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[…]
Having kids changes your life in many ways, and not always good ones.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to vent about the irritating ways my son’s existence has forced me to alter my own and to show the world that having kids doesn’t need to change everything. Yes, becoming a parent definitely changes capital-E Everything, but it doesn’t have to change little-e everything.
So far, Mom and Buried and I have done a pretty good job of maintaining some semblance of our old lives even as the constant, daily, inescapable presence of a (now) toddler has forced us to make certain adjustments. Certain inconvenient and annoying adjustments.
We’ve been doing okay. But we haven’t been able to avoid every headache. Because kids ruin your life.
Somehow it was easier with a baby.
Sure, we were guaranteed multiple trips into his bedroom every night, but when a baby wakes up crying you can cuddle it, feed it, rock it and lay with it until it falls back asleep. Of course that’s not exactly easy, a lot depends on the crankiness of the baby and/or any more serious issues (we escaped the dreaded colic, thank the gods), but it doesn’t require a ton of thought or effort. It’s instinct versus inconvenience.
Toddlers wake up less often but when they do, they’re able to start a conversation. Or worse: make demands.
Chud.com, an irreverent site that tackles all manner of movie and television news for genre fans, movie buffs, fan boys and the like, recently posted an editorial called “When Bad Parents Go to the Movies.”
The article is a tad inflammatory and harsh, making gross (literally) assumptions about parents who take their children to movies and thereby ruin the experience for others, but it’s also pretty dead-on. Taking your kids to movies that aren’t appropriate isn’t the best way to win Parent of the Year. But taking young kids to any movie is a dicey proposition.
When you become a parent, going to the movies stops being easy. But that’s the parents’ problem. Let’s not make it everyone else’s.
Kids are stress-inducing.
Unfortunately, they’re also time-consuming, which makes it difficult to alleviate your stress, and stay healthy, via the time-tested method of exercise. If you don’t have time, you probably aren’t going to bother shelling out for a gym membership you’ll rarely use. And good luck with trying to use that treadmill you bought during his nap; if there’s a louder piece of equipment this side of the drum-kit my in-laws bought my son, I haven’t come across it.
What’s a parent to do?!
Don’t fret; I have a solution! Like Rocky in Siberia (actually, it was filmed in Krasnogourbinsk, but come on), you have to work with what you’ve got. In this case, what you’ve got are kids.
Luckily, they’re even better than a Bowflex!
Read more about Eye of the Toddler: Using Your Kids to Stay in Shape …