Things That Are Just Harder When You Have Kids
Do you remember what life was like before you had kids? No driving to tennis lessons, no worrying about getting a babysitter, no responsibility for anyone but yourself...it's almost impossible to remember how easy things were before you decided to raise a little human.
Here are things that are just undeniably easier when you don't have children.
Moving To A New Place
When you have kids, you have to think about a lot of things before moving. How will they react to having their lives uprooted? Does the place have a nice backyard to play in?
Traveling By Car
Long drives are never particularly pleasant, but they're infinitely more challenging with children. Now you have small, screaming humans in the backseat fighting with each other and asking "are we there yet?" while you try to stay focused on the road.
Traveling By Air
Kids are just generally terrible to travel with. They're fussy about every little thing that happens, and no parent wants to be the one with the screaming child on a flight.
Grocery Shopping
I never realized how cumbersome it is to strap a kid into a car seat, drive to the grocery store, haul around a kid in the cart who tries to put all the foods in their mouth or begs for the sugary cereal, and then redo the whole car seat fiasco to go home.
...Pretty Much Any Shopping, Really
Shopping with a child is pretty much the same as shopping with an untrained golden retriever that you're not allowed to keep on a leash despite its tendency to bolt unexpectedly.
Enjoying Treats
Before, it was simple: you wanted to eat an entire row of Oreos for dinner? Fine. However, now you're tasked with making sure a small human actually eats proper nutrients and develops healthy habits, so now you have to wait until the little gremlins sleep.
Going To A Restaurant
Kids at a restaurant are such nightmares. You have to go somewhere with foods the kids will actually eat, and then, when there, your kid never knows what they want to eat. You wish you'd just stayed home.
Choosing A Vacation Destination
You only have so many vacation days from work, so you want to make them count, but unfortunately, your kids won't find a trip galavanting through art museums in Europe interesting, so Disney World it is.
Watching Television You Like
At this point in parenthood, you would punch Peppa Pig in the face if you could. However, even when you're on the television, you have to wait until the kids are asleep to put on anything moderately graphic.
Having Clothes
Kids have no regard for your wardrobe: they will puke, spill, and rub their snot on your most prized closet items. On top of that, they'll steal them for dress-up and destroy them.
Seeing Your Friends
Before, it was already kind of difficult to make sure you were seeing friends, but now it takes planning four months in advance, two reschedules, and a venue change or two to actually get together for a dinner party.
Choosing A Place To Live
Before, you really only had to think about yourself and your spouse when choosing where to live. Now you have to factor in the local school system, what extracurricular activities are available, and other city features that never would have mattered to you before.
Vacuuming
Vacuuming the floors was already a pain when there were just two adults in the house, but now you have kids who like to leave Lego pieces, beads, school supplies, and other items on the floor to make the task much harder.
Going To The Bathroom
I never appreciated the peace of using the washroom before having kids until I realized that, as a parent, even in that moment, a small human would come in and demand my attention.
Working... Especially From Home
You have to do a work function in the evening? Well, now you have to find a way to still get Timmy to piano lessons. In addition, working from home means that your kids will be hounding you in the middle of a meeting.
Making Dinner
There are those days where you have no interest in really cooking, so you just eat a handful of grapes for dinner and call it a day. When you're responsible for little humans who are still growing, you always have to have a dinner plan.
Relaxing
Committing to parenthood means that you're committing to at least 18 years of not knowing peace. You can never just kick back and relax or even slip in an afternoon nap again.
Having A Quick Change Of Plans
It's so much easier to be flexible when you only have yourself to account for: switching things to another day, moving event times around, and other changes are much harder to adapt to when you're also managing children.
Having A Date Night
Naturally, you want to keep the romantic spark alive between you and your spouse, and dates are a good way to do it, but it's much harder when you need to organize them around your kids' soccer/ballet/football/flute lessons and also secure a babysitter.
Just Being In Public, Honestly
Taking kids out with you in public is a lot like playing a game of Minesweeper with your eyes closed: you never know when an explosion/tantrum is coming—there's no warning.
Lying
No one is going to snitch you out harder than your own kid. You'll be telling your neighbor that you're sorry that you couldn't make it to a barbecue on the weekend and your kid will be like, "Yeah, she said she'd rather die than go!"
Keeping The House Clean
Children are so messy and gross all the time. I can't even fathom how small human beings can create so much chaos in so little time, but they are always finding new ways to undo your cleaning efforts.
Preparing Lunches
Worst-case scenario, if you didn't want to pack your lunch for work, you could go buy one. Kids require a fully prepared meal packed up for them on a daily basis.
Literally Just Existing
There's no denying it: life without kids is so much easier. You have much less responsibility to manage, you don't have to be accountable to anyone but yourself and your spouse, and it's easier to just do things on a whim.
But, In The End, It's All Worth It
Okay, so maybe we don't spend time with our family holding hands and frolicking through fields of wild grass, but despite all the difficulties involved in having kids, I would never trade my kids for anything.
