guy:
Jason Kottke pulls together some interesting articles and commentary about parental unhappiness.
My take is that the kids aren’t the problem; it’s all the other stuff. You just aren’t able to do all the stuff you used to enjoy doing before you had kids and if you think you can, of course you’re going to be unhappy when it doesn’t work out that way. You need to be prepared and make a conscious choice: “I’m choosing to enrich my life with a child *but* as a tradeoff, I won’t be able to live the way I was before.”
So true. One of the hardest parts about being a parent is becoming less selfish. If you can learn that then changing diapers, flying boogies, temper tantrums, late nights, and whatever else kids throw at you isn’t so bad.
I was thinking about this over dinner last night, as my wife held our 6 week old daughter in her arms and tried to eat her dinner and I tried getting some food into our over-tired 3 year old.
You can’t live the same life after you’ve had kids. You can’t go out to a party on a Wednesday evening. You can’t sleep in till eleven on a Saturday. But it’s not the things that you give up; it’s the joy and the love you receive.
