When Maddy was born, I remember having the overwhelming feeling that
having a baby was the hardest thing in the world. Being a first-time mom,
everything about it seemed difficult; trying to figure out why my baby wouldn’t
breastfeed to establishing a sleep routine, the non-stop crying and screaming
from gas, the endless mountains of laundry, a bout with post-partum depression,
and feeling exhausted and hormonal all the time only solidified my position
that caring for a baby was hard. How in the world would I ever make it through?
When would I ever come up for air? I remember expressing these thoughts to
family and friends who have children and without hesitation, nine out of ten of
them would respond with, “Don’t worry, sweetie. It gets easier.”
Looking back, I realize now what my mistake was: I took their sentiment
to heart and believed them. I made the mistake of waiting, hoping, and praying
for parenting to get easier. And while some aspects of the new mom parenting
fog lifted, the actual demands of parenting never really got easier…they just
shifted and morphed into new challenges. Bottles and formula turned into solid
foods with a picky eater. Diapers turned into potty training challenges. My
baby who used to sleep through my night turned into a toddler who didn’t sleep
for five years. My easy-going baby morphed into a demon overnight with the
onset of the terrible twos and when I really think about it, the threes going
into the fours were worse. There was learning how to juggle being a working mom
with my new lifestyle, learning how to discipline, and learning how to
accommodate a clingy toddler while being able to still have a few slivers of
precious me time. My relationships with my friends who didn’t have children
changed, and it was no one’s fault. It’s simply what happens when kids come
into the picture, but the anxiety of finding supportive mom friends was
exhausting. It was all exhausting
because here’s the truth that no parent wants to hear or even admit…
Parenting doesn’t get easier. Ever.
I know when you’re in the throes of the newborn days and you haven’t
showered in a week and your boobs are constantly out and being sucked on and
you’re in it, I mean, really in it,
it feels like it’s the hardest damn thing you will ever do and yes, it is. It
really is, I don’t take that away from you, but here’s the thing…
There will always be hard things in parenting. Whether it’s an issue
you’re dealing with now or even something you can’t imagine that will hit you
down the road, one thing’s for sure: there will always be hard times in
parenting, they will just look, and be hard, in different ways and yes, while
we all go through brief periods of even-keel, smooth sailing, life as a parent,
or simply life in general, is anything but care-free; it’s a constant roller
coaster ride of up and down emotions and circumstances.
This is why we need to stop perpetuating the lie, “Don’t worry,
sweetie. It gets easier.” It’s a false sense of security, normalcy, and just
plain wrong.
Parenting doesn’t get easier. If anything, it just changes its shape
and form. At any point of any given day, my almost six-year-old could be the
happiest child in the world but have a complete meltdown over what I fix her
for dinner. On any given day, I’m forced to juggle being a working mom and
keeping my boss happy with trying to also take care of a sick child. On any given
day, at any given time, I’m struggling to keep peace in my home as my
ever-growing child stretches and tests the bounds of her independence,
ever-evolving personality, and strong-willed demeanor. Throw on top of this
simply trying to raise a child to learn right from wrong, kindness, empathy,
and how to live in the world, and most days, I honestly feel like I’m barely holding
on by my fingertips. There simply isn’t one version of hard. It’s all hard.
But there is a silver lining…
While being a parent will never be easy, you will get better. As a
parent, you can’t help but to grow and learn from every stage of parenting.
Every conflict, battle, argument, sassy attitude, mess, tantrum, and good
moment is an opportunity for growth. Every time we yell, or fail, or feel we
could have handled a situation differently, we are learning and growing and in
return, pathing the path for the future to be a little more tolerable. It’s a
constant process of losing and finding ourselves and assessing what parenting
looks like in each stage because the reality is, you don’t parent your
preschool child the same way you parented your toddler. It’s constantly changing,
the way we parent our children, which is why it’s anything but easy.
Instead of waiting for calm, easy waters, I urge each of us to learn to
become more of a skilled sailor. Accept that parenting will never “get easier”
and work each day to navigate through the ups and downs of this ocean called
parenting. Instead of believing falsehoods, let us train our minds to desire
what the situation demands of us. No, parenting will never get easier, but we
can always strive to become better, and that’s what makes all the difference.
