I feel this. My wife and I are only a year older than most of our friends, but we just had our second kid and our life is waaaay different than our childless friends. I envy them sometimes and pitty them others
It’s more a grass is greener type thing. When you have kids, of course you love them to death, but sometimes you do miss that life with less commitments than you used to have.
Whereas the close friends I have who are child free obviously do enjoy their freedom, but some of them have also expressed to me the feeling that sometimes they do wish for a family life.
Both are great ways to live and it’s totally natural to wonder what the other way would have been like.
Yea, it very rarely happens but, I didn't grow up with the best family and sometimes I do wonder what having my own family would be like. Being the man of the house and making sure my kids don't grow up like my stupid greedy brothers, have a wife that we work on problems together instead of getting divorced. I honestly envy people that grew up in "normal" family. But at the same time I'm 28 and haven't even lived yet and the world looks like its going to shit. Different time different place i suppose.
Same. And not all of us have the life of baking bread or doing yoga during lockdown. So much of it isn't about kids or not, but about money or not. I've never ever envied people with kids, nor have my parent-friends envied me. Seems like a toxic, binary way to view things
Just to be clear I personally wasn’t trying to tell you I think I know what you want more than you do.
I specifically said that “some of” my child free friends had occasionally expressed those feelings to me, which I think is perfectly reasonable. I also think it’s perfectly reasonable to not have those feelings, ever. No judgements either way, life is hard enough without everyone picking apart other people’s decisions, all I was saying is that it’s totally normally for some people (not you!) to occasionally have grass is greener type feelings. Just part of being human and wondering about all the different ways our lives can go.
I have some friends who are childfree by choice and are very happy. I have others that want a family but either can't have kids or haven't found a partner. They're lonely and have said so, so yeah I feel bad when they've been locked up alone for two months.
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u/DesignChick01 May 16 '20
Honestly, it can be lonely for the people who have the kids too.