I had this discussion with my mother (as an adult). She and my father had been married 12 years and she was 34 when she had her first child. She had told me before that they had had children because it was the thing to do next and they were getting older. I had an inkling that she might regret having had children - she had once told me that she'd had a miscarriage a couple of years before us and had felt relieved when it happened.
When we came into the world, we completely derailed my parents' relationship. My mom chafed under the expectation of being our sole caregiver and wanted to go back to school. My father resented that she wasn't willing to be a happy, traditional mother like all his friends' wives, who were perfectly fulfilled by motherhood and needed nothing else.
My father was a functional alcoholic and occasionally erratic. Before we were born, this wasn't a problem. He seemed fun and interesting. After we were born, my mother resented him because she felt he couldn't be trusted with our care.
They were happy - and then they very quickly weren't. It took parenthood only a couple of years to destroy their relationship. When they divorced, my mother was a single mother and my father went on to marry a more traditional wife and had another family with her. As a single mother, all of my mother's goals were put off. She ultimately did get her PhD, but only after many years - I was 19 when she finally finished.
By all objective measurements, I think her life would have been better without children (and since I have chosen not to have children, I would not be offended by the notion of her regretting us!). She told me that regret wasn't the right word, because she loves us and now that we're adults, it's hard to look back and picture a life without us. But that yes, if she hadn't had children, things would have been different for her - maybe better. Mostly though, she said that she regretted having children with our father. It wasn't the kids that were the mistake - it was the partner she chose to have children with. A different partner might have supported her dreams, or taken on more of a hands-on role with the kids. A different partner might have shared the burden. They could have bonded over their shared experience with parenthood, instead of pulling apart. But they weren't really sharing it - she was alone in motherhood.
And in reading the article, that seems to be a common thread. There's this dissatisfaction with the role that the father is accepting and the role that is expected of the mother. But it's hard to foresee that the person you fell in love with isn't the most complementary parent for you. Except women are supposed to love motherhood, so everyone pretends that they don't understand why she might not be happy in this role, so the regretful mother feels alone - in society and in her relationship. Motherhood can end up very lonely and isolating.
