I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Sleep. Money. Silence. Peace of mind. Snacks.
These are just a few of the things you sacrifice when you decide to become a parent. (Don’t worry, they are replaced – by exhaustion, debt, headaches, scraps, and stress! Yay!) A lot of that is a side-effect of getting older – most of us accrue responsibility with age, whether we have kids or not – but there’s one thing that having kids takes away from you that you can never get back:
Solitude.
Stress isn’t a competition. Newsflash: We’re all stressed out of our minds!
Adulthood is stressful. Work is stressful. Marriage is stressful. The state of the world is stressful. Life is stressful!
And, of course, parenting is stressful too, in more ways than one. But parenting stress is a little different, because being a parent is both stressful in and of itself and because the presence of children adds an extra layer of stress on top of everything else. It’s fun!
Kids are dumb. Everyone knows that!
It’s not their fault, at least not at first. Everyone is born a blank slate. Kids don’t know anything. It’s our job as parents to clue them in to all of it. Even the obvious stuff.
This isn’t news. Not a single one of us has ever met a baby who could hold a conversation worth a damn.
Every night at dinner (well, we try to do it every night), the family goes around the table and run through our “peaks and pits.” (Except The Hammer. He mostly screams.)
We each share the best part and worst parts of our day. It’s mostly a ploy to get our 6-year-old to talk to us, but it’s become an interesting exercise for Mom and Buried and I as well. I’ve learned that no matter how well or how poorly my day went at work, or with my fantasy team, or even with my wife, it’s almost always the interactions with my kids that make up the best and worst moments of my day.
It’s kind of astonishing how your children are so frequently responsible for both your highest highs and lowest lows.
If you have kids and you haven’t gone gray yet, either stop lying or just give it time.
There are days I can practically feel my hair changing color as it’s happening. Which is usually when my 6-year-old is throwing a fit about having to go to bed/having to go to school/having to take a bath/having to eat dinner/having to do his homework/etc.
Going gray is a part of getting older, and a part of parenting, and I’m okay with it. I’m not vain. Besides, a little salt and pepper worked out great for George Clooney and I’m nothing if not exactly like George Clooney!