I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Parenting is stressful.
It’s challenging, it’s tiring, and worst of all, it’s important. I don’t care if you have one kid, two kids, five kids, or are the Duggars. Being a parent is like living inside a pressure cooker. And, it gets hotter every day.
Especially when you turn up the heat by having multiple children. You know what they say: Mo kids mo problems!
I recently saw an article entitled “How to Keep Friends After Having Kids” and my first thought was something like, “That’s easy! Just don’t be a jerk.”
I didn’t bother to read past the headline, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t include that obvious suggestion. It probably had some serious advice to offer. Although if you’re not sure how to hang onto friends after you have kids, I don’t know if anything can help you, let alone a post I saw in my Facebook feed.
Except maybe this one!
A few weeks ago, I wrote something for Scary Mommy called “Can’t A SAHM Get a Little Love?”
It was about the need for working dads staying woke to the difficulties of being a stay-at-home mom, and to lend a hand when they get home. Because caring for children may not require going to an office, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard work, and the least a working spouse can do is not add to the exhaustion, frustration, and stress when they get home.
But guess what? The 9-5 life ain’t no picnic either. Can’t working parents get a little love?
I thought I’d write about how my life changed when I became a father.
But I can’t do it. I can’t lie.
Not a single thing about me or my lifestyle has changed one bit since I had kids.
Parents aren’t special. Having children doesn’t make you a hero. To paraphrase Furious Styles, any fool can make a baby, it takes a real parent to raise kids.
It also takes a real parent to think horrifying thoughts about their kids. And if that’s the primary criterion by which parenting is measured, I’m pretty sure I’m the world’s greatest dad. Because I’m a horrible person!
For proof, witness this list of terrible thoughts only parents have, and that it’s possible only this parent has, because I’m deranged. But that’s why you love me!