The Current - Why some parents are admitting regrets about having kids

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Parenting comes with a lot of emotions: love, joy, anxiety — and even regret. We talk to two parents who are sharing their regrets about what having kids meant for their lives. They say they want prospective parents to have a more complete story about what’s often called the “best job in the world.”

We call them clicks at Your World Tonight. It's the little word we use when someone from our team reads over and approves a story. Each one gets carefully checked and clicked more than once to make sure you always get the facts. I'm Susan Bonner. I'm Tom Harrington. And I'm Stephanie Scanderis. Together we bring you the day's news and help you understand it with a process you can trust. Your World Tonight from CBC News.

Find and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC News. Find and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, it's Matt here. Thanks for listening to The Current wherever you're getting this podcast. Before we get to today's show, wonder if I might ask a favor of you if you could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some of that news too. So if you already follow the program, thank you. And if you have done that, maybe you could leave us a rating or review as well. The whole point of this is to let more listeners find our show and perhaps find some of that information that's so important in these really tricky times. So thanks for all of

that. Appreciate it. And on to today's show. You know what they say about parenting? It is the hardest job you will ever love. But what you don't hear people say very often is that not everyone actually loves that job. I love my son and I am happy to be his mother, but I feel lied to about parenthood. I think if I had known about all of the smaller details that end up being such large day-to-day difficulties, I don't think

I would have ever wanted to be a parent. This is so draining. Sometimes I just feel like I'm drowning in what to run away from everything. They are my whole world and I live and breathe for them, but I remember a time in life where I had so many other things to live and breathe for. I miss the person I was. On Facebook, Reddit and most recently on TikTok, parents are sharing that they regret their choice to have children. The comments we just heard are a few of more than a thousand submitted to Kelly Daring. Kelly is a TikTok creator and podcaster, and she has been sharing stories from regretful parents. Kelly, good morning. Good morning.

Why did you start doing this, sharing these sorts of stories? I started this series because I noticed from a really young age that there seemed to be a discrepancy between what the world wanted me to believe about parenthood and what I actually witnessed with my own eyes. The world wanted me to believe about parenthood and what I actually witnessed with my own eyes. The world wanted me to believe that it was the most fulfilling, rewarding thing

that a woman could do, but when I watched moms with their children, I didn't see that. What did you see instead? Well, I worked in my family's restaurant starting at the age of 14, and that's where I started noticing that moms with their kids didn't look happy.

They didn't look fulfilled. I could see glimmers or moments of happiness and joy, but for the most part, what I witnessed was what looked like sheer exhaustion and stress. You yourself, you have three stepchildren. That's right. I have three stepdaughters. Yes. Yeah.

But you chose not to have children yourself. That's correct. Was that influenced by what you were seeing growing up in that restaurant? Absolutely, 100%. And it went way beyond those restaurant years. I've noticed this my whole life, and it was only through anonymous social media posts

that I got any validation because nobody would admit it. Nobody would say what they were feeling out loud. What do those parents say that they regret most often? It's very common to hear women say they regret the loss of their self. They didn't realize how much motherhood would take from them, how they would no longer be just a woman or just themself.

They are now a mother, and that's the most important thing they would no longer be just a woman or just themselves, they are now a mother. And that's the most important thing that they are. That's sometimes the only thing they are. They have no opportunity for themselves to work on their career or go to school or travel or do their hobbies, their interests. They didn't realize that it would all just get completely overtaken

by having children. You've mentioned this a few different times, that it's moms that you've often heard from. What do you think that says around our, and I say our, like society's expectations of motherhood? Oh yeah, I mean, there's only one, there's only one acceptable experience of motherhood, right? And that's joy and fulfillment. And so

women are eager, it seems, to anonymously voice their feelings about regret because they're not able to do it publicly, which is understandable. No mother wants to hurt their children in the future, or they may not want to publicly say things that result in their being completely ostracized by society because it's not acceptable generally to say, I regret having children. Is it that the parents that you hear from regret the children or they regret that they have the children? Do you know what I mean?

There's daylight between the two. There is. There is a difference, and it is that they regret becoming mothers. They don't regret their children. And many of them say, if their children could still exist and they could just not be mothers, then that would be their preference. So it's not the children, it's the act of being a mother.

It's the work of mothering that they regret. You said something interesting earlier, which was in part, and this is around the taboo of speaking like this, is because there is a concern that comments like this could have an impact on the children themselves. Yeah, I mean, they express concern that they don't want to hurt their children,

and they even feel guilty writing to me. Without their name, without their email address, they still express guilt at their feelings, and they say that it's the first time that they've said any of it out loud, so to speak. What do you think that's about? The shame that the shame put on women, the idea that there is only one acceptable experience of motherhood. And if you're not having that experience, you should be ashamed. Have you heard from any of the children of these regretful parents? I have received many messages from children of regretful parents. And either their parents told them outright, I wish you weren't here, or they could just

tell. They just knew they weren't wanted, that their parents regretted having them. That's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. They are begging people, if you don't want children or you're not sure you want children, they are begging people to not have children. And my whole hope with this series is to better inform women about the whole truth of motherhood so that they can make better choices about whether or not they have kids. Kelly, thank you very much for this. Thank you. Kelly Daring is a TikTok creator and host

of the podcast, Call Her Daring. Joining us now are two parents who know of these feelings of regret. Tanya Ryan is in Calgary and Miguel Macias is in Spain. And Miguel wrote about this idea of being a regretful parent for the New York Times last summer. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Good morning. Tanya, before you had children, did you picture yourself as a mother? I definitely waffled. I think that because the societal norm is, you know, you grow up, you get a job, you

get married, you have kids. But I also, my dad said that he was surprised. He's like, I wouldn't have believed you were going to have kids until you were pregnant because I also talked a lot about not having kids. So I was kind of on the fence about it, I suppose. How did you, it's just an awkward question, but how did you come around to that decision? I'm going to embarrassingly admit to you why I chose to have kids, which to me is embarrassing now, just understanding the gravity of the decision that I made that lightly, but it's essentially I was kind of like, I could, you know, maybe have kids, I could maybe not have

kids, I could be happy either way. And my husband was like, we were dating at the time, we weren't married yet, but he's like, I'm for sure wanting kids. And I love my husband was like, we were dating at the time, we weren't married yet, but he's like, I'm for sure wanting kids. And I love my husband, he's my best friend. So I was like, well, you want kids and I want you. So I guess that takes my 50% and topples it over the fence. And so we'll have kids. Miguel, in the piece that you wrote for the Times, you said that you knew since you were a teenager that you didn't want kids.

How did that change for you? Similar to what I just heard and my wife always wanted to have kids and her happiness was very important to me. And I was very realistic about what it means to have a baby or have a kid, meaning that they take over your life. And first thing you are is a parent. And I didn't think that I would like that. The reasons were mostly selfish. They all had to do with the things that having a kid stops you from doing basically, right? So they had to do with my career, with my personal time, with the kind of things that I wanted to accomplish. And it gets to a point in life where you're like, okay, maybe I'm not going to accomplish

those things anyway. So why don't I just try to make my partner happy? Pete Slauson Have you made that decision? When did you start feeling like you might regret having become a parent? Juan Miguel C. Lopez You know, it's not the life that I wanted, but the life I had before wasn't the life that I wanted either. So it's not that it was my perfect life. One thing that I wanted to make a distinction is the fact that you may have feelings of regret, and that doesn't mean that you definitely regret to have your child.

And that's the case with me. It's not that I have an ultimate decision that I regret having Olivia, because I adore her. I'm dedicated to her. I think that she will be an adult and she'll say that I loved her to death. But I do have moments where I feel true regret when things are really hard with my partner, with her, when everything seems to be falling apart. And then I'm also able

to get over them and be able to love my daughter. Tanya, when did you start to feel regretful? As soon as I was pregnant, basically, it got real. I was like, oh, this is happening. Can I ask you, even in that moment, regret is, again, this really interesting word. What were you regretting even that early on? I think regret is a really hard word to use because it is more nuanced than that. I think Miguel is right. Regret feels, I think, very linear to people. Like it's this, you're just kind of waking up every morning

and dreading your life and don't get me wrong, there are those days as well. But it's more sort of woven into the fabric. You really have to embrace the duality of being a human and being able to hold two things at once, which is all this love that you have and then all of this, like, kind of, but what could I be doing without this? Like, who would I be without this here? Like, career-wise, I've definitely sacrificed almost

five years now, so what could I have accomplished? And then now being out of the workforce for that long, I kind of have to restart. You have two kids now, is that right? I do, yeah. How do you balance those feelings with this avalanche of love that comes from being a parent? It's sort of like, the best way I can explain it, it's kind of like being on a boat on the ocean

and then I don't dictate the ocean, so I don't dictate the balance. It's like sometimes I'm feeling like, wow, this is beautiful, and sometimes I'm feeling like, maybe this was not a great choice. But the waves are crashing over the boat. 100%, or maybe you've spent the last five minutes underwater and you're just wanting to get a breath of air.

But I agree wholeheartedly with Kelly's main objective, which is that we as women should go into this decision way more informed. Because actually similar to Miguel, I was like, that does not sound like something I want to do. That sounds like that's going to monopolize all of my life and all of my attention. And I just don't know if I want that for me. And anytime I would talk to someone, there's sort of this like beautiful, well-intentioned gaslighting around it where they're like, oh, you'd be such a good mom or oh, you know, the first time you see that baby, it all just clicks or, you know, all those natural instincts,

they just click in and that baby becomes your first priority. But there was, you know, failure to mention that, yes, they become your first priority, but it doesn't mean you don't still want to do other things. You just have to do the baby things. Like, you have to prioritize the kid, because that's what they deserve, and that's the job you signed up for. So I think I would just like to create more honesty around the conversation so that people go in and if they have hesitations, validate the hesitations.

Miguel, in the piece that you wrote for The Times, you said, these are your words, despite my love for Olivia, I don't really enjoy playing with her. I can play for 10, 15, 20 minutes, but after that I get bored and frustrated that I'm wasting my time and that my to-do list is just growing.

Yes, I am that person. Who is that person? What I. Yes, I am that person. Who is that person? What I mean is that I am the person who doesn't necessarily like to spend hours and hours with his daughter. I like to have her in my life, and I like to help her get through the day and give her breakfast and take her to daycare,

pick her up, put her to sleep. But then when it comes to like, you know, playing and spending hours with her, that's not something that I enjoyed necessarily, you know? But I think that it's better to voice feelings and to come to terms with them than to deny them or feel guilty about them all the time. I'm very, very confident that I'm a good parent. I love Olivia

so much. But that doesn't mean that I need to love to spend one hour, you know, playing with her choice. You know, we can have feelings of contradiction and all of them can coexist inside of our brains, our hearts. One thing that I know is that I'm a human being and therefore what I feel is something that many people feel as well. I'm not the only one feeling these things. There are a lot of people, more than a thousand people who responded to that piece

and some of them were very supportive of you and there were other people who said, you're a narcissist and that you're selfish. That may be true, that is selfish and I am as probably as selfish as the next person. I live in the world trying to be a good person, but I'm not the perfect person, but I try to do good every single day. So if someone tells me that's a selfish feeling, I say yes, that's true.

If someone tells me that social services should remove my child from me, I consider that hateful, you know, I consider that not fair. This is a tricky thing to speak about publicly, but it's also tricky to talk about it privately. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I definitely have avoided having the conversation with people that have similar aged children. What would you worry about in having the conversation? I think the ostracization is certainly something. I mean, I think there is an interesting mindset that young parents have. I think honestly young parents were just very insecure and so we are very in that

insecurity, very quick to judge. You know, feeding your kid a certain type of food sometimes is hard to share, let alone these types of feelings. So you do tend to, you know, keep your guard up where you think you need to. How do you feel about your role as a parent now? It's mixed and it's nuanced, kind of like Miguel said, that there's room in your heart for a paradox, I guess. So it just, I, you know, joy that I had with my kids in particular is they didn't sleep. So, four years of only getting three to six hours of sleep a night

and the toll that took on me physically, mentally and otherwise. So, they've just started to sleep which created a lot of relief in my mental space. But yeah, it just depends on the day. Pete Mikkel, you wrote about this in one of the most widely read newspapers in the world. Do you worry that when your daughter Olivia gets older, she might see this? Olivia I don't. I feel confident that by the time she reads these, she will have been loved by me so much and I would have taught her about the complexity of feelings. I hope that she will understand that this is not as simple as regretting or not regretting. It's not as simple as being a good person or a bad person and that the

important thing is to be open, honest and to do good. And I want to emphasize that these conversations that we are having are for the human behind the parent. They're not for the benefit of our kid. And anyone that feels regret around parenting or speaks to regret around parenting, we know that having these conversations is selfish, but we're a person too. And ironically, that's kind of what we're trying to get back. And the regret of parenting is we get lost in the whole job, and this is just like reclaiming that one little thread, that one little tie back to the self.

So I hope that none of these conversations come back and harm my children. That would break my heart, and I hope that I have an environment for my kids where that's not the case. But I think these conversations are important because there are people behind parents. There are humans within a parent. I think that that is key. And I hope that the same way that we're seeing

change society, talking about mental health, I hope that this is part of that change and that we are able to speak about this more openly. I hope you're right. Tania, just finally, if somebody is listening to this and they're like you, they're 50-50, they're on the fence about having children. What would you want them to know? I'd say 50-50 is not enough.

Like you have to be- 50-50 is not enough? Not even 80% is enough. You have to be 100% sure that that is what you want to do because there will be nights or days or moments or hours where you're like, why am I here? Why did I make this choice? And if you have just at least that thread to fall back on

that I made this choice because, and I mean, that sort of works for me sometimes, depending on the day. I do believe my husband was meant to be a father. He is such an amazing father and he is such an amazing partner. And I'm really lucky to have wound up in that situation because I know there's a lot of women that wind up in a regretful state of mind and also have a really poor support system in their home or a partner that is not offering as much support and I'm really lucky that I have a great partner. But yeah, people

should just know why they're making the decision and validate that it is a serious decision and it's not necessarily going to be that you just look in your baby's eyes and everything shifts and the world changes around you because that's not everybody's experience. This is a difficult conversation to have. I'm glad to talk to you both about it. Thank you for being open and honest and willing to speak with us. Absolutely. Thank you.

Tanya Ryan is in Calgary. Miguel Macias is in Spain. They are both parents. There's no playbook for this type of fraud. Many couples dream of adopting a child. But what if that dream became a nightmare? She kept telling us, forget about Serena's baby. Now, Tara has a problem, because there's no baby.

And we all became investigators. From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, this is Baby Broker. Available now on The Binge. Search for Baby Broker wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. And Shawn-Michelle Robichaud is a psychologist who specializes in parenting practices

and parent-child relationships, and also a professor of psychology at Université de Moncton. Shawn-Michelle, good morning to you. Good morning. When you hear regret in the conversations that you have in your clinic, what goes through your mind? I think it speaks of the fact that parenting is so hard and maybe as a society, we're not very good at letting people know how hard it's going to be,

maybe partly because you kind of have to live it to understand how difficult it is but also because of this pressure or value of having families and this idea that it is going to be wonderful and great and filled with such wonderful and great and filled with such funness and beautiful memories and it's going to give the meaning to your life which is true for many parents but it's just not a guarantee whatsoever. I've been seeing parents loving their children but suffering so much at the same time and as such to say that this is for everyone I could not necessarily agree with that. What would you say, and again, it's not just the comments that Miguel got in writing that piece,

but the people who might be listening who say, yeah, parenting is really hard. Parenting requires you to take yourself out of the centre of the universe and to raise issues with it, is a sign of you being selfish and self-consumed. What would you say back to somebody who would raise that? I mean, I think one of the big concern of talking about this out loud is empathy for the child who is having a parent who's regretting and then we're just thinking like, how dare you say this out loud and I would also agree that one has to be careful when speaking about these kinds of regrets because the younger children are the

more difficult it can be for them to understand the nuances between I regret circumstances associated with having children versus I hate you. At the same time, however, I think we don't speak enough about how hard it is and how likely it is that we as parents will have, at least from time to time or chronically, some feelings of regret.

I mean, when we become a parent according to research our marital satisfaction takes a dip. We have less quality time, less intimacy. Our activities, our hobbies, they take a hit too. We don't do what we used to do as much as before. We experience much more negative emotions. There were some analysis of hundreds of thousands of people. And as soon as you say that, yes, I am a parent, your marital satisfaction takes a drop of five points on a scale that's more than five point,

but that was still very meaningful. So those are data collected across the world, across lifetime, and they exist. They exist because it's true. And if we deny this to emerging adults, to people who are ambivalent, well, we're stealing them from an opportunity to make an informed decision, which is very, very important. So what do you do about this? I mean, parenting, I say this from some experience, parenting is very, very hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I would agree with you. What do you tell people in your clinic about that? Right. Well, you know, when you don't like your

fridge, you can return it. When you don't like your kid, you don't return it. That's a reality, except in the most extreme cases where, you know, social services need to intervene and separate children from families. But apart from these situations, we will be with our children for the rest of our lives. And for all that difficulty. I mean, it's also the most rewarding thing that I've ever done. Yes. And I think an important thing needs to be acknowledged. All parents, except once again in the most extreme cases, but all parents, they also love their children. They also want what's best for their child.

So being able to say, I regret had I known I would not have had this amount of children or any children at all. It's important to have a space where this can be discussed and having empathy for the parents and acknowledging that it is normal. It creates space, it creates validation and suddenly the burden of that regret becomes less because usually saying I regret having children having children comes with a lot of guilt. We want to be great parents. We want to be like in the movies.

So being able to speak about this and having an ear that can listen and say yes, that makes sense. It is hard. Then it creates space for parents to remember that they also love their children and they want what's best for them. So it's kind of like giving a good ear is like giving energy, giving hope, giving relief. And it creates more room for them

to be the better version of their parenting self so that parents can continue the job that they are stuck with. This is an important conversation and deeply uncomfortable for some people, but in part, that's why it's important to have. Jean-Michel, thank you very much. Thank you for having me, Matt. Jean-Michel Robichaud is a clinician and professor of psychology at Université de Bonn, and he's also the father of two children, including a newborn. If you would like to share your experience as a parent, I bet you have thoughts. You can email us, TheCurrent at cbc.ca.