Mothers who regret having children are speaking out

Re:Mothers who regret having children are speaking out by monktastic1 on Friday January 12, 2018 @10:52AM (#16133757)

I don't understand the "no sympathy" part. When a friend runs a marathon, yes, they expected to be totally out of breath and have jellified legs, but I still cheer them on and help them recover and celebrate. I don't think I'd be a very good friend if during the race I were saying (or even thinking) "I have no sympathy for you, what did you expect?" -- even if they're complaining.

To me, this seems related to the purpose of the article: being a parent requires a stiff upper lip according to our culture, unlike most everything else in life.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mothers who regret having children are speaking out by ankjl on Friday January 12, 2018 @02:45PM (#16135690)

I think the difference in perception, as compared to running a marathon, is that parenting is more an equivalent of entering a marathon where you have no option to stop, regardless of circumstances, and your performance has a massive impact on the life of another person.

If that were the way marathons worked, I think the reaction of the audience to someone's struggle to finish the race would be different.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mothers who regret having children are speaking out by scotty79 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @02:52PM (#16171166)

> ...your performance has a massive impact on the life of another person.

Not really. There are bad people who had wonderful parents and great people who had bad parents or no parents at all.

Child is separate new fresh human being, getting to human level from the level of vegetable over 18+-3 years.

The fact that it got some half of your genes doesn't make you special and if you don't let it die or get malnourished and give it chance at some positive human interaction and variety of fairly safe objects to tamper with it'll be fine and won't be much better off even if you tried you hardest.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mothers who regret having children are speaking out by monktastic1 on Friday January 12, 2018 @03:00PM (#16135826)

> If that were the way marathons worked, I think the reaction of the audience to someone's struggle to finish the race would be different.

Indeed, I would expect more support instead of less. "You should have known" may be accurate but it feels unhelpful.

[ Parent | on HN ]