Do you remember life before you had kids? I do. I didn’t know much about parenting, but I could spot a parent that wasn’t doing their job like an unathletic kid gets singled out in a game of dodgeball.
I can remember seeing the screaming baby or the child throwing a tantrum and thinking to myself, “That’ll never be my kid.”
I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s felt that way.
Parenting seems like such an awfully easy job from the sidelines.
We now have three kids: an eight-year-old daughter, a six-year-old son, and an almost-three-year-old little boy. We’ve had a newborn or a toddler in our home for almost a decade. It’s been hard, and we’re tired.
Kids really are so much fun. They do and say the craziest things. Laughter is a much needed, added benefit of raising some kids.
It is, though, impossible to predict, from the sidelines, how much work parenting will be. You can’t simulate how the responsibility of leading a kid all day, every day affects you, your body, and your mind. It’s absolutely relentless.
While it’s hard work for both mom and dad, parenting in those first few years is so hard on the mommas. There’s no tired like new-Mom tired. There’s a natural connection with those little ones, but that connection creates a high-level need, too. It’s not easy to be needed all day, every day.
If you’ve been in a delivery room, you’ve seen what parenting looks like. There are screams and pain and maybe even trauma. Then there’s a cry. In that baby’s cry, there’s a sense of need and helplessness. In those first moments, most of the pain vanishes, and a deeper sense of love envelopes the hearts of mom and dad. It was hard. It was painful. And… Then it became beautiful.
Parenting is truly hard work. It’s a lot of tears and conflict. It’s battles. It’s brutal. And then it’s beautiful.
Even though it’s so hard, it’s so worth it.
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