I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Kids are crafty.
They learn at an early age how to manipulate you to get what they want. And there are few things kids want more than sleeping in your bed. Or not sleeping at all. They have a variety of tactics for making it happen.
Let me count the ways…
Having children gives you the opportunity to appreciate anew all the wonderful stuff you take for granted when you become an adult, the classic children’s books and films and cartoons you grew up with are part of that.
Lately I’ve been discovering that sometimes the reverse happens, and your children actually make you hate the things you once loved.
Repetition breeds contempt.
When you’re a parent, you take on a lot of roles.
You’re still the person you were before you were a parent (to varying degrees), but now you’re also the person your kid knows as Mommy or Daddy. And then you’re the million different things your kid needs you to be over the course of the day.
If this were a resume it would 30 pages long.
Nothing is more joyous than getting your kids to bed for the night.
Unfortunately, when their bedtime routine is finally completed, you’re usually too spent to take advantage.
Even before I became a dad, I knew my kid was going to hate me someday.
At some point, probably somewhere around his 13th or 14th birthday, I’ll become Public Enemy #1. There’s no avoiding it; it’s biology! Most of us “hated” our parents when we were teens, for reasons both real and imagined (mostly imagined) and motivated by hormones, a need for independence, and, occasionally, outright shitty parents.
Now we’re the parents. The turntables have turned, and we’re going to be hated the same way we “hated” (your use of quotation marks may vary) our moms and dads.
I’m ready for it. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.