Ambivalence about becoming a parent is real and it’s exceedingly common. One aspect of this to-have-or-not-to-have-kids ambivalence that may be more unique for those of us who come from backgrounds of childhood neglect, abuse, or trauma, is the fear that, if we become parents, we’ll inevitably mess up our kids as much as we feel like our parents did to us.
What these fears do mean is that you may need to do some extra inventorying, some deeper psychological digging than your non-traumatized peers may have to do to understand what part of your ambivalence about becoming a parent is based in historically-informed reactive fear, and what part of it is indicative of a genuine lack of desire to have kids.
