Parents have turned to Reddit to reveal why they no longer love their children. The stories are as heartbreaking as they are honest– some more brutally candid than others. “Little f*cker stole damned near everything from my house when I went on a vacation,” one user wrote. “He also stole half of my Dads’ coin collection before he passed away.” Read on below.
User “Tug_MgRoin.”
“Little f*cker stole damned near everything from my house when I went on a vacation. He also stole half of my Dads’ coin collection before he passed away. Over $10,000 worth of stuff between both of our houses. I can say I just don’t love him, but I hate every fiber of his existence.”
User “MrsWags.”
“One day he stole my car and we haven’t seen him since. Its hard to have someone leave your life like that but at this point, 9 years later. I have no choice.”
User “vyckee.”
“I don’t know if this counts but I never did. I don’t hate the kid by any means. Never wanted kids, was on birth control, but I was always told it’s different when it’s your kid. you just magically love them. Well it wasn’t different, he was just another kid I had no feelings for. I knew I couldn’t be a loving parent a kid needs so he was adopted by a family I know well. They live close and I’ve seen him grow up but he’s just some kid to me. ”
User “throwitawaydaddy.”
“I never wanted to be a dad. I had no plans on ever having kids. Fate had other ideas thanks to hormonal BC not being 100% effective. My son is mildly autistic and has ADHD and has some severe behavior problems. We’re talking I have to straddle him while on the floor on his back to keep him from destroying the apartment, hurting us. I always knew I’d hate being a parent but I never knew it would be this bad.”
User ‘Sceptreofdivinity.”
“They weren’t mine, the wife cheated on me.”
User “MrsBearasuarus”
“I have two children and now I love them both dearly. However, it wasn’t always that way for my youngest son. I planned my oldest, wanted him, loved him from the moment I knew I was pregnant, and took him everywhere with me except work until he was 2. We were inseparable. We are still very close. Now, my youngest was a surprise, I used protection and it was one night. I considered abortion but couldn’t do it. Considered adoption but my family freaked out at the idea, so I kept him. I hated the person his father was and how his father treated, I wanted a girl if I was going to have a child, and didn’t want to give up what I had with my oldest. I was selfish.”
“After I had my youngest it got worse. I completely detached, barely picked him up, and didn’t take care of him unless I absolutely had to because there was no one else around. It was like this for almost a year, made worse by the fighting with his father. My son reminded me so much of this man who made my life hell. When my met my SO it changed, he got me help, he taught me to love my son and how to teach my son to love back. My child went from being this loner child who hated to be loved on or messed with to being this sweet, generous, amazing kid who can’t leave the house without a hug. I would never trade my children for anything in the world, however I wish I could re do that year of my life.”
User “Madmanpoet.”
“I didn’t want him. A long time ago I thought I wanted a kid, but after having to raise my sister’s for a while, I realized that I didn’t. My wife wanted a kid. I tried to convince her of what raising one is like, that everything you are goes into the child. She told me she was going off her birth control, I just didn’t expect her to go off so soon.
We now have one. He is adorable. But I do not love him. I feel very little for him. I wish he hadn’t been born. He has financially hit us hard, I am having to rearrange a lot of projects I’ve been working on for years, which means making other people rearrange their lives for him, and what is worse, he has taken my wife’s creative energy out of her. She barely has any time to work on her art, and when she has the time, she doesn’t have the energy.”
User “Donotwantthrowaway.”
“‘I want to start by saying that I am not at the point where I do not love my daughter, but there are days that I look at her and just view her as a human that I have to care for out of obligation. Maybe it is because I never wanted children, my fiancé basically left us, and I am in the middle of my nursing degree (which adds an intense amount of stress..). I don’t think I have it bad compared to others, but it really doesn’t help that I didn’t want children, and I really wanted to develop my career and even continue my education as a nurse practitioner. There are many many things I wanted to do during my career besides just continuing education, but now with a child I can’t do them. It doesn’t necessarily make me not love her, but it definitely stirs up some bad and really negative feelings towards being the mother I should be. I feel like a big part of me has been stripped away, and when my fiancé took the path that he did I then had absolutely no help with her, so I felt even more defeated. I’m not sure if this is a satisfactory answer to your question.. But wanted to give my perspective as a parent who is kind of caught in the middle.”
User “Even4Evan.”
“God help me, but I really do not like my son. He’s boorish, self-aggrandizing, and prone to pulling together two or three disparate things that have most recently come up in conversation and then crafting them into an absurd anecdote or lie. He has, since even the time when he was a tiny child, routinely let things tumble out of his mouth that mortify me. He’s nearly 25 now, thank f*ck, but for the entirety of his school years I would go to parent/teacher conferences and watch the same sequence play out, again-and-again… I would meet the teacher, we would shake hands and I would already be able to make out the look of disgust on their face. Their expression would so obviously be ‘Oh, so this is the prick who formed this little asshole’s personality, huh?’ Then, as they would spend time with me and realize that I appeared to be an ok human being, they would begin unspooling to me every sh*tty/awful thing he had said to them and the other kids in his class. One time, my lily-white son was trying to get the attention of a little girl who sat beside him and, when she didn’t jump to quick enough for him, he said “Excuse me, BLACK GIRL, may I have your attention?” We tried immersing him with loving, inclusive groups at school, at our church, and any hobby/sport/interest that came along that he showed enthusiasm for… He was never invited to a classmate’s birthday party more than once… Worst of all? He continually sees himself as a victim. It’s not that the sh*tty things he says to people are the problem… It’s that they are too simple to understand how he really means them. They are simply too stupid to realize how awesome/brilliant/cool he is… Oh, it makes me sad. It truly does. I hate him and he won’t go away. F*ck. ”
User “Quirkybumblebee.”
“Sibling here. My mom has told me she flat out hates my sister. She’s not abusive towards her, but she has zero patience for her crap. I honestly don’t blame her because my sister is 21 but behaves like she’s still 16. She’s very dramatic, self-centered, fake, rude, and especially abusive towards family members.”
User “giraffesthrow”.
“I never wanted children. I saw no appeal, no urge to have them, no tugging on the ovaries when around babies. I never believed I was cut out to be a mother in any sense of the word, and experience proved it.
I dated my husband to be, who was adamant he wanted no children either, we married, and all was well until out of the blue a few years later he decided the most important thing to him on the planet was for me to bear his children.
He wore me down, and at the time I didn’t have the fortitude to say or do anything to push my point, and he made promises to cover all my fears. He said he’d be happy to do most of the rearing and he wouldn’t allow me to fall into being the sole childraising parent. He reassured me his parents would take some of the load. I thought it was all part of how love should be and with his persuading, my parents telling me I’d change my mind like everyone does, his parents being over the moon about his decision to try for kids, I went along with it. At the age of 27 I had a fine, healthy baby boy.
And within months it was clear my ex’s promises were all about him and I’d made a dreadful mistake and I was raising a child I felt no bond with virtually alone. The experience changed us both and after just over a year later he left me because I changed. I probably don’t have to tell any parent here about that, at least physically.”
“Mentally though, it was a killer. The bond never happened, and I just ended up a mother to a someone. I can’t even say “this is my son” because I don’t feel that. There was caring for a dependent human being who deserves a safe life and protection and security, and until he was four I raised him alone. I can’t describe the hell of raising someone you can’t work up a bond with, even a good person. It’s like having the best flatmate I had while at uni, but also being responsible for every part of their being from food, medical, emotional, educational… I know no matter how I put it, to people who have children and who’ve connected with them there’s no comparison, but that’s you and this is me.
I don’t hate the kid. He deserves far more than I am capable of giving, and I am so f*cking thankful my ex’s grandparents stepped in. They were collecting him for a weekend and I made an offhand comment about keeping him (worn down by two days looking after vomiting child) and his grandfather took me aside and asked in all seriousness if I was coping. I let it all out and he, the man who didn’t want me to marry his son, was understanding enough to see I was serious, I was trying the best I could, I was failing, and it was damaging his grandson. By the time he was five they took him in permanently.
So they’re raising him and I think it’s better for all of us. I ache because I don’t love him, and never have – but he’s still a small, vulnerable, developing human who deserves real parents with real love. He seems to have bonded well with his grandparents, though I know kids can be remarkably resilient and reserved when the biggest things bother him. I don’t know if it’s my bias from being free of the situation but I hope loving (relatively young, they’re 51) grandparents are better than a constantly angry and increasingly resentful mother.”