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...And that was a good day. A standard regular nothing went wrong and nobody was sick and both parents shared the load and no one was out of town on business and there wasn't an assembly or a recital or anything like that to attend and your kid(s) did not wake you up at 2:30am (and 3am, and 4am, and again at 4:45 am, and then finally again 10 minutes before your alarm is set to go off) screaming from a nightmare.
Wow.
As a childless person, reading this exhausted me. I want kids, but I don't know where I would find the fortitude to manage the relentlessness of childrearing, especially when they're young and have endless needs. Hats off to you parents, seriously.
There's nothing hard about the mind-numbing tasks of cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, laundry. These can be done efficiently and quickly with a minimum of planning. So, no, nothing difficult there. No reason to out-source these jobs unless you're dripping in money or busy with a jet-setting lifestyle.
It's when you have a baby on your hip, a toddler pulling on your skirt, and a kindergartner crying because the teacher told him that he couldn't play with the class guinea pig during nap time. And then the door-bell rings and it's the plumber who is there to fix the clog in the toilet from the toddler tossing some unknown item (hopefully it wasn't valuable!) in there. The phone rings and it's the dentist's office letting you know that your insurance (lucky you!) won't pay for the last visit and how would you like to handle it? And the kinder-kid has gone off to school (the neighbor's turn to car-pool) and the toddler hasn't had breakfast yet and refuses to eat the oatmeal and won't settle for anything except chocolate-chip pancakes (damn you, IHOP!) and crying ensues, which starts baby on hip to crying and the plumber has finished unclogging and hands you a bill and asks you how you'd like to handle it? and the phone rings with some fool wanting to know who you plan to vote for in the upcoming election and you feed the hip-ster the toddler's oatmeal, hand the toddler a box of Frosted Krunchies cereal which he promptly spills on the floor and the phone rings and the dryer buzzes and you're still trying to drink that first cup of coffee which has now grown stone-cold. And it's only 9:15. A.M.
This goes on for days, and weeks, and years, until one day, all five of them are grown men and you still have all your faculties intact. Like labor pains, you forget what it took to get them to this place. And you take pride in your accomplishment and realize that some things just can't be out-sourced.
The hardest thing is helping them deal with the world. When they have issues with friends, schools, health issues, etc. that they are too young to understand. And you just have to help them through disappointments. That is the hardest, seeing a situation when your kid is unhappy but as a parent you can't make everything roses... sometimes life situations just s*ck and they have to muddle through.
In another thread it was pointed out that since I don't have kids I can't know how difficult the job is, so here we are. My question is, with respect to school age children and a SAHM or SAHD, what is the difficult aspect of raising kids? I tried to get a response, but the most detailed response I received basically stated that the cooking, cleaning, laundry, & dishes make kids difficult, but those can all be outsourced for <$15/hr and none of those tasks are terribly difficult to accomplish.
Tireless, time consuming, & thankless are given attributes.
I found that the hardest part of raising children was when I discovered that they were thinking about choosing the wrong path, and I had to find a way to move them onto the right path and convince them that it was their own idea. That requires some careful thought, and a very careful discussion.
In terms of making the task of raising children easy, the most important point is to treat children, from birth onward, in the same way that we want to be treated. For example, some parents actually baby talk to children, some swear at them, some hit them, some shove them into a room and order them to stay put ... all of which is completely contrary to how we want to be treated. Children that were treated poorly as pre-schoolers will obviously treat their parents poorly as teenagers ... why wouldn't they ... that's their first opportunity to stand up for themselves.
I haven't read all of the responses, but one thing needs to be made clear: DNA is a real thing. I have twins and they're super different. One came out sunny as the day is long, but extremely demanding. He's still that way.
The other is just sweet and easy -- until he's not. Then he goes into full tantrum-mode which is rare for him.
Every kid is different. It's like asking, "why is marriage so hard?" Well, some spouses/situations are easier than others, right? Same idea. And being a single parent, IMO, would be super hard.
As a childless person, reading this exhausted me. I want kids, but I don't know where I would find the fortitude to manage the relentlessness of childrearing, especially when they're young and have endless needs. Hats off to you parents, seriously.
Fortunately, it doesn't get to that point overnight! It's gradual, but at some point, you do stop and think - WTH happened, how did I get here and why am I so darned tired all the time?
As a childless person, reading this exhausted me. I want kids, but I don't know where I would find the fortitude to manage the relentlessness of childrearing, especially when they're young and have endless needs. Hats off to you parents, seriously.
Physcially, it gets easier as the kids get older. Mentally, it gets harder. Newborn babies have basic needs-food, clothing, shelter, love. Mostly they recognize the food need. Keep 'em fed, they're happy (usually). High schoolers? I don't want to get started.
The difficult part about raising kids is that you are not in control of your own life anymore. Your schedule, your every move (waking or sleeping) is dictated by the needs of someone else. Before I had kids, I decided how I wanted to spend my time, how I wanted to conduct the everyday tasks of life, it was my business, and the only other person it affected a little bit was my spouse. Now with kids, that's gone. It is dictated by the needs of my children.
Let me try to illustrate. I work full time. Before kids, I often enjoyed taking a professional continuation class after work to increase my skills, or stopping by the bookstore and getting a book to read about some new piece of software or engineering process. Can't do that anymore. Before kids, if I wanted, I could decide that I don't like my current job, and look around for a new one, or take some time off to go back to school, or whatever, and it was based on what I wanted or needed. Now, decisions like that don't even take my opinion into account. It all depends on if my income is enough to support my kids, if my work schedule is convenient with regards to daycare, if the location is close enough to the school, etc.
After coming home, I used to be able to wind down after work, warm up a microwave meal and kick back in front of the TV for an hour or two eating dinner on my lap with my drink next to me, and afterwards being able to take my time with cleaning, take a nice hot shower, read a bit of a book, browse the internet for a bit, and go to bed as early or as late as I wish, and set my alarm clock for whatever time worked for my and my job. Not anymore.
Now, the very time I leave work is dictated by my kids, I can't decide to leave early or late, I have to leave at the exact time that gives me enough time to pick them up and get them to whatever activity they are going to without sitting in the car for 20 minutes twiddling our thumbs or getting there so late they miss stuff. I have to make sure I packed a snack for them that morning, and it's a snack they'll actually eat, then I have to let them eat it while I drive, while fully realizing that I'm going to have to clean the back seat later but there's nothing I can do about it because cleaning the backseat later is easier than dealing with my children when they don't get a snack. Then when we get wherever I have to take them to the bathroom, hold them on the toilet so they don't fall in, while holding a hand over the automatic flushing sensor so it doesn't flush while they are sitting there and scare the bejeezus out of them, convince them to please please please TRY to pee, even if they feel like they don't have to (but they really do) get their toilet paper for them, beg and beg and beg them not to touch all of the various dirty parts of the toilet stall or open the stall door while I try to pee REALLY QUICK. Then I have to wash my hands while still begging them to not touch things or run out, then lift them up one at a time and try to wash their hands one handed while they are trying to splash me and spread soap everywhere. Then I get to do "parent participation" in their class, which is usually singing stupid songs, keeping them from falling off of things, and keeping them from running around and hitting other kids. After their practice/therapy/whatever session, (during which invariably I've had to deal with at least 3 behavior issues), I take them home, unload the 3 trips worth of crap from the car (2.5 trips worth of stuff is not mine) cook dinner, feed it to the kids, clean the car while they are eating, process all of the stuff that came home with them (putting clothes and sheets that they peed/pooped on during their nap in the wash, throwing away uneaten portions of lunch, oohing and aahing over their fingerpaintings and trying to find a place to put it with the 500 other fingerpaintings from just last week). After they have eaten, me and the spouse take turns helping with homework while cleaning up the mess they made during dinner, and possibly getting to eat a few bites of something ourselves, while running around the kitchen. Then comes bathing the children, packing their lunches, putting naptime sheets in the dryer, picking out clothes for the next day, packing our own lunches (because we have to work through lunch in order to get 8 hours in and still have time for drop off and pick up while the daycare/school is open), trying to get a bill or two done, folding the nap sheets and packing backpacks for tomorrow, and then cleaning up the mess that they made while we were doing all that. And somewhere in there we fetch tissues, throw away tissues, change channels from one inane kid show to a slightly different inane kid show, fetch drinks, wipe poop off of two different butts, clean poop off of a toilet seat if we are lucky, or off of something else if we're not. We do most of this with a child either riding us, holding onto us, or following us at all times. We MIGHT get a chance to go to the bathroom ourselves, but we don't go alone, we go with whichever child is currently latched on. Then comes the bedtime routine with the PJs, the pullups, the last bathroom visits, the milk, the oh no I can't find my current favorite sleeping toy, the getting everything just right with the correct lullaby CD at the exact volume the kids like, and then trying to get them to stay in bed while you watch the minutes tick away on the clock and mentally calculate how many hours of sleep the kids will actually get vs how many the supposed experts (and all the other parents on the parenting forums) tell you they are supposed to get and condemning yourself as a parent for sleep depriving your child, (even though they get waaaay more sleep than you do, that's soo not the point).
After your prayers have been answered and they are asleep, you are either back to cleaning, back to doing bills or laundry, or are already asleep passed out on the floor in their room because they outlasted you. In that last case you better hope you remembered to set your alarm on your smart phone and remembered to bring it to the kids room with you and that it doesn't run out of batteries over night otherwise your kid will be late to school in the morning and you will get to do the walk of shame to the office with them. You don't actually get to take a shower, that's what weekends are for.
Then in the morning you dress your kids, try to convince them to sit on the potty, brush their teeth for them, wash their face for them, make their breakfast, very quickly get ready for work while they are eating, clean the mess they made while they were eating, pack the 3 trips worth of stuff needed into the car, including snacks, lunches, jackets, homework, after school snacks, props needed for after school activities, the clean nap sheets, and whatever is left of their breakfast. Oh, and a cup of coffee for you. All of this activity takes approximately an hour an a half to two hours. Then it takes another hour to drop the kid off (and sign them in, hang their jacket up, give the lunch to the lunch lady, put the nap sheets up, and check with the teacher) and actually get to work. By the time you get to work you've been up for 3 hours, and all you've had is a cup of coffee and you better be ready for that first thing in the morning status meeting because you sure can't afford to lose your job.
And that was a good day. A standard regular nothing went wrong and nobody was sick and both parents shared the load and no one was out of town on business and there wasn't an assembly or a recital or anything like that to attend and your kid(s) did not wake you up at 2:30am (and 3am, and 4am, and again at 4:45 am, and then finally again 10 minutes before your alarm is set to go off) screaming from a nightmare.
Parenting is difficult because your life is not your own anymore. And it's not that I don't like it, I love it, I happily do all this because I want to, but it's still HARD.
I don't usually like to quote such a long post, but the way you wrote this was brilliant!! I am not a parent, but to me you really conveyed what a day-in-the-life is like. It's a blessing, but it is non-stop multi-tasking and dealing with little personalities. They're not emotionless robots who simply obey whatever you tell them to and everything just magically falls into place.
I find 2 & 4 to be pretty easy now though. At least, in comparison to baby stages (one had horrific colic). The 2 yo naps 1.5-3 hours a day, and the other is at preschool 1230-430 Monday to Friday so... Not bad! What I find hard though, is finding time to work. Most of my shifts are after bedtime, so I get to sleep around midnight and they are up at 5:30am... zzz. Plus about 10 of those nap hours are when I do more work at home. Still, it beats the rat race.
I could handle the ins and outs of parenting. There are always some bumpy days, but they are easily overshadowed by the wonderful ones.
I think the part that people need to experience to understand, is the overwhelming emotional attachment. My heart was mine for several years. Then I gave part of it to my spouse. And finally, each of my three children carved out a section. I need to know all of them are healthy and happy in order to keep my heart whole.
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