These Parents Didn’t Hold Back About The Worst Parts Of Having Children
No one ever said parenting was easy, and obviously you love your kids, but there are some seriously tough parts about being a parent. There are also moments where you just need to laugh at yourself (or at your kids) because the other option would be a full-blown breakdown.
Toddler temper tantrums, thinly veiled insults, finding out your middle child might be the dumb one in the family — it's all a part of the exciting rollercoaster that is parenting.
Before They're Even Born
Kids start to ruin your lives before they're even born. Yeah sure, pregnancy is great, you're bringing a life into this world, blah blah blah. But there's also a lot of things about it that are the worst. Growing a literal person is not an easy job!
Stale Food Club
Having kids will quickly teach you that if you want your food to be opened/sealed properly — or just not eaten by someone other than yourself — you better hide it. The best option is to never let your kids or your spouse know it existed in the first place.
How The Tables Have Turned
There are downsides to every age group your kids will reach. It's inevitable. From overly needy babies who can't do anything for themselves to pre-teens that only acknowledge you to roll their eyes, you just can't win!
Logic Goes Out The Window
Every parent will have moments where you stop and think "why on earth am I doing this?!" but then you'll go back to giving a Barbie a bath or putting pants on the dog because it's all just a part of parenting.
Silver Lining
Children make you appreciate the smaller things in life, and they really change your perspective. You may have gotten kidnapped but at least you don't have to make dinner anymore! It's all about that silver lining.
What Is A Weekend?
Before having children, weekends were a time to relax, see your friends, and be as productive or unproductive as you wanted. Now they're 48 hours of uninterrupted time with your children... interpret that as you may.
A United Front
You can't show weakness. Children can smell your fear and they'll prey on that, so you and your partner need to put up a united front at all times. You can fight about the punishment you picked later.
Shared Interests
You want to bond with your kids and share in their interests, but it can be hard sometimes if you raise a weirdo that doesn't share any of your interests. Wouldn't it be nice if your daughter was into baseball just like you?
Wifi Is The Powerhouse Of The Cell
As a parent, you have to know how to punish your kids effectively, and in this day and age of technology, you should always go for the wifi. Mess with that and suddenly everyone will emerge from their rooms, ready to help with whatever you need!
Band Practice
Never encourage your kids to join extracurricular activities, because that means you have to participate in extracurricular activities. Most importantly though, avoid anything involving instruments at all costs, unless you want to listen to your daughter play the clarinet off-key for the next three years.
Spooky Season Struggles
You also have to spend that three week period between when it arrives and when it's actually Halloween convincing them that yes, this is the costume they want to wear. They said they wanted to be an astronaut so you ordered that costume and they better not even think about changing their mind.
Co-Sleeping
Your kid may have had a bad dream but the real nightmare is when you lie awake all night with your tiny child's feet in your face while you hang off the edge because they also happen to need the entire center of the bed.
You Become An Uber Driver
Again, never encourage extracurriculars! Unless you're willing to become a personal chauffeur who has to drive their son to early morning hockey practice and also has to pick their daughter up from volleyball practice after school, don't let them join anything. They don't need friends or social lives.
Brutal Honesty
Kids, unfortunately, are not great at having a filter, and they absolutely do not understand the art of subtlety, so be prepared to be offended. If your kid has an opinion, you're going to hear about it and it's going to be very clear.
What Is Punctual, Exactly?
If something seems like it's too good to be true, that's probably because it is. Parenthood is like Big Brother — expect the unexpected. If you have children who have caused you to be late for every social event ever, that isn't going to change any time soon.
Mommy's Inside Voice
You tell your kids to use their inside voices when they're yelling in the house, but what they don't know is that mommies and daddies also have an inside voice, and that's the voice of things they're not supposed to say out loud.
Following Advice
With all the parenting books, TV shows, podcasts, blogs, and general advice that's out in the world for parents, sometimes it's just easier to eliminate the possibility of something altogether. You don't want to slice your grapes lengthwise and quarter them? Pretend they don't exist!
Are They Really Helping?
You want your kids to help, but at the same time it would be much faster and much easier if you just did it yourself. Sure, your daughter could help you make cookies but that really just means it'll take twice as long and probably be half as good.
Constructive Criticism
Hope you're good at taking criticism because you're going to hear a lot of it when you're a parent. You're never going to make the dinner they wanted, you're always going to pick out the wrong skirt for the first day of school, and you're also probably ruining their lives. Children are great!
Hindsight Is Always 20/20
New parents always think they're prepared for their first child and think they don't need advice from their friends, but three months from now they'll remember that Jessica's coworker tried to give them advice about co-sleeping.
A New Type Of Binge Watching
If you're thinking of having children, also think about watching Paw Patrol, Bubble Guppies, and whatever other shows will have popped up by then for the next couple years of your life. It's like a new way to binge watch where you watch shows all day every day but you never start a new one.
Shift In Parenting Styles
Everyone knows that by the time you have two, three, four children, all your plans to be the attentive parent goes out the way. You may have fed your first kid all organic meals, but by the third kid, as long as you feed them that's all that matters.
Epiphany Moments
Even if you pretend you don't, you always know if your kid is a little ... slower than some of the other kids on the playground. But this really is a silver lining situation because you don't have to worry about how to pay for their 80K college education!
Prepare To Be Ignored
Being a parent means living at least 18 years with people who have terrible listening skills, especially when it comes to listening to you. Be prepared to repeat yourself. That's all parenting really is.
Ignore The Red Flags
Your kids are going to say some weird stuff and you're going to have moments where you think "am I raising the next Jeffrey Dahmer?" But then you have to power through and move past it. Don't dwell on their threats too much or you'll never sleep again.
Driven To The Drink
You never thought you'd be the parent who has a glass of wine at the end of every day (or maybe more than just one glass) but then you spend 30 minutes convincing a toddler that it actually does matter which shoe goes on which foot and all you can think is "I need a drink."
Artist's Demands
Unless you're raising the next Picasso, your child's artwork is probably going to suck, so what you need to do is find a place to display it that the least amount of people will see it. The bathroom in the basement, your child's bedroom, the garbage can, up to you...
Irrational Anger
As a parent of a toddler, you'll quickly learn that it is acceptable to throw a tantrum at literally any moment. It doesn't matter if you're in the park, the grocery store, or at a funeral. If your shadow won't go away, you're allowed to cry about it.
Unanswered Questions
As a parent, you have to be able to think on your feet because you're going to be asked some seriously weird questions, like can cats have babies out of wedlock. We recommending making up a random answer and hoping they just accept that.
Sit Back And Enjoy
There are moments where you just need to sit back and watch the chaos unfold, and those moments often happen at dinner time. Sure, your kid is managing to get spaghetti everywhere except in his mouth, but there's no point in cleaning it up until the end. So go ahead and enjoy your dinner!
