Is it OK to regret having children?
by Emma Jacobs · Australian Financial ReviewEmma Jacobs
Nov 2, 2026 – 12.00pm
Ten years ago, Gianina Logan did not know if she wanted children. Mind racing over myriad worries about her future, she turned to Google for information. Finally, she came across a social media community that seemed to have answers to the question troubling her. Was it true – as her mother had reassured her – that you would love a child if they were yours?
Perhaps, came the answer from the group. But that might not be enough. Its members wrote of resentment, exhaustion, financial strains, loss of identity and countless other concerns. Some lamented becoming parents due to accidental pregnancies or religious pressure. This resonated with Logan, who felt the weight of social conformity and of her mother’s and partner’s Christian beliefs. The honesty of the posts, typically anonymous, was shocking. But Logan found it somehow reassuring. “It’s knowledge, it’s wisdom, it’s being able to learn from somebody else’s mistake,” she says on the phone from America on a spring Saturday, years later.
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