Parenting Moments are More Joyful in the Rearview Mirror
I am in a season of parenting that does not feel very fun. At 6 and 8 years of age, my children have fully entered their “torture your sibling” era. They each find an immense amount of pleasure in making the other miserable. Unfortunately, they are both incredible at this game.
My son knows that simply walking in my daughter’s room, even without saying a word, will throw her into fits of rage. She screams as if someone is ripping off one of her appendages, and since our home is a mere 1200 square feet, we all get the full force of her shrieks. My wife or I come running to try and cut off the episode as quickly as possible while my son laughs with uninhibited glee. He loves the sound of her exasperation, and has a long list of things he can do to elicit the response that he wants.
Admittedly, my daughter is slightly less capable of bringing her brother to the same levels of frustration, but that does not keep her from trying, and often succeeding. Her current method is to simply negate and/or belittle any tiny thing my son expresses. If he says he likes cars, she expresses how dumb they are. When he talks about learning the songs for his school performance, she lets him know that she thinks he is a terrible singer. She expresses a contrary opinion or thought to almost everything he says, and it usually leads to a classic back and forth exchange that escalates into chaos if we don’t shut it down.
Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash
At this stage in life, it is hard for me to see the joyful side of parenting.
We all have heard parents with grown children encourage us to cherish these years because “they don’t stay young forever.” Although annoying, this sentiment actually articulates the reality of parenting: it’s primarily joyful in hindsight.
Sure, our kids make us laugh with the silly things they say, we cheer loudly as they run the bases during a game, and we all can readily admit that observing their sweet angelic baby faces as they sleep sprawled out with one leg hanging out from under the covers warms our heart like nothing else. But in general, parenting is happiest when looking back with rose colored glasses.
The well-meaning relative at a holiday gathering that bemoans how quickly the parenting years went by doesn’t seem to remember that, with kids, the hour between dinner and bed time is actually a glitch in the matrix that lasts 6,000 minutes. Something happens as the years go by where parents seem to forget the worst parts. So when they finally reach the point where their kids are out of the house, parents are only left with warm fuzzy memories, blurred by the years and under the heavy influence of nostalgia. But in the trenches, parenting is brutal.
I am sure there are many parents who coast through their days with ease and grace, but I am not one of those. Every day in this season feels like a battle: a battle to get them to eat, a battle to get them to behave, or a battle to simply STOP THAT INCESSANT HUMMING FOR ONE MINUTE. And as I reflect on my 8 short years of parenting, I realize that every step of the way has been like this.
When she was a newborn, we were up every other hour tending to my daughter’s needs for several months. After two years, we repeated the process with my son. Looking back, I can’t even remember what the hard parts of that season felt like. I know they happened, but the pain has evaporated over time. I do, however, recall a specific instance where I understood why people so adamantly remind you to never shake a baby. Before children, this seemed like a no brainer. But with my mind clouded by sleep deprivation and after hours of holding a screaming child, in one moment I thought, “I can see how someone with slightly less mental fortitude than me might want to shake a baby.” But in the rearview, what was a truly dark thought is simply a laughable memory to me of how crazy the newborn stage is. I have no desire to return to that time, but I don’t hold any long term ill will toward that season.
When you look back, you hardly remember the worst parts of parenting.
I want this truth to relieve you of one thing in particular; if you don’t like being a parent right now, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It takes an incredible amount of selflessness to find joy in the worst parts of parenting as they are happening, and most of humankind is not geared toward this altruistic bent. Logically, we know that raising children is worth it. The more good humans we have on the planet, the more the bad population gets watered down. If good people stop having kids, we will only be left with the worst humanity can offer. But in our hearts, parenting doesn’t always feel good. However, look back two years and I believe you will be quick to remember the highlights, with the worst parts of parenting fading away from your memory. When you are having the worst day you can imagine, remember that in a year, it won’t feel this bad. You can be assured of this because, as a parent, you have a long list of “worst days” that have begun to fade already from your mind, leaving behind the sweet moments, the joy, and the simple pleasures of raising little people.
Some of us barely even wait for the kids to fall asleep before we’re scrolling through recent photos on our phone and tearing up about how great our kids are. Minutes prior we were fighting for our lives to get a soapy, wet kid out of the bath and into bed, wondering how on earth we ever thought having kids was a good idea. As we collapse into bed, we weep over our sweet baby angels as we peruse 1,500 photos we took over the last week of them doing the most mundane things. Most of our bad memories of parenting barely last hours, much less years.
I truly believe that in the arc of our lives, almost every parent will look back on raising kids and say that it was worth it. When the children finally launch from our homes, the intense feelings of despair we sometimes face when we are in the thick of parenting will disappear, leaving us with the highlights and warm fuzzy feelings. In the present, parenting is often a struggle, but in our memories, parenting is truly a joy.