re: Do any parents out there wish they didn't have kids?

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I love my child dearly, but I hate that I continuously have to sacrifice everything that I used to love about life now that I have a kid.

I love working (I'm freelance, so flexible hours) but with a kid I simply have 20-40 fewer hours in a week, and that is with a wife and expensive daycare. It's like I have to fight to get a day's worth of work done.

I used to love spending time with my wife, doing something fun just the two of us. With a kid that happens almost never, and when it does you have to plan it and get a babysitter and accept that it now costs $10 an hour just to see my wife alone. And even then half the time you're probably too frayed and tired to enjoy it.

I used to love having a healthy and active sex life. I was convinced that we would never be those people who couldn't find time or energy for sex. Now we're down to maybe twice a month if we're lucky, and half the time when we do do it it's disappointing. Our sex life went from a constant 9 or 10, to a 2 or a 3.

I also used to love just talking to my wife or being able to hear my own thoughts. With a kid in the house those moments get increasingly rare. It's like we're not allowed to talk to each other. You have no idea how stressful it is when every thought you have and everything you say gets interrupted.
I used to love having disposable income. We're still far from poor, but the extra $2k in bills each month does take away a lot of flexibility. Anyone thinking of having kids, try putting away $2k a month for a year just to see how it feels.

I like getting up early, but sometimes after a long week or night I would sleep in an hour or two. Preferably snuggling the wife, maybe some morning sex, or even just reading my phone... With a kid, fuggedaboutit. You're getting up at 6AM seven days a week, no matter how you feel. It's every day, it does not end for years. And our kid is a good sleeper. Plenty of parents are up twice a night for years.

Traveling and holidays used to be fun. With a kid it's mostly a continuous struggle. There is no daycare so one or both of you is constantly doing the kid. You don't get to see your partner alone or just chill together. Oh and everything is 50% more expensive. The first holiday we booked after we had our son was to Sri Lanka. We were supposed to be there for a little over two weeks but with the baby it was such a shite sandwich that four days in we got online and spent $600 extra to change our tickets and fly home. What should have been a wonderful two week holiday became a very expensive four days of hell.

And all of that is just me and my selfish needs. I haven't even started about the stress of trying to be a good parent. That's a whole other level of difficulty in your life.
I could go on and on and on. The worst part about for me is that it doesn't end. This is hard to convey to people who don't have kids. A kid is awake for 14 hours a day, so even with daycare which costs a fortune, they take up 8 hours of your day every day when they don't take the full 14. It's fricking relentless.

Oh and yes it does get a little better when they get older, but not much. Mine is 4.5 now and it's still full on. We always thought he should have a sibling but we just can't hack it so we're just going to stick to one and feel guilty about it.

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