Sad to say, I do know women who regret having their children. Mostly, they just regret certain ones, for various reasons. Just because you become a mother, it doesn’t automatically make you unselfish.
I know a woman who had a child with many physical challenges from birth. She has suffered more in her life than any other person I know. The child was sweet and loving, and has grown up to be perhaps the most nearly perfect person I’ve ever known.
A few years ago, this mother stated to me that if she had known how hard it would be to raise this child, and could go back, she would have an abortion. This was stated at a time of relative lack of difficulty, not in the middle of some sort of problem, and totally out of context with any issues that were currently being experienced.
This was incomprehensible to me, because the world, and her family would be so much poorer for not having her in them. The most heartbreaking thing to me is that this child, now a woman, is suffering from an autoimmune disorder that is slowly killing her. I know that she knows she is not wanted on the deepest level, even though the parents have not overtly stated that to her. Well, I do remember one occasion many years ago when the child was going through some emotional issues due to the many physical hardships in her life, and her parents did tell her that she was ruining their lives. That was perhaps 30 years ago.
But she talks constantly about what a burden she has been to others, and wishes she could be done being alive. She even once said that she knows this autoimmune disease comes from feeling that she has caused such hardship to others.
The selfishness of this mother is hard for me to understand or forgive. Others think she’s a wonderful, loving mother, but, unfortunately, I have a very different perspective. I wish I didn’t know this, and believe, me, no one else who has any link to the family will ever hear it from me.