I’m Full of Regret at Ever Having Children Because I Miss My Old Life So Much – Why Didn’t Someone Warn Me Not to Do It?, by E. Coughland

I’m Full of Regret at Ever Having Children Because I Miss My Old Life So Much – Why Didn’t Someone Warn Me Not to Do It?, by E. Coughland

(Link): I’m full of regret at ever having children because I miss my old life so much – why didn’t someone warn me not to do it?

Feb. 1, 2023
by E. Coughland

A mum-of-two has revealed she is ‘full of regret’ at having had children and said she misses her old life.

Taking to the parenting platform Mumsnet, the British woman explained that she missed the ‘freedom and luxury’ of not having to think of everyone else all the time.

She admitted that she didn’t feel that parenting was particularly ‘rewarding’ and if someone had warned her not to have kids she might have listened.

Some people suggested that she was probably depressed, while others said they agreed that having kids was not for everyone.

The mother explained: ‘I’ve got two children who I love and they are sweet children who will (hopefully) grow into lovely people one day, and I adore them 80% of the time when there’s no tantrums etc.

‘But despite loving them, I feel deeply full of regret at ever having children. I miss my “old life” so, so, so much, I miss the freedom of just every single thing that comes without having children.

‘I miss my husband and how we used to be/how our relationship was then. I miss lazy weekends, not having to get up. And the travel I used to do… this is probably the biggest thing.

‘Yes I know I can still do things, and we do. But I mean that I miss the freedom and luxury of not having to think all the details/about everyone else. Everything is so much more of an effort, and I just basically really wish I’d stayed without children.

‘I don’t feel that parenting is particularly ‘rewarding’ even when they do something pretty amazing. It’s cute but I don’t get any joy from it per se.

‘Probably one of the only things in life that you genuinely can’t change once it’s happened.

‘I don’t want people of offer ‘fixes’ on how I can do this or that. I guess I just wanted a safe space to voice my feelings because I can’t really say this out loud in real life.

Retired Navy SEAL Made Famous After Coming Out as Trans Announces Detransition: ‘Destroyed My Life’

Retired Navy SEAL Made Famous After Coming Out as Trans Announces Detransition: ‘Destroyed My Life’

I think it’s important to hear testimonies from detransitioners, but this was carried by FOX News – Fox news just “celebrated” transgenderism in children in a segment they ran during “Pride Month” earlier this year. I may have done a post about that previously on my blog – yeah, I did; it’s located (Link): here.

By the way. Just because someone works as a medical doctor or a psychiatrist or a psychologist does not mean that person is intelligent, wise, ethical, or compassionate or infallible.

People who work in these careers and more (police, judge, priest, school teacher, church pastor, nurse, etc etc) can also have toxic personality disorders and/or politically motivated agendas (they’re partisans; they’re not about the truth).

(Link): Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: ‘Destroyed my life’

‘I destroyed my life. I’m not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help,’ retired Navy SEAL said

By Emma Colton
December 11, 2022

A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to “wake up” about how transgender health services are hurting children.

“Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it,” Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. “Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I’m not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help.”

“I take full responsibility,” he continued. “I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that.”

Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.

Woman Breaks Taboo as She Admits ‘Loathing’ Being a Mother – After Spending £100,000 to Have a Baby

Woman Breaks Taboo as She Admits ‘Loathing’ Being a Mother – After Spending £100,000 to Have a Baby

(Link): Woman breaks taboo as she admits ‘loathing’ being a mum – after spending £100,000 to have a baby

Excerpts:

by Alice Mann

For almost a decade I’d dreamed of this, I thought, gazing into the cot with tears pouring down my face. For so long, all I wanted was to be a mother, to make my partner a father. Now my dream had come true. And it was a nightmare.

After a serious relationship had ended when I was 35, I’d worried I’d never meet anyone else and never have my own children. I did everything to make it happen. At 36, I froze my eggs; at 40, still single, I tried to conceive on my own with donor sperm.

Then I met someone when I was least expecting to, and we tried together, enduring IVF, a natural pregnancy and a miscarriage before deciding to go down the route of finding an egg donor. When, at 44, on my eighth cycle of IVF, and my first using a donor egg, I finally got pregnant, and stayed pregnant, I didn’t dare to believe my luck.

But after a relatively straightforward birth — a planned C-section, based on my age and the size of the baby — our son was here.

When they placed him on my chest, I didn’t feel that rush of love people talk about. I mostly felt disbelief that after so long, here he was … ‘He’s so perfect,’ I whispered, in awe.

But four weeks later I was struggling to remember that feeling. Because what I felt as I stared at this screaming baby, the baby I’d wanted so, so much, the baby that I’d invested so many years of my life, and so much money — I guess around £100,000 all told, but I stopped counting after I hit £50,000 — in making a reality, wasn’t awe. It was resignation, resentment, horror and abject misery.

‘There is not one part of this that I’m enjoying,’ I sobbed.

And then I’d feel racked with guilt. Guilty for having these unnatural, unmotherly feelings. …

Evangelical Adoptions: Churches Are AWOL in Helping Parents of Special Needs Kids by Julia Duin – Churches Are Useless (and Not Just Re: Adoptive Families)

Evangelical Adoptions: Churches Are AWOL in Helping Parents of Special Needs Kids by Julia Duin – Churches Are Useless (and Not Just Re: Adoptive Families)

By Julia Duin, who has also written and has been interviewed about how churches have let down single adults over the age of 30, and who wrote a wonderful book called “Quitting Church.”

This article discusses how so many evangelical churches encouraged Christian couples to adopt babies (usually from foreign nations), but once those adopted babies grew up to have all sort of developmental or personality disorders, churches would not help these parents.

This is like so much of American, evangelical, Baptist and Protestant Christianity:
Sell a certain deed, or a type of life style (or whatever it may be – let’s call it “X,” whether it’s adopting a baby, or whatever it is) as being so “godly” and “pure,” but once you live X out, and X either does not work out, or it creates a whole new batch of problems, those same Christians, or ones like them who promote X, refuse to help you.

I went through something similar in regards to adult singlehood. I wrote about that (Link): here.

I followed all the Christian dating advice I was taught as a teen and 20- something, Christian advice that taught me if I wanted to get married I would, if I just followed “biblical” wisdom, and the Christian persons, books, and magazine articles spelled it out for me.

However, when I remained single into my mid-30s, in spite of having followed the Christian teaching I had been given by other Christians when younger, and when I began asking Christians online (on various blogs and discussion forums) who dish out this swill to singles, why I didn’t have the husband I had been promised according to their teaching, interpretations, and worldview, I was yelled at, judged, and criticized by these Christians.

I was told God didn’t owe me anything, etc, and how dare I expect God to “reward” me with a spouse just because I did Z, Q, and R (i.e., just because I had followed Christian teaching and advice on the topic).

Christians will do this to you – they will sell you and market you on doing X, and so you carry out X, but five, ten years later, X did not work out and maybe even left you with a set of problems you need help with, the same Christians that sold you X in the first place are now not willing to help you, and may even insult you when you go to them telling them that X did not work, and you could use their help.

You end up getting punished for taking the very life-style advice, for buying the marketing, these Christians sold you, guilt tripped you, or conned you into taking in the first place. 😤🤬😡😣😫

It’s demonic and perverse, I swear.

It is crazy-making and despicable how Christians set people up in these no-win or stressful or miserable situations, then fault those people when they try the Christian advice, and admit to defeat, stress, and they ask for help.

Christians set people up for failure with their stupid advice, then have the audacity to victim-blame those people (who earnestly took and followed the advice) for failing. 😡😤🤬

After having read through the testimonies of the parents on this page (see below, link with excerpts), it sounds like exhausting, hellish work to raise these adoptive children who turn out to have medical and behavioral problems.

I cannot, in good conscience, condemn any adult who realizes after so many months or years, they don’t have the mental or physical strength to keep parenting such children and so decide to return these children back to the adoption agency.

I appreciate the work Dee of Wartburg Watch has done against abuse, but I recall years ago, she ripped into famous Christian speaker Beth Moore, because Moore returned one of her adoptive children back to his mother.

I wrote about that situation (Link): here, towards the end of the post, under the sub-heading “Beth Moore / Judgementalism.” (You can scroll down that page to find the Beth Moore section, which is buried under a long discussion about YEC.)

It’s very easy to sit in judgment of someone else when or if your life is more or less going okay at the time and the person you’re criticizing has a life that is falling apart, or they’re in the middle of a calamity, or you may have a different temperament or inner strength the person you’re criticizing lacks.

I personally do not think I’d have the fortitude, endurance, or patience to put up with an adoptive kid who acts out constantly, even into their late teens. I’d want a break from that, too.

I have way, way more comments below this long excerpt, so please keep scrolling to read everything; thank you:

(Link): Evangelical adoptions: Churches are AWOL in helping parents of special needs kids

Excerpts:

by Julia Duin
June 2022

For years, evangelical Christians were enthusiastic supporters of adoption by sponsoring conferences, targeting adoption-friendly Sundays and staging adoption fairs in parish halls.

… Parents now say that the churches that encouraged them to adopt in the first place aren’t there for them now.

…Few statistics exist on the number of adoptions gone wrong, other than a 10-year-old study by the US Department of Health and Human Services reporting “adoption disruptions” ranging from 10-25 percent. This little-known statistic points to a meltdown in the industry and a sign that adoption and foster care have become a landmine for many families who believed God had called them to help these children.

No one told them there could be an aftermath. Here are some of their stories.

[I will not be pasting in ALL stories. These are just a few from the page]

Evangelicals adopted at a higher rate than others
“Joy” was a social worker in Tacoma, Washington, who adopted a 9-year-old boy in 2000, hoping for the best. She had 32 years of experience working for the state and a Christian agency where she’d helped more than 600 people adopt foster children.

The divorced mother of two was prepared for challenging behavior, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developmental delays and PTSD from the child’s six years with mentally ill biological parents.
What stunned her was that by age 15, her son was a registered sex offender. Bad relationships, drug abuse and a child out of wedlock followed. Now 30, he cannot hold down a job.

Mom Left Husband of 14 Years for ‘Soul Mate’ – Only to Be Rejected

Mom Left Husband of 14 Years for ‘Soul Mate’ – Only to Be Rejected

One thing I’ve never understood about secular and Christian conservatives who are too unrealistic about marriage (and the nuclear family) is how they can continue to view marriage (or parenthood, the nuclear family) through such rose-colored glasses, when we all know people who married and/or had children, but marriage or parenthood left them miserable.

Maybe the person they married turned out to be emotionally or physically abusive, or marriage turned out to be unfulfilling. Maybe their spouse committed adultery on numerous occasions.

Let the story below show once again that the Christian, pro-Nuclear family narrative that “marriage makes people more godly, loving, ethical and mature” is a bunch of hooey.

Marriage didn’t make the woman below, who dumped her long time husband for a hottie she met earlier, more “mature” or less selfish or more ethical.

Whatever the specifics, marriage and parenthood sometimes turn out to be horrible or disappointing.

(A reminder: I am not opposed to marriage, parenthood, or the nuclear family – I’m only opposed to a culture, Christian or secular, that pressure or shame people into having kids, getting married, and treats people who do not marry or have kids, for whatever reason, like failures, weirdos, or garbage.)

(Link): Mom left husband of 14 years for ‘soul mate’ — only to be rejected

by Andrew Court
May 9, 2022

It takes two souls to tango.

A mom of two has been mocked on social media after revealing she left her longtime husband for a man she believed to be her “soul mate” — only for him to promptly reject her.

Amanda Trenfield has been described by critics as a “self-destructive sociopath” for writing about the emotional saga in her new book, “When A Soulmate Says No.”

An excerpt from the tome, published in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, sparked ridicule from readers who claimed the rejection was karma for the fact she had blown up her own marriage.

“She ruined her life for nothing! One of the biggest losses we’ve ever seen,” one reader quipped with glee.

In the extract, Trenfield describes an electric encounter with her so-called soul mate, which occurred while she was at a dinner party with her husband.

Divorce Attorney Reveals SHOCKING Reasons That DESTROY Relationships And Cause Bad BREAKUPS – via ‘Women of Impact’

Divorce Attorney Reveals SHOCKING Reasons That DESTROY Relationships And Cause Bad BREAKUPS – via ‘Women of Impact’

I’m not even half way done with this video yet (linked to and embedded below in this post), but this lady in the video is giving some great insights and advice. (I’ve just finished listening to the entire video, and it is worth the entire watch.)

The lady in the video mentions she didn’t get married until around (or a bit after?) age 40.

The divorce attorney (who later became a judge, if I understand correctly) said up until that point, she did get a lot of questions from people asking her why she wasn’t married yet.

(I also had to put up with that, or with other nasty assumptions, from others, when I was still single into my 30s. I was raised in a conservative Christian church, and a lot of Christians wrongly assume if you’re a woman who has not married by the age of 30 or 35, it’s because you are a man-hating feminist or that that you were too “career focused.” It’s a very victim-blaming, sexist world view.)

Some of the points this lady, Faith Jenkins, addressed in the video includes but is not limited to (these are also points I’ve learned along the way with life experience, and just mulling things over):

• You have to know who you are and figure out who you are before you get married.
• It’s far more healthy to learn to be single before you get married.
• Don’t wait to get married to start living and enjoying your life – she says, “being single is not a rest stop. [At the time I was single I concluded that] it’s time for me to really live.”
• Don’t look to someone outside of yourself to make you happy.

(Note from me, the blog owner: this is a big one.
If you go through life making your sense of self worth, happiness, or opinion about yourself contingent upon external circumstances or on how others treat you, you will never, ever achieve stable, consistent, or lasting healthy self esteem or happiness
– and along the way, if you keep making your self worth contingent on how others treat you or their opinions of you, you will tend to attract selfish people, abusers, and very emotionally needy people who will want all your time and attention, leaving you drained
– I’ve learned the hard way that many of the people who will want to use you as a sounding board, a “rock” they lean on, will not return that courtesy to you – they won’t allow you to talk to them about your problems)

• She says you should know who you are before you marry – I think this is also a good idea prior to dating.

If you know who you are prior to dating or marriage (you know your identity and your likes, your dislikes, and your values), you won’t change to please someone else (a lot of abusive or controlling people will either badger you, pressure you, threaten, or demand that you make changes to yourself or your life to please them), and it makes it easier to weed out incompatible or potentially abusive partners.

• She discourages you from trying to clean up, fix, rescue another person, what she refers to as “rebuilding” another person.

I agree with her on that – you ultimately cannot change another person, and you will only exhaust yourself trying. I think a lot of women who do this are people pleasers or codependents, and it’s a huge waste of time.

Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

To anyone who may be new to this blog:
I am not anti-nuclear family, anti-marriage, or anti-parenthood, but I do oppose conservatives, Christians, or any person or group who deifies any of those things, or who pressures or shames people into getting married and having children.

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I think pieces like the one below put to bed the common Christian “marriage fairy tale” narrative (that used to be more common in secular culture too), that if you just marry (and have children), that you will find happiness and meaning; all your dreams will come true.

You have all these married people in these confessions below who still are not happy, in spite of the fact they are married, and some of them have children, too.

(Link): Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

Excerpts:

“Having children has made me hate him.”

by Liz Richardson

A while back, redditor u/dusty_ninja asked the internet, “What is the darkest thing you have kept from your partner?” Several married people shared shocking secrets they’ve been keeping from their spouses — and some of them are heartbreaking.

Here are some of the most surprising ones:

…2. “I’m afraid to tell my husband that before we met and got married, I was hooking up with a married man.”
“It happened at a time when I wasn’t in a good place (I know it’s bad what I did). Even if my husband is not judgmental at all and doesn’t care about past behaviors, I’m afraid he might see me differently.”

—tidissik

3. “That having children has made me hate him.”

“He loves his kids and provides for them financially, but I do everything else — and he only helps if I ask or direct him to. It’s exhausting, and I’ve never been more resentful/angry at someone else so much in my entire life.”

30 Mothers Who Regret Giving Birth Share Why

30 Mothers Who Regret Giving Birth Share Why

(Link): 30 Mothers Who Regret Giving Birth Share Why

by Rokas Laurinavičius and Ilona Baliūnaitė

Bringing a child into this world is one of the biggest decisions we can make. However, due to things like societal pressure and media romanticization, some people do it without fully understanding the effect it will have on their life.

So in an attempt to figure out what gets overlooked, Reddit user Baby_noodles4u made a post on the platform, inviting women who regret giving birth to share what causes them to feel this way.

Immediately, moms started sharing their personal stories, talking about everything from body changes to abusive relationships and money problems. Their genuine replies made this thread a must-read for everyone planning a family.

The Two Reasons Parents Regret Having Kids by G. Cornwall

The Two Reasons Parents Regret Having Kids

(Link): The Two Reasons Parents Regret Having Kids

Excerpts:

Aug 31, 2021
by Gail Cornwall

A small but significant proportion of mothers and fathers wish they’d never had children. The whole family can suffer as a result.

Carrie wishes that she’d never had children. She spent a few years feeling satisfied as a mother, but now locks herself in the kitchen and wonders, Who am I? What am I doing here? 

She can’t pursue paid work, because she has to shepherd her 12-year-old and 10-year-old to school as well as to therapy appointments for their disabilities.

Carrie, who lives in the U.K., told me that she often fantasizes about visiting her friend in Hawaii and never coming back. Her words felt so taboo that she asked to be referred to by only her first name. But sentiments of parental regret are less rare than one might imagine.

When American parents older than 45 were asked in a 2013 Gallup poll how many kids they would have if they could “do it over,” approximately 7 percent said zero.

“My boyfriend was intimidated by my sexual history. So I dumped him.” by T. Hornung

“My boyfriend was intimidated by my sexual history. So I dumped him.” by T. Hornung

I’m not going to take the usual, secular, left wing feminist standard here (for one thing, I’m right wing and don’t always agree with secular feminists), where I’m supposed to say a woman’s sexual history is not a boyfriend’s business, or the boyfriend should not be upset by his girlfriend’s sexual past, and say, “Rah rah, women’s sexual freedom.”

I am forever amazed that “sex positive” feminists, whether they are men or women, assume that their previous sexual choices should not, or will not, have any consequences upon them or the people around them.

Some of us are more “serious” about sex than other people – sex actually means something to us, so yes, we find it troubling, and I suppose this is doubly so, if we are virgins over 35 years of age, and have to grapple with the fact that our current partner has had sex with other people in the past.

“‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ [Book] Told Me to Stay Pure Until Marriage. I Still Have a Stain on My Heart” – Regarding: Dating Book by Author Josh Harris (with other related links about the IKDG book) and Criticizing “Purity Culture”

“‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ [Book] Told Me to Stay Pure Until Marriage. I Still Have a Stain on My Heart” – Regarding: Dating Book by Author Josh Harris (with other related links about the IKDG book) and Criticizing “Purity Culture”

August 24, 2016 update: I added a new link at the bottom of this post: people continue to attack the idea of sexual purity by publicizing backlash against the Harris IKDG book.

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I myself have never read the IKDB book, which was written by Harris. I have read about the book on other sites in the past, and it is my understanding the book discussed how to date, and other such topics, and is not strictly about sex or virginity.

The author uses this review of the IKDG book to bash “purity culture,” and in so doing, touches on the topic or staying chaste until marriage.

I am in the middle of this debate. I cannot completely agree with all the critics of “purity culture,” depending on what they are criticizing about it and why.

I believe that the Bible teaches both male and females are to sexually abstain until marriage, so I don’t believe in tossing out this teaching all because some young women feel they have been hurt or oppressed by it.

On the other hand, how some Christians have taught about sexual purity has been lop-sided – males are typically not addressed, only females – and Christians could do a better, or more sensitive job, in how they present the concept of remaining a virgin until marriage.

With that introduction, here is the link, with some excerpts (and note, I am not in complete agreement with all views in this piece; however, I’m not a supporter of a lot of Christian dating advice. Christian dating advice tends to act as an obstacle to singles who want to someday marry):

(Link): “‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ told me to stay pure until marriage. I still have a stain on my heart“

Excerpts:

By Liz Lenz

July 27, 2016

In 1997, Joshua Harris published “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” a book that was in part a warning about the harm that relationships before marriage could cause. Harris evoked images of men at the altar bringing all their past partners with them into the marriage to reinforce the point that love and sex before marriage took pieces of your heart and made you less.

At the time, Harris was just 21, but he was already a rising star.

…He [Harris] was what we, as young evangelicals, wanted to be. And so we strove passionately to attain the ideal of premarital purity he laid out for us. Now, almost 20 years later, even Harris appears to be questioning whether his advice did more harm than good.

…But Harris’s book was hugely influential.

…On the surface, I am a purity-culture success story: I am a heterosexual woman, a virgin until marriage, now with two small children and a husband I deeply love. We attend church. We believe in God. And yet, for me, the legacy of purity culture is not one of freedom but one of fear.

Purity culture taught me that I ought to be passed down from father to husband, more an inheritance than a human.

 I was taught that men are my cover and my shield, when for the most part they have been the ones causing damage through molestation, rape and abuse.

I was taught that my holy calling was to open my legs for one and only one and bear him children. Barring that, I was to keep them closed and never express desire or lust or fear or longing.

So many women in my life cracked under the untenable pressure, often giving up on God all together. Others were forced into marriages with men who hit them and hid their abuse behind another message of the church borne from purity culture, that God hates divorce.

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

This is one of those topics I’m working my way through right now. Maybe a year from now, my opinion will flip on it. But here is where I am now.

I was first made aware of this post from John Piper’s “Desiring God” web site via someone posting to SCCL Facebook group.

Here it is:

(Link):  How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God by John Piper

Excerpts:

• I said that one of my reasons for believing this comes from 1 Corinthians 10:31. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I asked, “Is it sin to disobey this Biblical commandment?” Yes.
• …Some of you then asked the practical question: Well, how do you “eat and drink” to the glory of God? Say, orange juice for breakfast?
• ….Orange juice was “created to be received with thanksgiving by those whobelieve the truth.” Therefore, unbelievers cannot use orange juice for the purpose God intended—namely, as an occasion for heartfelt gratitude to God from a truth heart of faith.
• But believers can, and this is how they glorify God. Their drinking orange juice is “sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

Yes, it’s an entire post explaining why and how Christians may drink Orange Juice to the glory of God.

This is a part of Christianity that I am glad to leave behind. In my faith crisis of the last few years, there have been some advantages to ceasing turning to the Bible as an authority in decision-making in life in every area.