Do I Regret Having Kids? Honest Truth and Small Tips for Hard Parenting Days
I’m leaning against the kitchen sink at 7:12 PM, coffee gone cold, three crumpled unopened school folders on the counter, and my 8-year-old Lila just dumped a full jar of dill pickles on the floor to “see if they roll like marbles.” My 4-year-old Mia is screaming because Lila gave her the wrong lid to play with, and my partner is stuck in a last-minute work meeting across town. I wipe a strand of hair off my face with the back of my wrist, and the thought slips out, quiet enough that only the fridge can hear: Do I regret this?
I’ve never said that out loud to anyone until a few months ago, when an older woman stopped me in the grocery store parking lot. She saw me hauling two car seats out of the back, one kicking and one screaming, and she leaned over and said, quiet like it was a secret: “I always wondered if people ever actually regret having kids. No one ever talks about it.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked to her car and drove off, and I stood there holding a bag of milk that was already starting to warm up, thinking I have an answer. I just didn’t think I was allowed to say it.
A lot of our hardest days tie back to Lila’s ADHD, which we got diagnosed when she was 6. Some weeks it’s one forgotten lunch after another, three calls from the office in five days, and a meltdown that starts because I cut her sandwich into squares instead of triangles. Last month, after a 45-minute meltdown in the Target checkout line because we couldn’t buy a $15 slime kit, I drove home crying, wondering what life would look like if I didn’t have to be “on” every single minute. If I could just finish a cup of coffee hot, or read a whole chapter of a book without being interrupted, or not have to plan every single outing around sensory triggers and reward systems.
I brought this up at Lila’s next pediatrician check-up, when the doctor asked how I was doing, not just how Lila was doing. I expected her to tell me it’s just a phase, or that I need to relax. Instead she nodded, and said 8 out of 10 parents she talks to have had the thought, they just never say it out loud because they’re scared of what it means. That’s when I started working out small, concrete things that keep the regret from turning into something that eats at me.
The first thing I did was start separating momentary regret from whole-life regret. When the thought pops up, I don’t shove it down and call myself a bad mom. I name it, specifically. Instead of thinking I regret having kids, I say out loud, to myself: I regret that I have to clean pickles off the floor instead of reading the book I started this weekend. That one small shift changes everything. The regret isn’t about my kids, it’s about the specific bad thing that’s happening right now. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them, it just means I’m tired of cleaning pickles.
The second thing I carved out is 15 minutes of unstructured, no-responsibility time for myself every single day, right after school. I used to think taking care of yourself meant a spa day or a weekend away, which I can’t afford and can never schedule. Instead, I use Lila’s daily 20-minute screen time reward (something her therapist recommended anyway) and set Mia up with a tray of playdough and cookie cutters at the kitchen table, then I sit on the back porch. I don’t fold laundry, I don’t answer texts, I just drink whatever cold coffee is left in the pot and stare at the neighbor’s rose bush. That 15 minutes keeps small frustrations from blowing up into big, dark thoughts that keep me up at night.
If I’m still spiraling after a bad day, I just write the regret down on a scrap of paper and throw it in the trash. It sounds silly, but it gets the thought out of my head and out of the way, instead of me replaying it all night wondering what’s wrong with me. Last week, after a particularly bad day where both kids bit each other at the park and Lila got sent home early for hitting a kid who teased her about her fidget toy, I wrote “I regret that today was this hard” on a receipt from McDonald’s and threw it away. I didn’t need to fix anything, I just needed to stop holding onto it.
No one talks about how regret isn’t a binary thing. It’s not “I wish I never had kids” or “I never have a bad day.” Most days it’s a mix. Last weekend, Lila climbed the big oak tree at the park that she’s been trying to get to the top of for three months. She yelled my name from the highest branch, grinning so wide her dimples showed, and I took a blurry photo that I still have as my lock screen. Five minutes later, she melted down because we got vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate, and I sat in the driver’s seat thinking I really regret that I forgot to check what she wanted before I ordered. That’s okay. That moment of regret doesn’t erase the tree.
I don’t regret having my kids. But I regret a lot of small things that come with being a parent that no one prepares you for. I regret that Lila has to work three times harder than other kids just to get through a school day. I regret that I don’t have the energy to do craft nights and bake cookies for the class like I thought I would when I was pregnant. I regret that I can’t just decide last minute to go see a movie or take a random day trip. All of those are real regrets, and they don’t make me a bad mom.
Last week I was sitting on the playground bench watching my kids play, and a new mom with a toddler who was throwing sand at everyone sat down next to me. She stared at her shoes for five minutes, then said “Do you ever actually regret it?” I told her what I know: Some days you regret the moment you’re in. That doesn’t mean you regret all of it. The wilted dandelion Lila picked me for me last week is still sitting in my car cup holder. Some days are mostly pickles on the floor, some days are mostly dandelions. I’m just taking it 15 minutes at a time.
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