I love my kids, I just hate parenting
I’ve always found it annoying that it’s so hard to stay mad at my son. Even when he’s being horrible, he’s still adorable. It’s sickening.
I’ve written about the way biology tricks us before – little kids are really just one long con, suckering us with their cuteness only to obliterate our lives when they get older – but there are some perks to the biological bond we have with our children.
Especially when they need some TLC.
Children will never admit to being tired.
They’ll shake their heads while they’re yawning if they think it will buy them five more minutes of doing whatever stupid bullshit they’re doing. My son hates going to bed more than I hate trying to put my son to bed!
They simply don’t know what’s best for them. So it’s up to us to decide.
It’s rare to find a parent who didn’t measure the passage of time by juxtaposing pictures of their kid’s first day of school in September with their kid’s last day of school in June.
And then, with a mixture of pride (“He did it!”) and petulance (“He’s growing up too fast!”), they bemoan the passage of time, whine about how fast it’s all going, and bitch about how quickly kids grow up.
I call bullshit.
Parenting is an experiment.
You keep trying new things, seeing what works (nothing) and what doesn’t (everything), and shifting your techniques accordingly until you land on the perfect (read: imaginary) combination and tend to your impressionable child until he sprouts into a flawless adult.
Unfortunately, that’s all a waste of time. Not only because parenting is impossible to game plan, and because it turns out we’re the test subjects.
God is pretty much the most famous dad in the world. Even if he hadn’t had a son, he has a fatherly presence in many people’s lives, offering them support and guidance in their times of need.
The famous “Footprints in the Sand” poem, in which a man sees only one set of footprints in the sand when formerly there were two and subsequently asks God why He abandoned him, is a great example of this. And people love it. It’s a great way of conveying the love and support religious people feel that God provides them.
Of course, if that poem really were written by a dad, it might be a little bit different.