Someone asked me today if my earlier post meant I was unhappy. The answer is a resounding no. But seriously, who in their right mind would choose to have kids knowing it is as mind-numbingly dull, exhausting, stressful, and a pain in the ass as it actually is? The only thing people say about having children is that “it’s the best thing ever!” or some lame ass variation. Hell no, it isn’t. It is constant worrying- about what they eat, what they see, what they know, what they don’t know, what they should stay away from, what they should embrace, what they need to learn, what they need to forget. OMG, the list goes on forever. Why would anybody do this to himself when he could be relaxing on the beach drinking fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them? That’s what I am saying.
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Hmm… it wasn’t ever stressful in that way for me. I certainly never worried that much about what my kids ate, saw, or knew. But then, I tend to be true to my libertarian leanings with my kids – if they’re old enough to want to see it, they’re probably old enough to see it. And I don’t want to control my children any more then I wanted to be controlled at their various ages over the years.
As to the platitudes: what I always say is that having kids is the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. And for me, both are absolutely true.
All of which is to say that even knowing what I know now (and my third and youngest will be graduating high school in a couple of weeks, so I’m speaking from decades of experience), I’d do it again. Because sitting on a beach sipping drinks with fruit sounds nice, but not as nice as playing in the surf with the kids.
It’s like when someone tells me they are pregnant I tell them “good luck with that” because pregnancy was sooo unimaginably difficult for me that it actually freaks me out to hear someone is expecting sometimes.