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.