What Do Parents Regret About Having Children? Communicating Regrets Online

Abstract

Drawing on user-generated threads from Reddit as a data source, symbolic interactionism and qualitative thematic analysis were used to investigate how, specifically, parents communicate regret in relation to having children. Two fundamental categories of regret were identified. In the more common category of regretting certain circumstances associated with having children, parents emphasized that they did not regret their children but regretted one or more conditions of having children, including (a) timing, (b) number, (c) sacrifice, (d) partner, and (e) the external world. The less common category of regretting having children stemmed from (a) difficult children, (b) self as bad parent, (c) parenthood disdain, and (d) childfree desire. These parents articulated that if they could go back in time, they would not have had children. Conversations in online forums like Reddit legitimize regret as a unique emotion of parenthood, which defy the social and emotional norms of motherhood and fatherhood roles.

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