I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Kids say the darndest things. They also say the ballsiest things. Things only kids can say.
If I went around talking to my wife, my boss, my friends, anyone the way that my son often talks to his mother, to me, to his friends, strangers on the subway? I’d be divorced, fired, and drinking totally alone. Which might not be that bad, now that I think about it…
Children get away with a lot of stuff, especially in the early years.
For example…
Every parent dreads the day they can no longer relate to their kids.
Every parent worries that, sooner than later, their kids will transition out of interest in the things their mom and dad are interested in and begin cultivating their own unique pursuits and hobbies. Every parent dreads the day their kids make them feel old and out of touch.
All three of those days came for me over the weekend, courtesy of Yo-kai Watch!
The other day, I ran across an article on Babble entitled, The 20 Most Common Parenting Mistakes, According to a Family Psychologist. I can’t afford a family psychologist, so I checked it out in the hopes of getting some free tips.
Then I read it. And, as I often do with these kinds of articles, I had some comments.
In its darkest moments, parenting boils down to two emotions.
Once you muffle the laughter and the joy – and let’s be real here, in the face of the day-to-day grind that is raising children, the laughter and the joy are already often muffled by the frustration and the exhaustion – two feelings come to the fore over and over again. Two feelings that, on your worst days, overwhelm everything else.
Being a parent is largely about guilt and fear, even when it should be about neither.