Sunday, April 14, 2013

Mother Who Regretted Having Kids

Maybe it's because I'm off living in Ma-Ma Land, but I keep seeing references to this article a woman wrote about how she regrets having children and how they're the biggest mistake of her life. You can read the original article by Isabella Dutton here at the Mail Online.

Obviously making such a bold statement is going to draw a crowd and evoke some powerful emotions, so here's my two cents.

To fully understand, you need to read Dutton's article, so just go and do that now if you haven't click on the link already. Some people are calling her selfish and some people are calling her brave. I think Dutton is neither, (though it does take guts to publish an article like that!)

After reading the article I thought, here is a woman who has never stood up for herself. Here is a woman who has never followed her dreams and who has never done anything in her life to make herself happy. For some reason this woman felt the need to sacrifice her life for other people's lives and now 3 decades later she's finally speaking up. Too little too late lady.

You can't devote your life to your family and then at the end complain about how you never got to do the things you always wanted to do. You can't complain about how other people influenced your life choices so much so that you felt you had no choices. The only person holding a gun to Isabella Dutton's head was Dutton herself.

I love children and I love my daughter. She brings me joy and spending time with her is fun for me. My daycare kids are my other little side family. They make me laugh and taking care of them is a labor of love as well. Kids are also frustratingly, obnoxious bugs who drive me barking mad and make me want to squish them, but I do love them and I'm glad they're here on Earth. I would never trade them in for a quiet day at the seaside, or a peaceful stroll through a park.

Children are not for everyone. I deeply respect people who say they don't want children and follow through with it because they are making the best choice for them and the world. To say you don't want children and then marry a man who does and give him children to make him happy is outrageous! Don't marry someone who has different life goals from you!

Dutton's life was compromised, not by her children, but by her own decisions. She has every right to talk about it, write about it, and share her story so maybe some other self-pitying woman doesn't make the same mistakes as her, but at what cost to her children? They are people with feelings and a life to lead too. Though I'm sure it's never been a secret how Dutton truly feels about her children. She claims they never noticed her coolness toward them, but children are like spiders and definitely noticed over the years due to their child-like spidey-senses.

Even in her golden years, Dutton cares for her adult daughter with MS. This lady can't catch a break and she still isn't doing anything to empower herself. I'm so glad I'm opinionated and headstrong and determined to create my own destiny. When I encounter problems in my life I seek ways to solve or eliminate those problems instead of finding ways to work around them. There's a time to fight and a time to bow down. When making a decision that's going to affect the rest of your life you need to fight for what you believe in. Your best advocate is yourself.

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