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A macabre community is thriving on Reddit, united by one core feeling: massive regret over having brought children into the world.
The community, called r/RegretfulParents, is basically an anonymous forum for remorseful moms and dads to vent their darkest frustrations.
It bills itself as a “safe place for parents who think they shouldn’t have become parents to rant, confess, and get things off their chest about their kids, partners, families, etc,” safeguarded by a critical rule: “no judgment or bullying allowed.”
A particularly grim motif is parents wishing they had a time machine so they could choose never to procreate. One such father lamented that he was never “brave enough to consider what I actually wanted,” and is now stuck with a family he wishes he could escape.
“If I break up this family for the sake of my own sanity and happiness, I’ll just become the bad guy I’m so afraid of being,” the poster wrote. “The only other option is a time machine so I can go and have a do-over of my life, and make better decisions.”
One recent post which received over 1,300 upvotes complained that “sometimes the mere fact that you had a child completely damaged and changed your life for the worst.”
“The truth [is] that sometimes a child isn’t a blessing and they absolutely will destroy your life and world,” the Redditor said. “I think the sooner society can admit that, the more people will be prepared for parenthood.”
Of course, it’s easy to blame regretful parents for exercising poor judgement or rolling over when met with pressure to have a child — and there are plenty of parents on this forum whose motivations seem selfish. But with over 70,000 weekly visitors to the subreddit, the scope of the issue is clearly much broader.
Structurally, a constantly recurring complaint among regretful parents centers around finances. Whether parents are overworked, reeling from unexpected pregnancies, or struggling to find housing, the pangs of economic desperation form a throughline connecting many of the community’s seemingly disparate anxieties.
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