News Flash: Kids are Really Tough

Should elicit a "duhhhhh!" reaction from most of us, but it's nice to see a parunt acknowledging how much breeding sucks, nonetheless.

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http://www.wickedtiki.com/nuc/index.php?itemid=25

I mean really tough.

Certainly, all kids are different and some people have it easy, but to some degree it's not even just the kid, it's the fact that you will be raising your kid(s) with another person who may (will) have some different viewpoints on things than you. Even if you are relatively well aligned, the natural emotions that come out of dealing with your offspring combined with other potential stresses, unexpected behaviors in the kid, and reduced amounts of sleep and free time all combine in this horrid foul-smelling sticky mire that just soaks your entire life and complicates everything.

Oh yes, sure, they're cute and wonderful and all that. Fine. They are not, however "Bundles of joy" or "God's gift to parents" or any of that other sappy crap you always hear about. They are growing, thriving, independent thinking, stuboorn, selflish little monsters that are doing everything they can to push every boundry they have to see how much they can grow and what they need to do to try to get around each and every limitation or roadblock you put in their way. Even if that roadblock happens to be the one that keeps them from wandering into twelve lanes of 120 MPH traffic.

By and large, no one will tell you this. I'm not certain why, but I think it boils down to either:

a. Parents don't want to admit to themselves that having kids sucks ass so they put on a shiny smily face and talk about how they and their wives have never been happier. That the long days of hanging out with your buddies drinking beer and watching the game, followed by long passionate evenings of uninterupted sex and sleeping in the following morning until ... oh, one or two... you really don't remember anymore... are things that they don't miss much.

b. Parents figure they have it bad, so why the fuck shouldn't you suffer too?

c. There is some kind of cultural thing going on where parents are terrified to admit that it's hard because then they will somehow be labeled as a freak or a failure.

I honestly think that a and c are both a factor. A sick part of me would like to believe b, but I tend to doubt it. It's probably a and c to varying degrees with different people. But why c?

I mean, seriously... did we all go to "having kids" training? Did we get to have a trial period? A demo? Did we get to play with the shareware kid for a couple of months and then put it back on the shelf realizing we weren't ready to use it yet? NO. We went from single and totally free to bound to a helpless needful thing in a matter of hours. We were scurried out of the hospital after a couple days, and boom. You're on your own. Good luck!

Please be clear. I love my children. I would not give them up for anything. However, having and raising kids is the single hardest thing in the world to do, and there is absolutely no real prep for it, and in truth there really can't be, because the cruel punchline is that everyone's situation is so different, that anecdotal advice and information can only be partially helpful in a small set of circumstances.

So here's the single best piece of advice I can give you... having kids... very hard. Take whatever you thought was the hardest thing you ever did, multiply it by 10,000x and then pick the worst day you ever had with your spouse or SO and assume that you have to do that hard thing 365 days a year with essentially no breaks, while your spouse is as pissed at you as she was that day for at least 1/2 of the time. Figure on not having had sex for about a month, and probably not having had more than 5 hours of sleep on average over the entire course of that year. Figure on having about 50% less money than you have right now and approximately 2-3 hours a day max that you can call absolutely and exclusively yours to do whatever you want. All other time is reserved for the above conflict. Now interject one very cute and winning iceberg-melting smile or giggle from your charges every 4 hours or so.

That about sums it up.

Please take it seriously, as I am being very honest.

I dislike when parents say that "Having kids is the hardest thing in the world to do," crap. I guess Nuclear Physics is a breeze compared to wiping a poopy butt. Having a kid may suck, for some, but come on it's not freakin' rocket science.

No wonder most breeders get old FAST.

Soooooooo glad I never had kyds but I rather doubt it is the hardest thing one could ever do. I love how breeders have to come up with this sort of crap to make themselves feel more important or necessary.

PARENTHOOD; THE BIG FUCKING LIE

if kids are tough, then you need to hit them more with a meat hammer

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

I love the usual disclaimer made by ALL parents:

"Please be clear. I love my children. I would not give them up for anything. However, having and raising kids is the single hardest thing in the world to do.........."

So, does he expect us to believe that little full-of-shit disclaimer after what he says in the 50 lines above it??? Parents saying that shit don't realize how pathetic they really sound.

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KidFreeLuvnLife
I love the usual disclaimer made by ALL parents:

"Please be clear. I love my children. I would not give them up for anything. However, having and raising kids is the single hardest thing in the world to do.........."

So, does he expect us to believe that little full-of-shit disclaimer after what he says in the 50 lines above it??? Parents saying that shit don't realize how pathetic they really sound.

Tell you what, as SOON as I started reading this I KNEW that the obligatory "butIlovethemmorethananythingandwouldn'tgivethemup" line was coming....annnnnd...bingo, there it was! I swear, all these sorts of articles are formulaic and exactly the same.

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valensetvolens

I mean, seriously... did we all go to "having kids" training? Did we get to have a trial period? A demo? Did we get to play with the shareware kid for a couple of months and then put it back on the shelf realizing we weren't ready to use it yet? NO. We went from single and totally free to bound to a helpless needful thing in a matter of hours. We were scurried out of the hospital after a couple days, and boom. You're on your own. Good luck!

We ALL get "having kids training". It's called OBSERVATION, you stupid sad sack of sperm. You see other people muddling through it, you hear endlessly how HAAAARRRDD it is, you read about it in books, you see it portrayed to hilarious effect in movies, your very own parents curse you with "wait till you have your own, you'll get yours then", you lived through being raised, you use common sense and think "is it easy to provide everything needed to keep something completely helpless alive?", you could even have direct experience with children by caring for others, or volunteering at a child-oriented organization. But NO, you couldn't even manage to rub two damned brain cells together and think before you made a completely life altering decision.

Few things get me more pissed off than a parent whining that they "Never ever could have ever imagined how difficult parenting is", because it is so obvious that even my damaged brain figured that shit out on it's own.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me