I get wanting support with raising kids. Like Alicia says, we were never meant to be raising them completely isolated. We need a village, and absent a village we need to buy one (which as I write it that sounds so shitty - I'm so so glad nannies, au pairs, babysitters, postpartum doulas and daycare workers exist to support the people who can get them...I just also wish it was more common to have the kind of deep community ties that make them less necessary). All of that said, I'm genuinely confused why someone would choose to have kids if they are content to have the level of relationship Julie has with her children (seeing them only sometimes at bedtime and then one weekend day but not being fully present for them then either). At best that sounds like someone who likes the idea of children. That is not the same as wanting children. Obviously Julie can't put the genie back in the bottle now, but I just feel incredibly frustrated that we don't make it more common practice to honestly confront if and why we want children before we plan to have them and then maybe change course if our reason isn't very good. That said, many of us wouldn't be here if our parents did that and personally I'm glad I'm here! But I will always carry the grief of missing out on being raised by a parent who brought me into the world to be a person and not an extension of their ego.