“Why Have Kids? It Sounds So Hard!”

I had a hard time accepting my destiny as a mother. Two unwanted pregnancies. Thought about abortion twice. Didn’t get an abortion for lack of support. But..
I love parenting, and I love being a mother. I enjoyed parenting when I knew that parenting is very subjective and there is not one right way to do it.
I still struggle to define myself as a mother sometimes, but I try not to be harsh on myself.

Honestly? I am staying anonymous so I can say with ease that if you don’t function well in chaos, don’t do it. There is no guarantee. One of my children is special/high needs. I am an excellent, attentive, loving parent. And it drains the shit out of me. I used to be an artist, but any creative flow/time/energy I had before kids is gone. I read blog posts/articles about people with their neurotypical kids and how their hearts ache with joy and love, and feel completely othered. My child is a complete drain.
Do we have fun sometimes? Sure. Most of the time? No. Are simple things hard? Yes. Do I crave simplicity and calm? You bet. Do I regret having children? Every damn day.
I am sure I will be blasted for this very honest response, but you did ask. I see a lot of “beautiful posts” and in case there is someone who feels as I do… then they won’t feel so awful.

One of my adult children posted:
PARENTING HACK:
There are no hacks.
Everything is hard.
These kids don’t listen.
This is your life now.
Godspeed

My response was:
Delighting in your kids is life hack!
Everything then becomes fun. They don’t listening because they’re watching. So enjoy delighting in them.
Godspeed.

They start to become a friend you never knew could be so amazing! Like saying the most thoughtful things you never expected, staying by your side in their own beautiful way, and loving you just the way you are <3

I’m always a little late to the comments, but this is all hitting home for me. I’ve felt a full range of highs and lows, at times regretting becoming a parent, but after healing from PPD twice and growing with my kids as they enter these new stages (5 and 2.5 yrs old), I feel grateful for how much my care for them pushes me to grow. I’ve never been drawn to the present as much as I am now, I’m optimistic about the future because they exist in the world, and the intensity and frequency of the heart-swell moments catch me off guard in the best way. Listening to them make each other laugh hysterically in the back seat, check on each other when one is crying, treat me with care after surgery, even throwing a fit because they’re trying so hard to communicate something is fulfilling and joyous. My observation is that they are glad to be alive and to have us as a family, even when it’s tough. On another note, I have close friends who have chosen not to have kids and their lives are just as joyous and fulfilling. Any choice you make in life, you experience gains and losses. Having children is no different.

When I was pregnant with my first child, my mom gave me a card in which she had written, simply, “Now you will know how much I love you.” She was right—this love, it’s clutch-your-soul, far-flung-delights-you-might-never-imagine good, and I’m very grateful for it. As a side note, I’ll mention that mama of mine now has a terminal cancer diagnosis, and I’m so grateful for 40+ years of her love for me. It’s a gift that goes both ways.

The ability to create – from the beginning, with intention – a primary relationship in your life is so fascinating to me.

My daughter (9 years old) is the exact right child for me. I’m rigid and always on time – she was a week “late” to be born. I’ve built up a lot of boundaries and protections in my life and have a hard time accessing my emotions. She’s ALL emotion. I can truly say that she (not just parenting, but parenting HER specifically) has taught me something every day she’s been on this earth.

All the joys are so fulfilling, yes – the moments when she makes me guffaw and the moments when I look at her and can’t help but trace the outline of her nose. But the thing that makes me actually love being a parent the most is the person that she challenges me to be.

I found out not two weeks ago that I’m expecting a second girl in September.

Right before I put my first down for a nap today, she gave me the biggest kisses and wrapped her little arms around my neck and fiercely yelled “HUG!” (she’s 15 months old). I’ve been feeling invisible the last few days to the exhaustion and frustrations of parenthood, but that moment today, it will carry me for days.

It’s not even that they love you without understanding why – it’s getting to see them experience the world for the first time. She may not remember these moments –but I will never forget them.

Also also — RIP to the Lidgerwood warehouse of Coffey St in Red Hook, torn down by UPS. (Background for the photo of Jo on the bike.)

The hugs! This pandemic has been so hard, but I haven’t had to go a day without physical affection. And their little hands and arms squeezing your shoulders is the BEST feeling.

I am so happy I stumbled on this article via Have a Great Weekend (my favorite posts) with a little of this and a little of that in a condense version for this busy woman who has children, a career and lots of other hobbies and passions. I never wanted children growing up, granted I loved them, I babysat, was a camp counselor, gave back to the community but had decided I did not want to have any myself. But then one day in my mid 30s, I did want one, and now I am four in and debating on a 5th and the joy they bring me on a daily basis far outweighs any hard that there may be. My greatest joy in mothering these four extraordinary beings is the love they have for each other. I always say my best gift to them is each other. I know without a doubt that when I am no longer on this earth they will still feel me and be okay with the love they share with each other.

To touch on the narrative above about woman without children’s lives. I love to read articles and actually I would say most of my colleagues and friends from high school and college have remained child free and we always have the best discussions.

I love being a mom. My son is the joy of my life and truly brightens every day. His laugh! But the day he was born was awful. Maybe the worst day of my life? Certainly the first time I doubted my decision to become a parent. Six months later, I’m reconvinced that motherhood (working motherhood. With a husband who puts in at least 50%. And a village) is for me, but I want to throw this out there in case anyone is where I was six months ago.

On an ambitious trip to Italy while pregnant with a 2 year old, we met an amazing family with four older kids who were neighbors to our home share. They showed us some amazing secret spots around town, and talked about how rewarding, important and lovely parenting is. I’ll never forget how much they changed my perspective during that hard time when you’re in the weeds.

I was reading this post out to my husband, and our seven-year-old started listening too. Then he wanted to see Toby and Anton’s notes, Anton’s week of outfits, Toby’s outfits, and so on! They may have a young reader out here!

First time reader (Dr Marta Perez sent me!), first time commenter. Felt compelled reading these comments.

We were driving home from seeing friends (what a blessing after all we’ve been through!) and my 20 month old started singing a song in his car seat. Couldn’t make it out at first, but soon realized he was singing a song his dad made up during the early baby days and we’ve been singing ever sense. Immediate tears! You do it for those daily heart swells.

I have no children of my own but I have 15 nieces and nephews (big Sicilian family) and have worked in childcare for 10 years. I have always felt a deep calling to be a mother but have questioned this impulse consistently. Now that I am at the stage where my husband and I talk about possibly trying to conceive, I remind myself that I need to be okay with being a mother to my own children or with being what I like to call “Mama on the block” aka a safe harbor for any child who needs one.

With my baby bump visible, waiters, store clerks, acquaintances, and the like, would ask me: “Is this your first?” And I would watch as their knowing eyes smiled. Now, with my baby girl in the world (nearly 5 months), I know that those glances were their knowing that I was going to be handed this small key to a greater knowing of humankind. That I was going to step onto a magic carpet that would move me with thrills of seeing the Egyptian pyramids–all while sitting on my living room sofa, or lying on the floor of the nursery, or with my fingers in the grass at the park. Watching my baby observe life for the first time, observe the magic of sunshine shining through tree branches, how her dimpled hands move curiously through pouring water in the bath, when her infectious giggle causes her–and all of us–to giggle more giggles, when the breeze of the wind causes her whole body to shiver and her eyes to sparkle, her glee and full-body dance of delight when we lean over her crib to pick her up… All of it.  And knowing that at every age and every single day I will have the opportunity to experience the world, life through her eyes… well, it does feel like magic. 

My husband and I were together for 18 years before having a baby. We wanted to have “no regrets” of our childless days. And really, no matter how long we waited to start a family– to have this sign that it was the perfect time, I have come to learn that there was no perfect time. Even childless, I would wish I could have traveled more, or stayed out later, have been more carefree. And I know my husband and I would have lived a fabulous life without children. But my, oh my, what this little baby girl has brought into our lives… The richness of every single day. My greater purpose to wake up each morning. I just about swoon every day now at something old that has become new again. New to her and new to me again…

To become a parent is to become a time traveler. We are gifted the ability to experience the world anew. And with new eyes, with more love (and more worry), everything simple feels exquisite, feels grand.
On the first full day home from the hospital, my nipples were chapped and blistered, my body swollen, sweating, and shivering. I had spent the 3am feeding the night prior in full-blown hysterics and when I got out of bed, I peed on the floor before I made it to the bathroom… but even after all of that, I held my baby, gazing at her, engraving her profile in my mind and I hummed a tune from my childhood that I had long forgotten: “So this is love, hummmhummhummmhumm. So this is love. So this is what makes life divine. I’m all aglow, hummmhummhummmhumm, as now I know, the key to all heaven is mine.”

What saddens me is a large swath of people on social media who express that they simply can’t conceive of having children for purely financial reasons. These people are saddled with student loans, can’t afford to buy a home, etc. So many can’t get past just the cost of the hospital/birth/maternity leave (we don’t have universal health care or paid family leave). Preschool, medical care, housing/living, childcare and college costs have become unsustainable for a large swath of our population. My own kids have seen that the reason so many of their peers have things/experiences they don’t is because they are financed by their baby boomer grandparents (childcare, shopping, vacations, cars given as graduation presents, college etc…) Every generation wants the next generation to be better off than they were. I think this ended with the baby boomer generation.

I would add that hard is not the same as bad and that most of the best and most rewarding things we do in life are hard, at least some of the time. What a humbling privilege it is to show another person what it means to live and how to do it well, even when sometimes you’re still trying to figure it out yourself.

I don’t think parenting is hard. However, SOFT parenting is hard, especially when that was not modeled for you. CALM parenting is tough, especially when your conditioned response is anger and impatience. CONNECTED parenting is challenging during a day and age when society expects us to be everything at all times.

I am 67 years old. I have two children. A man and woman. My son,38 yoa, has cancer. He had to move back home so he would have someone to care for him. After a day of treatment, it’s medication, a bit of food and sleep. He has blood clots and swollen feet.
I’ve been rubbing his feet with lotion and tucking him in. Giving him a kiss just as when he was a child. It breaks my heart but I wouldn’t give it over to anyone else. You do what you need to do. Prayers abound!

Love this. I am in middle of a hard phase with a 2 Yr old and 5 Yr old, busy season at work and covid and other bugs not giving us a break.

However, I have just finished the novel Pachinko which finished with the matriarch in old age recalling her sons hand in hers and how much she missed it. It totally got me. I thought of the little hands holding mine and how grateful I am for them

Omg this article and the comments just have me sobbing!
I have two littles and between unpacking after a move, getting ready for international night at school with all the mom texts, soccer practice starting and having to buy new gear, and work, it has been a week! But, I wholeheartedly agree with what you wrote.
My coworker is expecting soon and asked for honest advice and told her “they say raising kids feels rewarding, but I honestly do it for the laughs. They’re expensive and hard work, but man, they will make you laugh every single day.”

Having kids can change you— if you let them— into a person you didn’t know you needed to be. Loving my kids has opened me to new perspectives, makes me less judgey, and more grateful.

If anyone out there is conflicted- as I was for many years- please seek out Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar colum #71, the Ghost Ship that didn’t carry us. The most helpful perspective on this topic I’ve ever read (and I used to do academic research on the topic). FWIW I ended up having two kids. The good and bad are both true. But I feel immense guilt and worry with each new story about our global warming.