In an age characterized by postponed parenthood and declining birth rates in many countries (Hellstrand et al., 2020), the phenomenon of regretting parenthood is both under-researched and effectively a taboo topic (Donath, 2017; Johnson & Pétursdóttir, 2024; Sihto & Mustosmäki, 2021). This is at least in part because parenthood is supposed to be positively connoted (Donath, 2017; Heffernan & Stone, 2021) which makes it difficult to express negative feelings such as regret in relation to parenthood. Further, as we will discuss below, regretting parenthood is accompanied by additional and other negative feelings, such as loneliness.
Defining Loneliness
Loneliness is a common feeling, often framed in negative terms. Loneliness may be theorized in different ways (Weiss, 1980). One important distinction is between objective and subjective loneliness (Brülde & Fors, 2015) where objective loneliness is composed of two descriptive categories: spatial and social loneliness. Spatial loneliness describes a person as being spatially separated from others whereas social loneliness means having few social contacts (Bolmsjö et al., 2019). These descriptive categories do not entail any positive or negative values, even though being socially alone may be assumed to have more negative connotations, considering humans need to be with other humans, at least some of the time (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010). Social loneliness should be separate from emotional loneliness, which is defined by a lack of close attachment relationships (Weiss, 1980). Subjective loneliness, which may include emotional loneliness, can be involuntary and painful when it obstructs the human contact that one needs. In contrast, individuals may long for and highly value voluntary loneliness, perhaps more accurately described as solitude (Brülde & Fors, 2015; Long & Averill, 2003; Ost Mor et al., 2021).
An additional form of loneliness, existential loneliness, is conceptualized as a “feeling of fundamental separateness from others and the wider world” (Mansfield et al., 2021, p. 9). Key components of existential loneliness include feelings of loss and longing, being misunderstood, psychological and emotional detachment, lack of genuine communication, and the inability to share problems or difficulties with others since one feels that no one really listens and understands (Mansfield et al., 2021; Bolmsjö et al., 2019; Brülde, 2007). It is thus possible to feel lonely even if one has close relationships.
Most studies on loneliness focus on elderly people and adolescents, probably because these have been identified as groups at higher risk of experiencing loneliness (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006; Johansson & Andreasson, 2017). While the substantial negative impact of loneliness among these groups has been associated with both physical and mental illness (e.g. Courtin & Knapp, 2017; Eccles et al., 2020), loneliness is also associated with mental health problems and increased healthcare consumption in the general population (Beutel et al., 2017). In comparison to the vast number of studies on loneliness among elderly people, there is a lack of studies that focus on understanding loneliness in parenthood (Kent-Marvick et al., 2022; Nowland et al., 2021). Most studies on parental loneliness are quantitative and have loneliness as a co-variate while studying other topics, such as postpartum depression. Furthermore, there is little examination of the aspects of existential loneliness in the reviewed studies.
Parental Loneliness
According to recent reviews of parental loneliness, at least 30% of parents experience some kind of loneliness (Kent-Marvick et al., 2022; Nowland et al., 2021), which was linked to finding parenthood unexpectedly difficult, having fewer social interactions after becoming a parent, not feeling understood by others, and feeling that the support received from one’s partner was superficial or too little. Loneliness among parents is associated with decreased parental health and wellbeing, depression, and stress (Nowland et al., 2021). When investigating the impact of parental loneliness on children’s health and wellbeing, studies point to certain gender-specific effects. Loneliness in mothers, for example, is associated with internalizing problems or poor problem-solving skills in the child/ren as well as child loneliness (Nowland et al., 2021). Interestingly, a study in Finland concluded that loneliness in fathers was only predictive of long-term loneliness in their sons, whereas mothers’ loneliness was predictive of daughters (Salo et al., 2020).
Parental Regret
According to surveys in the US and Poland, approximately 7–13% of parents regret parenthood (Newport & Wilke, 2013; Piotrowski, 2021). Why parents regret having children is usually a complex mix of factors, such as being overwhelmed or burned out with childcare duties, experiencing low identification with the parental role, having a poor relationship with the other parent, missing one’s old life, and feeling that parenthood has worsened one’s physical and/or mental health (Bodin, 2022; Donath, 2017; Garncarek, 2020; Piotrowski, 2021; Sihto & Mustosmäki, 2021). The feeling of regretting parenthood often involves great sadness and leads to suffering and feelings of loneliness (Garncarek, 2020). Although psychological studies on parenthood regret are generally lacking, studies from Poland indicate that parents who regret having children are more likely to have poorer psychological and somatic health (Piotrowski, 2021; Piotrowski et al., 2023, 2024). According to some interview studies (Bodin, 2023; Donath, 2017; Piotrowski et al., 2024), regret is most often directed towards the experience of being a parent, rather than towards the child specifically. Parents usually express that they love their child/ren and try to be engaged parents (Donath, 2017), while some parents describe themselves as absent (Piotrowski et al., 2024) or less engaged (Bodin, 2023).
The Swedish Context
Sweden is a country internationally known for scoring highly on the gender equality index and having family-friendly policies in place to enable parents of all genders to combine family life and work. Nonetheless, parents struggle to combine full-time work with involved parenthood, and parental burnout is rather common, especially among mothers (Roskam et al., 2022). Historically, the Swedish welfare state has been designed to create citizens who are independent of other people in relation to finances, emotional life, and social relationships. In this respect, Sweden differs from many other societies where the family and other collectives are the foundation of a society that presupposes mutual dependence, duty towards one’s family and neighbors, and hierarchical social relations (Berggren & Trägårdh, 2022). Instead of relying on family or one’s neighbor, people in Sweden tend to trust and turn to healthcare professionals and medical expertize for support during major life changes like pregnancy and parenthood (Swedish Agency for Health and Care Services Analysis, 2018).
The purpose of this study is to explore the feeling of loneliness in its various forms among Swedish parents who regret having children. The core research question is: how do parents who regret parenthood talk about experiencing loneliness as a function of this regret? The aim is to shed light on parental feelings that are rarely discussed or captured in other public health studies and to deepen understanding of how loneliness is experienced, expressed, and handled among Swedish parents who struggle with their parental role. We draw on the above theorizations of loneliness and use the terms social, emotional, and existential loneliness to describe feelings of being separate from others because of physical distance, the inability to confide in them, and/or others’ refusal to acknowledge one’s feelings. This study thus makes an empirical contribution to the field of parenthood studies. Its results can be used to increase health professionals’ awareness of parental regret and enable them to give adequate support to vulnerable parents.
Method
Study Context
This study is part of an interdisciplinary research project in Sweden about parents who regret having children. The first author, a midwife and researcher in reproductive health, was the principal investigator. The second author, a psychologist and researcher in child health and parenting, was involved during the planning phase of the project and the data analysis. This qualitative project is grounded in the epistemology of social constructivism, focusing on how parenthood is done and experienced in Sweden.
Participants
This study, approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Agency [dnr will be given after review], is based on in-depth interviews with 29 parents aged 27–83 years who regret having children (see Appendix 1 for an overview of participant characteristics). They had between one and six children, aged 18 months - 49 years. Most of the participants were mothers (n = 25). However, the study also includes four fathers. Fifteen of the participants had separated from the child/ren’s other parent. A majority of the participants were born in Sweden, while three had moved from other European countries and two from other continents. However, all parents had raised their children in Sweden. Most children had been conceived “spontaneously,” two participants had used assisted reproductive technology to become pregnant, and one had adopted a child.
Recruitment
Participants were recruited through advertisements on social media and through social networks. An ad was posted on various Facebook groups targeting parents, and a university social media/webpage. Awareness of the study was also created when the first author was interviewed in the national and local Swedish media about the project. While efforts were made to include parents of diverse genders, ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic positions, we did not succeed in recruiting parents who had had children in same-sex relationships. The final sample was dominated by white, middle-class, working mothers. Since this was a qualitative study the sample was not intended to be representative of the population of parents in Sweden who regret having children. However, there are also no Swedish population studies available on this issue.
To participate, the parent needed to have a persistent feeling of regret, be at least 18 years of age, have a child that was at least 18 months old, and not suffer from severe mental ill-health. These criteria were set to avoid a possible conflation of regret and postpartum depression/psychosis and to ensure that participants could make an informed decision to participate in the study. The mental health criterion was not validated through any measurements or other screening methods but was based on participants’ self-reported mental health. Eligible participants were informed that participation was entirely voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any point without giving a reason. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, all participants were given a document with contact information for psychological support after the interview. The interviews took place between September 2021 and May 2022, either in person at a location chosen by the participant or via video communication/telephone. The interviews began with warm-up questions about how the participants had found out about the study, why they wanted to participate, and if they could briefly describe themselves and their family situation. After that, the main question was: Could you tell me about your experiences of regretting parenthood? The participants were free to share their stories in any way they wished. Follow-up and clarifying questions were asked along the way. We chose this interview method with inspiration from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2009) since we explored a highly sensitive topic that had not previously been studied in the Swedish context. In this way, the interaction is defined more by the participant and is not structured based on predetermined problems or the researcher’s assumptions about the subject. The researcher did not try to steer the interview, and only provided prompts to guide the discussion from general statements to specific examples (Smith et al., 2009).
The interviews lasted between 45–90 min, were audio recorded, and transcribed verbatim. At this point, reflexive field notes were added to the document. All transcripts were de-identified; names were changed to pseudonyms, and other identifying information was removed. All interviews were conducted and transcribed by the first author. The second author served as a sounding board during data collection to discuss methodological and sensitive issues that arose during the interviewing process.
Data Analysis
The interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2022). This includes phases of familiarization with data through close reading, coding, developing themes, and writing the report, at the same time as critically reflecting on one’s role as a researcher, and one’s research practice and process (Braun & Clarke, 2022, p. 5). The software NVivo12 was used to get an overview of all data by coding, writing memos, and sorting codes into preliminary themes. After reading the interviews several times and creating initial codes, it became clear that, apart from regret, loneliness was the participants’ most expressed feeling, both explicitly and implicitly. This prompted us to focus on loneliness when reading the interviews again and explore its relation to regret. A new dataset was formed, including interview extracts dealing specifically with loneliness, parents’ communication with others, and support-seeking behaviors. The second analysis was partly inductive, but it was also deductive in the sense that we were attentive to which kinds of loneliness (see definitions above) were expressed on a manifest and latent level. Initially, we analyzed the new dataset separately, then discussed each other’s interpretations and refined the themes we had found together. Our diverse disciplinary backgrounds and clinical experiences gave us different approaches to the subject, but we often interpreted the interview data in similar ways.
As described by Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 86), the analysis process was recursive, moving back and forth between different phases when analyzing the material and writing. Eventually, the analysis resulted in four main themes: isolated parenthood, being alone with one’s feelings, hiding vs. sharing, and alleviating loneliness through seeking professional support. The first two themes cover parents’ descriptions of their experiences of loneliness, while the second two address how parents handle their troubling feelings and experiences.
Results
Isolated Parenthood
All the participants in our study had their children while in heterosexual relationships. Given the Swedish context where this is an assumed norm (Oláh & Bernhardt, 2008), they had expected both parents to be active in childcare as well as have gainful employment. New mothers often reported that the equal sharing of childcare did not meet their preconceived expectations. This left them feeling abandoned, stuck, and alone in parenthood. Participants sometimes received practical support from other family members, usually their mother but sometimes a sister, (step-)father, or in-laws. This assistance helped the new parents through the hardest days, especially in the first few months of parenthood. However, this practical support was not enough for them to get rid of the feeling of being alone, for reasons that we will come back to later.
There were also parents who did not have any family members close by, or even in the country, or had poor relations with them. A recently divorced mother who got pregnant right after she moved to Sweden, before learning the language or establishing a social network, described a mix of social and emotional loneliness:
I was married to my husband, but despite that, I was alone most of the time. He was working, and I was the only one who could take care of the child, due to the fact that I was not born here and had no relatives nearby to help or anyone to turn to with questions. It was a completely isolated parenting, I can say (Mother of two children, 27 years).
Social isolation caused parents to long for adult company, but also alone time (solitude); they wished for someone else to step in and relieve them of childcare responsibilities for a while, so they could take a break and regain their energy. Being constantly overwhelmed with childcare responsibilities contributed to the feeling of regretting parenthood. The COVID-19 pandemic also prevented many participants from getting help, as it created further distance between parents and their families of origin. This led to social isolation that they had not anticipated when planning the pregnancy, which also evoked feelings of disappointment.
Not having relatives to provide advice or support created a feeling of rootlessness and insecurity, as explained by one of the mothers:
I don’t have any close relatives, no one in my childhood family left; so, I don’t have anyone I can ask, ‘Did I do this, did my sibling do that, when we were little?’ … // So, it is difficult for oneself to know what is within some kind of sensible norms like that, and how to act in that case. (Mother of one child, 48 years).
Being Alone with One’s Feelings
The interviews clearly showed that feeling regret about having children is extremely taboo in society (Donath, 2017; Johnson & Pétursdóttir, 2024; Sihto & Mustosmäki, 2021), and therefore a very difficult feeling for parents to share with anyone. Regretting parenthood was perceived as un-motherly and shameful. This led most parents to keep their feelings to themselves. A minority of the participants had been honest about their regrets with their partner or a psychologist. When talking to friends or family members, on the other hand, they usually shared bits and pieces of how they felt, but never the full picture. Why and how they did or did not talk about it, and how their feelings were received by others, impacted loneliness and a sense of shame.
Sharing that you regret the children you have in common with a partner is not easy; it requires a high level of trust. Some of the participants feared their partner’s reaction (and possible rejection) and therefore stayed quiet. Others had been open about their feelings but were met with incomprehension, which made them feel lonely in the relationship. In several cases, the lack of communication, validation, and ability to rely on one’s partner had led to disappointment, mistrust, and separation. However, there were also participants who were honest with their partner and had a positive outcome, and even realized that their partner had a similar experience of parenthood:
[My partner’s] mother was here and she asked how we felt, and then he answered, ‘We regret it’ and she said, ‘No, you can’t say that!’ and he said, ‘Well, that is how we feel.’ And it was such a relief that he spoke up for the both of us. (Mother of two children, 45 years).
In this case, the mother-in-law clearly stated that parenthood regret is not possible and should not be talked about. Such responses made parents feel socially awkward and abnormal, and that they were failing at what it means to be a mother or a father. When trying to share their feelings, they felt misunderstood, and people got uncomfortable and tried to smooth over their negative experiences:
It’s very difficult to talk to people who haven’t experienced that feeling at all because people get very provoked, I feel. Even friends, even if they try to be supportive, you feel like they don’t understand what it’s all about and then I don’t feel like I’m getting much out of it or what can you say. So, it hasn’t been so helpful to talk to friends about it, and I don’t have much family here, so there’s no one I’ve talked to that way either. (Mother of one child, 32 years).
Some participants reported feeling parenthood regret during pregnancy. Their friends and family often told them it was normal to feel nervous or insecure but that their feelings were temporary and would go away when the child was born:
The first people I tried to talk to were my mother and sister, but they showed a clear negative reaction: ‘You can’t think like this, there will be a child soon! You will get into it’, and so on. They encouraged me by saying, ‘Of course, it can be nerve-wrecking!’ but it was not possible to discuss it in a deeper way. (Father of one child, 49 years).
The response from others felt diminishing, led the conversation to a dead end, and increased parents’ feelings of being deviant since their negative feelings did not go away. Hence, although some participants had close relationships and wanted to share their feelings, they experienced existential loneliness when these significant others were unable to delve into difficult and existential topics. The “others” that both mothers and fathers referred to in their examples were most often women (a mother, sister, or female friend). There seemed to be higher expectations of women (especially other mothers) to understand or relate, which also made participants more disappointed when these women did share their experiences. Some reflected upon how women also tended to push each other down:
I have expressed to my closest friends in recent years that I find it very difficult, but then they have, well, it has come to my knowledge that I am perceived as whiny and that I complain too much and they have said [annoyed voice], ‘At least I don’t talk crap about my kids.’ I’m not talking crap about my children; it’s just a rant about parenthood. (Mother of two children, 37 years).
Expressing too many negative feelings about parenthood was not acceptable in this woman’s social context. Some mothers believed that the reasons why people held back and avoided the topic were because they did not dare to question the ‘holiness’ of having children, and considered children as the meaning of life and what gives worth to a woman.
Hiding vs. Sharing
When parents revealed feelings of regret to anyone, they took a huge risk, exposing themselves to shame, failure, loss, and hurting others. Sharing was a means of combatting social loneliness and counteracting one’s sense of isolation as well as being viewed as a means of helping others in a similar situation. For example, one mother described how she actively brought up the topic with young women to help them make more informed decisions about whether to have children or not. Parents also talked about how they tried to be open to show others that they could love their child and be a good parent, even though they regretted parenthood. One could interpret this as a way of seeking a community of like-minded people that would act as a bulwark against the social loneliness that many regretful parents experienced. Interestingly, sharing the truth on social media, however, was considered taking a step too far:
It’s not exactly like a hobby you are sharing. It’s an interesting thought, because when I saw your ad on social media, I immediately felt that I don’t want to write this in a comment, that’s where my limit is in some way, I would not write ‘I’m happy to participate’, which would make people say ‘Huh? What kind of person is she?’ I have also never shared articles about this [on social media]. (Mother of two children, 37 years).
Hence, being open on social media could lead to misunderstandings from peers about the regretful mothers, and hence potentially more shame and social isolation.
The majority of parents were united in stating that they would never tell their children that they regretted parenthood. They were convinced that their children would suffer if they knew the truth. The mother quoted above continued:
I don’t want them finding out that ‘my mom regretted having me.’ I’d rather not let them know that. Although I will be really open if they were to go through something like this. I will definitely give some kind of an embellished version that it was difficult for me to be a mother, but I will probably not tell the full extent of how hard it was. (Mother of two children, 37 years).
This quote, and the following, shows how the cycle of silence around this topic is perpetuated. Parents expected that the truth would make their children feel unwanted, and result in low self-esteem and depression:
It’s information that can [hurt]… It shouldn’t be taboo, you should be allowed to talk about this, but there’s a child here too. This child could be seriously hurt. I can only imagine how I would feel, myself. No person should feel unwanted or that they have hurt their mother; it’s too much. (Mother of one child, 34 years).
Another mother, in her late 50s at the time of the interview, shared a clear memory of how her own mother had once declared that she had wanted to abort her sister when pregnant with her, and the participant knew how much harm this revelation had done to her sister. This had convinced her that it was wrong to share such a thing, saying, “It’s a minefield; you simply don’t go there.”
Only one mother and one father, both of whom had become parents without wanting to, had written about their feelings publicly. They both did it to break the taboo around issues like involuntary parenthood, intimate partner violence, and mental ill-health. The father, who wrote the text when the child was about 10 years old, said writing had been an important therapeutic process, to put words to what he had been through. The mother talked about herself as someone ”without much filter” and not seeing the point of being secretive about things happening to her.
Being this open about parenthood regret was thus not the norm but could be of great importance in alleviating the loneliness that some parents felt. Those who had heard or read about other parents who regretted having children acknowledged that these parents’ honesty and openness had really helped. Identification with others, a form of sociality, was crucial for parents’ wellbeing, and enabled a step forward in processing their feelings:
Just to know that you are not alone. That there are others. So, you do not need to feel as if there is something wrong with you, that it is abnormal. Because that is how I felt before. I don’t want children; what’s wrong with me? But there is nothing wrong with me… I started to think differently when I heard people talk about it on this radio show // And then I found this huge Facebookgroup, and there were very, very many parents who felt just like I feel. (Father of two children, 41 years).
Here loneliness and feeling alone with one’s feelings were alleviated by knowing that there was a large community, even if remote and online, who shared those feelings.
Alleviating Loneliness Through Seeking Professional Support
Several parents experienced that it was hard to find public support or know where to turn with their feelings. Some longed for a support group led by a professional counselor, where they could have a safe discussion with other parents in a similar situation. This, they believed, would create a forum for reflection, and maybe make them feel less alone and different. Talking about regret could reduce the stigma, give it a different perspective, and make it more bearable.
Parents who had turned, or thought of turning, to professionals for support reported mixed results. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) at antenatal or child health clinics were often perceived as being busy with examining the growth of the child and not paying much attention to the mental health of parents, especially not (future) fathers. When parents tried to start a conversation about their struggles, they felt that HCPs often tried to reduce their worries through normalization, by saying things like, “It will feel better after six months; all parents worry. It is natural.” Such responses did not work very well. Rather, it made parents consider HCPs as less trustworthy or “influenced by the same norms and expectations around parenthood as the rest of society,” as one mother put it. Another mother reflected on a positive example from a prenatal healthcare encounter where a midwife had shown openness to ambivalence by saying, “Do you want me to congratulate you?” instead of assuming that the pregnancy was a blessing. This led the mother to feel trust and created the sense of being able to share future concerns with the midwife.
Being seen and acknowledged by an HCP was crucial to parents, but it often required a strong voice and several attempts at communication. One of the fathers explained that it was not until he tried to end his own life that he was taken seriously and got the chance to talk to a psychologist. Those parents who were quieter and less confident risked being left unnoticed and unseen, and longed for someone to pay attention to them:
No, but just someone who maybe took it a little more seriously. And maybe it is then, if someone had reached out, you know, or just put a hand on your shoulder and asked, ‘How are you really?’ like, ‘Do you think it’s hard?’ Then you would have probably also dared to bring it up and ask for more help, perhaps. But especially when you are a brand-new parent and fragile, you may not have the strength to take the first step. I really think that it would have probably helped me a lot from the beginning if someone else had picked up on it and said, ‘Do you know what? I don’t think this seems that great. What do you want me to do?’ (Mother of one child, 32 years).
Although therapy did not make the feeling of regret go away, those who eventually got to speak with a psychologist felt better afterward, thanks to the opportunity to vent their feelings. In general, parents stressed the importance of healthcare providers showing in some way that they were aware of the problem, and that they could offer a safe space to talk and make referrals to a support group. Just being listened to was what parents longed for the most.
Discussion & Conclusion
The aim of this study was to explore loneliness among parents in Sweden who regret having children, and how they handle their troubling feelings. Our results demonstrated that parents experienced different forms of loneliness that were closely intertwined with the feeling of regret. Social isolation or emotional loneliness, as well as a longing for solitude, manifested in their desire to have more people around them with whom to share their practical or emotional burdens. Existential loneliness arose as they felt unable to share their true feelings with, or did not feel understood by their next of kin. Based on these findings, we argue that regret and loneliness are mutually imbricated, in that regret can lead to loneliness, and loneliness can sustain the feeling of regret.
Social and emotional loneliness among parents is common during the transition to parenthood (Kent-Marvick et al., 2022). A recent study on parental loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic also confirms that new parents in particular experienced increased social isolation and loneliness due to social restrictions (Nomura et al., 2023). We also found that the COVID-19 pandemic hindered some new parents from socializing with other new parents and receiving support from their own elderly parents, which made them feel more stressed by parenthood and more alone.
At the same time, some parents expressed a deep longing to be left alone (solitude) but had no opportunity for this. The need for solitude is recognized by people of all ages; time spent alone is often viewed positively and something that people seek out for its benefits (Long & Averill, 2003). Solitude can allow us to connect with ourselves, our thoughts, and feelings and perhaps it gives parents the opportunity to access themselves as individuals and persons beyond their role as parents. However, as we can see in our findings, intensive parenting does not leave much room for solitude.
Our study revealed that parents who regretted having children described an everyday life that many other parents also experience, a life filled with stress, difficulties in managing their work-life balance, not feeling good enough as a parent, and relationship issues. The majority of the participants were mothers with young children, who were explicitly affected by the process of transition to parenthood. As seen in previous studies, countries with high expectations of gender equality like Sweden also show high levels of parental burnout (Roskam et al., 2022), despite access to paid parental leave for both parents and subsidized childcare. What distinguishes the parents in our study from many other parents is that they saw the negative experiences of parenthood as outweighing the positive ones and that these negative feelings persisted over time.
To manage negative emotional experiences, adults (and children) are prone to sharing their feelings socially (Rimé, 2009). Motives for social sharing are the need for legitimization and validation of one’s feelings, meaning-making, and bonding with others. The participants in our study expressed these needs in relation to their experiences of regret. However, sharing such experiences with others can be hard, since parenthood is usually framed as worth all of its sacrifices. Those who tried to put their feelings into words were often (afraid of being) met with indignation and accusations of bad parenting, which are common reactions from others towards regretful parents (Donath, 2017; Garncarek, 2020; Matley, 2020; Moore & Abetz, 2019; Sihto & Mustosmäki, 2021). This is where we argue that regret and loneliness are mutually imbricated, in that regret can lead to loneliness, and loneliness can have a sustaining effect on regret. Since parental regret is not talked about openly, it appears as if it does not exist, which increases the feeling of being different and alone.
Sharing requires safety, but as long as certain feelings are treated as taboo, it is hard to feel safe enough to share. One important circumstance when existential loneliness arises is when there is a lack of frank communication in close relations (Bolmsjö et al., 2019). When one cannot share one’s difficulties, inner thoughts, feelings or problems, and when one is not listened to or understood, the feeling of existential loneliness is profound (Brülde, 2007). Zeelenberg et al. (2000) argue that regret in general is hard to talk about since it is so strongly interlinked with self-blame and shame. It might be that it is particularly difficult to share such feelings in a country like Sweden where people are expected to be independent of other people in relation to their emotional life (Berggren & Trägårdh, 2022). However, a successful act of social sharing can, amongst other things, alleviate anxiety, insecurity, and loneliness (Rimé, 2009). This is where healthcare professionals sometimes make a difference. HCPs in Sweden play an important role for parents as they represent the welfare system and the medical expertize that many Swedes highly value and trust (Swedish Agency for Health and Care Services Analysis, 2018). There was an evident need among the parents in our study for HCPs to acknowledge and address their feelings of regret.
Strengths and Limitations
This paper contributes knowledge about a topic that has previously not been explored in the Swedish context. However, the sample is limited, and a knowledge gap still remains about fathers’ and older parents’ experiences of regret and loneliness. Nonetheless, feelings of loneliness were expressed in all available interviews, regardless of the parent’s gender or age, and without having questions about loneliness in the interview guide, which strengthens the relevance of the findings.
Implications for Policy and Practice
The transition to parenthood is a demanding process, and the Swedish healthcare system provides some support for identifying and helping parents who struggle with their parenting role. Over the past decade, public child healthcare services have introduced, among other things, screening and support for depression in new mothers, and a dedicated visit for the non-birth parent to discuss parenting and mental health (Reuter, 2018). The HCPs are trained to take care of and provide support for issues related to parenting and mental health problems. However, the system has difficulties meeting the existential challenges and related loneliness faced by some parents. Thus, HCPs need to have knowledge about parenthood regret acknowledge the difficult feelings that existential loneliness can evoke. With proper training, HCPs can provide a safe space where difficult experiences, such as regret, can be shared. This is important not only for the parent’s experience of loneliness but also for the child as loneliness in parents has been associated with poor outcomes in child's wellbeing (Nowland et al. 2021, Salo et al., 2020). For some parents, talking with a professional will be enough to find their way toward accepting feelings of regret and moving beyond social and existential loneliness. For others, verbalizing their feelings may be an opportunity to get more help and support from HCPs specialized in mental health.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02988-8.
Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank all participants for their courage, time, and trust. We would also like to thank Prof. Gabriele Griffin and Dr Lena R. Hann for their valuable comments on the manuscript.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest
The study was supported by Kjell och Märta Beijers stiftelse (no grant number). The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Swedish Ethical Review Agency [dnr 2020-05957]. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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