It's one of the last taboos, that very few people will every openly admit to.

But mothers - and a disgruntled father - have taken to the questions site Quora to explain how it really feels to regret having children.

An anonymous user posed the question: 'What is it like to regret having children? Some people had kids and looking back wish they had never done it. What is that like?' and the responses have been viewed more than 300,000 times.

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Mothers have opened up about what it feels like to regret having children on the questions site Quora after an anonymous user asked: 'Some people had kids and looking back wish they had never done it. What is that like?'

Victoria was the first to reply, saying that she'd been so desperate to have a baby that she married the first man who was interested in having a child with her.

'The biological urge was that strong,' she said. 'Strong enough to make me ignore glaring red flags that my now ex-husband was throwing at me constantly, as well as ignoring that I had spent the previous 27 plus years insisting that I didn't want children.

'I was the cool older cousin that my much younger cousins adored. I was the awesome aunt to my nephews, who still tell me they wish I'd been their mother.

'I thought that would carry over into being a parent. I was wrong.'

Victoria said that almost immediately after the birth she realised she'd made grave mistakes.

Victoria admitted that almost immediately after the birth of her daughter, she realised she'd made grave mistakes in having a child with the wrong man

'I was married to someone I didn't love who was a compulsive liar, abusive, and controlling and a complete idiot I had almost nothing in common with,' she said.

'And now I was the mother of this tiny girl and whose great idea was that? I wasn't cut out to be a mother. I thought I knew what I was doing.

'I really had no idea until her gorgeous blue eyes, my blue eyes, were staring back at me full of expectations and adoration and dependency.'

Over the years Victoria struggled financially, but she said her problems went deeper than that.

'I'm sure there are plenty of people in this world who have children they suddenly can't afford who never feel like having their children was a mistake.

'I felt like, and still feel like, I made a mistake,' she admitted.

Despite her feelings, she loves her daughter and has tried to be a good parent to her. But she's never been able to shake off the feeling of regret.

'I love my daughter. If anything were to happen to her, I would be inconsolable. I would want to die with her if she died,' she said.

'I feel guilty all the time that I'm not the parent she deserves. Even if I've done everything right and she's a great person and I've been a good parent to her, I still feel loads of guilt because I regret being a parent.

Not because I failed as a parent, because I don't believe I have, but because I don't want to be a parent. I can't even really explain why I feel that way, I just do

'Not because I failed as a parent, because I don't believe I have, but because I don't want to be a parent. I can't even really explain why I feel that way, I just do.'

Victoria said her daughter has no idea how she feels as she's been careful to cover it up.

'I have actively done everything I can to keep her from feeling unwanted or unloved, even ignoring my strong introvert tendencies because she needed me to let her be touchy feely when I wasn't that person.

'It was a struggle for me and still is to be her parent, and there is still that guilt, but there is also love and responsibility.'

A dad added his story, saying the birth of his son plunged him into 'resentment and depression'.

Before having his own child, he loved being around children and was always 'the guy playing with all the kids at any party'.

However, he had no interest in having children of his own, and his wife felt the same until she started nearing 40 and found an 'unquenchable desire' for motherhood.

After several rounds of IVF and lots of expense, she conceived and gave birth to a healthy and 'quite adorable' son.

'I was immediately plunged into a seemingly endless spiral of resentment and depression,' he said.

The depression was so severe he had to see a psychiatrist and go on medication.

A woman called Laura opened up about the difficulties of having a son with ADHD and another with autism, with her partner who also had undiagnosed autism

'I knew at a profound level that I did not want this,' he said. 'It completely destroyed spontaneity and flexibility.

'Everything needed planning, and our son like all very small children needed to be watched pretty much 24/7.

'All our friendships were put on hold, since getting out of the house even for planned things was difficult.

'Work and other obligations were missed whenever he got the sniffles.'

As the commenter's son grew up things got easier, but he still struggled to cope with 'all manner of pointless activities' from karate to swimming, 'constant trips to school' and 'play date planning'.

'These are things that, as far as I can tell, nearly every parent dislikes, and only few are vocally honest about,' he said.

Laura's partner didn't agree with her techniques for dealing with the children and made his feelings obvious to their older son in particular. It will be a while before I will be able to forget how awful it is to start having children and going through life regretting so much of it,' she said

'The therapist told me that this was much more common than I'd guess, but there was a huge taboo about saying you simply hated being a parent.

'So, I googled "I hate being a parent" and it was all over the place - people overcome by tedium and regret.'

The poster said that despite his feelings, he's a good parent and loves his son and that people often point out that he's an attentive and affectionate father.

'I just wish that someone else would be actually enjoying the process of raising him, since on an objective and subjective level, my own life is just markedly less enjoyable since he came along,' he said.

'That's simple honesty. The best analogy would be that, instead of being yourself, you're enacting a script, day in and day out.

'This pretending to be enthusiastic about something you hate would wear you down. You'd long to break free of it and be yourself again.'

An anonymous woman said that her feelings of regret stemmed from being depressed

The man's wife is aware of his feelings and is constantly upset about it. And he admits it's put a serious strain on their relationship.

He says that her attitude is that there's something wrong with him for feeling this way.

'There's no sense of "you sacrificed your own happiness so I could achieve my dream of being a mother",' he said.

'There are times when I just stand there and want to bang my head against the door frame.

'I just loathe being a parent so much. He's almost 10 now, and I console myself that there are eight years more of this, then college.

'I think I can make it until then without losing it, especially since, although he's a very difficult child, he is gradually getting easier and not requiring such constant monitoring.'

The poster said he'd written his account as a warning to people who aren't sure about being parents but think they will love it once their children are born.

He also needed to get his feelings off his chest, as he says that people don't tend to understand his predicament.

'No one, least of all other parents, has much sympathy for you, even if you are clinically depressed to the point of dysfunction,' he explained.

'One is supposed to view having a child as some sort of multifaceted bejeweled gift from The Cosmos. How can anyone be so ungrateful to The Cosmos for a gift of such magnificence?

'And that, in the nutshell, is a big fraction of the problem of living with this. There are worse problems, of course, but this particular one is mine.'

A woman called Laura revealed that she'd spent the first few years of her children's lives regretting she'd had them.

Her ex-partner was autistic, but at the time neither of them knew as he hadn't been diagnosed.

They had two children together and the younger one was diagnosed with ADHD, while the older turned out to have a rare form of autism which made him 'completely unreachable'.

It took her two years just to teach him tasks like showering and getting dressed.

'When I would tell him what to do, he'd get very angry,' she said. 'I sat on the bottom step of the stairs next to his room for about two years before it was somewhat ingrained.

'And all that time there was the ADHD boy running wild. Fun times,' she said.

Her partner didn't agree with her techniques for dealing with the children and made his feelings obvious to their older son in particular.

'In other words, my son who was already impossible to raise, was able with the help of my partner to set away much of what I planned to do as unnecessary,' she said. 'You can imagine that this did not help anything.

'With help of my partner things could have been different.'

The couple eventually split up and the boys are now adults.

'I didn't get to be the mother I wanted to be,' she added. 'I had foster children after my separation and they soaked up everything I had to give like sponges.

'They made me feel like the parent I could have been. Instead I have had a life of worries and stress and a lot of misery.

'Now that they are maturing more, it is slowly getting better. It will be a while before I will be able to forget how awful it is to start having children and going through life regretting so much of it.'

Another mother added that she is happy with the person her son has become, but still regrets having him.

'I do regret the fact that I have done such a lousy job parenting him,' she admitted.

'He deserved more than I was able to give him. I regret having children because I wasn't ready at 23, and because I'm much too selfish to really care about someone's feelings other than my own.

A mother revealed that she is 'much too selfish' to care about someone else's feelings other than her own

'I regret having a child because it's a really, really big job that I wasn't able to handle.'

A woman who is estranged from her daughter said that she wishes she hadn't put so much time and energy into raising her.

She blamed her own mother and sisters for teaching her daughter to hate her.

'My sisters aided and abetted my mother in turning my daughter against me,' she said. 'For example, I smoked marijuana exactly 5 times when I was pregnant.

'I did no other drugs. I had great prenatal care. I took prenatal vitamins every day. I ate healthy food and I was very physically active.

'My sisters have told my daughter that the reason she has learning disabilities is because I did drugs when I was pregnant.'

A woman claimed that her family had turned her daughter against her by telling her she'd smoked marajauna while pregnant (picture posed by model)

However she argued that in her opinion there was 'no link' between marajauna and learning difficulties and claimed that her daughter doesn't actually have a problem.

'She has a lower IQ due to the fact that her father's IQ is much lower than mine,' she claimed.

'The lesson to take away from this is to be careful who you let into your gene pool. I was 18 when I met her father. I was more concerned with his physical attributes than his mental attributes.'

The woman said that she hasn't spoken to her daughter, now 32, for more than six years and wasn't invited to her recent wedding.

'I very much regret pouring my life energy into raising her,' she said. 'Every thing I did, I did for her.'

'I feel like I wasted a great deal of my time.'

However, she said she's realised she may be 'lucky' that her daughter is not part of her life.

'Why should I want someone in my life who hates me? When I accepted the loss of my daughter, I began to see the possibilities in my own life,' she explained.

'So basically, I would have been quite happy not to have had children. I sometimes envy people who chose not to have them.'

Meanwhile, another woman who expressed regret, explained that a lot of her feelings stem from being severely depressed.

'Sometimes I have felt that I should not have had children, that I am an unfit mother, totally inadequate and over my head with having kids,' she said.

'It's a "I shouldn't have had kids" feeling rather than "I wish I didn't have kids." It is also a suicidal feeling- a "my kids will be better off without me" feeling.

There was also a mum who admitted to mixed feelings about her two children.

And she urged people to take into account the most important factor - the person they're having a child with.

'It doesn't matter how ready you are to have a child, if your partner isn't willing to also be a parent, it simply won't work,' she explained.

'And while many people will say they are ready, if they haven't been a parent, they don't actually know what that means.'

'I don't fault the father of my 21 year old - he is a wonderful father and was just as clueless as I was when we had our daughter,' she said.

'He and I are still friends and my older daughter is a happy, wonderful person. We were poor students but made it work and both held the same values as parents.

I do, however, regret taking the plunge a second time. My current husband and I have plenty of money, stability, good jobs.

'What we don't have is a calm, happy home. It is as much my fault for agreeing to have a child as it is his for demanding one.

'As parents, we are polar opposites and it has been our undoing. I push for structure, he wants fun and impulsive.'

The woman admitted that she 'selfishly thinks about the fact that I could be travelling the world right now instead of helping her with her homework.'