I love my kids, I just hate parenting
There’s something funny about “resurrecting” a post about raising my son to believe in God. Amirite? But with all this ridiculous Pope stuff in the news, I thought it made sense to revisit this old post, written only a few months after my kid was born. It’s about the conflict between my own disdain forRead more about Zombie Post: No Church in the Child[…]
Kids lie. No matter how hard you stress the importance of honesty, they will still lie. It’s human nature.
My kid isn’t even three years old and I’ve already seen inklings. I’m not always sure that’s he truly lying about not having pooped or if he’s just so used to having poop in his pants that he can’t tell the difference, but sometimes he’s lying about it. Because he doesn’t want his diaper changed. Because he’s gross. But I digress.
Dealing with lying children is a natural part of being a parent. I knew that going in, and I’m ready for it.
But I didn’t know how much lying I’d be doing.
I loved college.
While there are always exceptions, it’s almost hard not to love college. For many kids, it’s the first taste of freedom, a hint of real life without any of the “real” part. You live on your own, you hang out with big groups of friends, you have unfettered access to the opposite sex. Sure, you have some “responsibilities,” but with a little common sense it doesn’t take much to maintain them and still have plenty of time to just have fun.
When you’re in college, you don’t yet know what you don’t know and, as a result, life is blissful. Everything’s in front of you. It’s not until you graduate and spend a few years in the real world that you realize how good you had it.
Being a parent is a different kind of education – one that kind of works in reverse, in that it’s a bit of a grind and you don’t see a lot of the payoff until much later – that’s only if your kids don’t grow up to be assholes. But a good fifteen years removed – and no, I will not be attending any reunions so don’t paw at me with your dirty little guild – I am able to see some similarities between the life of a college student and that of a toddler.
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My kid just got accepted to what I suppose could be considered a slightly exclusive preschool. I mean, they sent an acceptance letter!
Upon receiving said letter, I sent an all-caps, multi-exclamation mark text message to Mom and Buried, announcing that “WE DID IT!”
Don’t worry, I was being sarcastic.
Every once in while my wife is seized with anxiety about how quickly our son is growing up.
I can’t deny that it’s moving fast. He went from being two months old to holding conversations in the blink of an eye. He’s grown from the size of a turnip to a little person almost too big for his stroller in what felt like three weeks. That’s just the way it goes, I guess. One of the most accurate stereotypes regarding having kids is how quickly time passes, and it’s a stereotype for a reason: mental laziness. But it’s also true.
But whereas my wife gets sad about seeing her son develop, I see things a little bit differently.
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