this therapist reacts series,
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And check out this playlist right here
'cause I've got a lot more of these.
Thank you for joining me,
and sound off in the comments below.
How do you cope with being worn out from parenting
or feeling like you made a mistake
or that sometimes you don't want your kids?
Can you relate to that on any level?
We'd love to know how you work through it.
I'm Jonathan Decker, licensed therapist signing off
(cheerful music)