Moms Missing Out

Here's an entertaining video posted by a mom who is lamenting all the things she misses now that she has kids.  Thankfully, there's no "but it's so worth it" backpedal at the end.  Be sure to read the comments below her video for lots of other moms chiming in and adding to the list.

My childfree friends, let it not escape us how similar their list of things they miss is to my list of the Top 100 Reasons Not to Have Kids.  See, there is actually some truth to the stuff I write ;)




Thank you to CFVixen for the forward.

Bitch and Backpedal (Revisited)

I Wish I Had Known

Thank you to my friend Matt for forwarding me this article on Lifehacker, 10 Things I Wish I had Known Before Becoming a Parent.  This is yet another mom-penned article outlining in detail all the things that are tough about parenthood, and ending with the requisite bitch and backpedal about how it's all worth it in the end.

The author of the article covers familiar ground:

• Getting pregnant is not easy
• The first few months after the kid are born are torture
• You get no sleep for months
• Your house gets overrun with baby crap
• The expenses never stop
• It's hard to maintain a career, and working at home is not an easy solution
• You stress out a lot over whether the child is developing on schedule
• Going out anywhere is a stress fest
• For better or worse, you and your partner (and your relationship with each other) will never be the same

It always amazes when when parents say they wish they had known these things before they had kids.  I have never had a child and yet I am well aware of the downsides of parenting because:

1. I have 2 eyes.  At least 70% of the people I know have kids and I can directly observe what their lives are like.  I see they are a shell of their former self.  I see their house is overrun with kiddie crap. I see they are having a hard time staying above water.  I see they are stressed over their kid's every move.  I see them spending $200 a month on diapers. I see the burden it is for them to go anywhere. I see their marriage deteriorating. I see how tired and stressed they are.  How can anyone observe people with kids and not know the truth of what parenting is like?
2. I have never known a single parent who appeared to be more happy, fulfilled or better off in any way than I am - unless you count their tax breaks and stork parking (which I help myself to anyway).  In fact, many of them seem downright miserable.  And exhausted.  And stressed.  And broke.  And nobody can convince me that some kiddie kisses and "I love you mommy" are going to undo all of that.
3. Given #1 and #2 above, why would I be surprised to learn that being a parent is hard, full of drugery, no sleep, exhausting, draining, life-sucking and all the rest?  Why do people so easily believe the fairytales about parenthood when their own eyes can tell them the real truth, if only they would open them?

The backpedal at the end of "it's all worth it" is just a way for the complaining mom to redeem herself because we all know it is taboo for a mom to be honest about the suckage that is motherhood. For a woman, to say that it sucks to have kids is the same thing as saying "I am an awful mom", but that can be erased by qualifying all of her complaints with, "it's all worth it" at the end.  Saying "it's all worth it" also has the added benefit of bestowing saintlike martyr qualities on the complaining mom, because god knows the saint/martyr label is one that moms love to wear with pride.  LOOK AT ALL I HAVE SACRIFICED FOR MY CHILDREN! 

(Of course, if she wants to avoid having to keep up the appearance of being a good mom and claiming "it's all worth it",  she can post her bitter complaints about motherhood anonymously on the internet, as many parents are doing these days).

If ending their venting sessions with "it's all worth it" makes it a little easier for moms to endure their lifelong prison sentence and to be honest about the downsides of childrearing, than I guess we can give them a pass - for now.  At least their increasing openness about the realities of parenthood is creating a counter-balance to the overwhelming and unrealistic pronatalist mythology that has a death grip on our culture.  My hope is that as more moms and dads write articles about the harsh realities of parenthood, fewer people will feel compelled to put their pens to paper to scribble out regretful "Things I Wish I had Known Before Becoming a Parent" lists, long after it's too late to turn back.  Instead, they will put to good use the shared experiences of parents and non-parents (and hopefully their own observations) to thoughtfully and intelligently weigh out the costs and benefits before making a monumental and life-altering leap.

Parental Delusion: Throwing Good Money After Bad

Thank you to my reader Zarina, who forwarded me a link to an interesting article in Healthland (Time) entitled Kid Crazy: Why we Exaggerate the Joys of Parenthood, by John Cloud. Cloud discusses new research published in the journal Psychological Science which found that parents - faced with the draining financial and emotional expense of raising children - convince/delude themselves that parenthood is rewarding. It's a coping mechanism designed to alleviate the cognitive dissonance they experience when their negative experience of child-raising butts up against the over-glorified myths of parental bliss that permeate our culture.

My readers know I have been making the same argument all along - that the Stepford Wives mantra of "parenthood is the most fulfilling role in life and the root of true happiness" is nothing more than parents trying to make themselves feel better because they know, deep inside, they are faced with a lifelong prison sentence for which there is no escape (see my posts The Bitch & Backpedal; Beneath the Surface: A Two-Pronged Theory and Having a Child is So Worth It! - which officially make me a broken record on the issue). And now scientific research is bearing me out. I love when that happens :)

Although it doesn't surprise me that parents continue to delude themselves this way - after all, they have to ease their psychological pain somehow - I continue to be fascinated by the fact that more people don't recognize the drudgery that is parenthood and avoid it at all costs. Why are people so ready and willing to buy into the parenthood myth when their own observations about the reality of parenthood should tell them to run for the hills? All of us were children at some point and from that vantage point, had a direct view of how happy (or unhappy) our parents were. And then as we mature and become adults, parents surround us everywhere - our friends and family members start having kids and our view of what parenthood is expanded even further. We can see very clearly that parenthood is 98% stress, strain and drudgery and yet 90% of the population chooses to believe the "parenthood is the root of ultimate fulfillment and happiness" myth instead of believing what they see before their very eyes.

Now THIS would be an interesting area for scientific research.

More Bitching and (a little) Backpedaling

Wow - the parents are really coming out of the woodwork to bitch and complain about the downsides of parenting. Love it. Here's another mom-authorized bitchfest entitled 10 things no one told you about work-life balance with kids. As is the usual custom with parental bitchfests, while she spends the bulk of her article dishing the shit, she is careful to end her bitchfest with the requisite pro-parenting propaganda (The Backpedal) - lest you be left with the idea that she is promoting the message that having kids is not worth it (which would make her a terrible, terrible person, a bad mom, and a traitor to all the other long-suffering moms who need constant reminders that having kids wasn't the biggest mistake of their lives).

I must say I find the title of her article curious. No one told her about work-life balance with kids? Do we really need someone to tell us about this? How is it possible to live in our society and observe other people (with kids) and not notice that being a parent royally screws up a person's life and turns it into a major stress-fest? I don't need anyone to write a list out for me to give me the heads up. All I have to do is look around me at the people I know who have kids and I can see that having kids = sleep deprivation, exhaustion, stress, constant upset, negative impact on career and job performance, financial strain, weight gain, and the list goes on and on. How is it that this author was surprised to encounter all these negative changes in her life once she had kids? What planet does she live on?

Oh, that's right. She probably bought into all the pro-parenting propaganda that was spoonfed to her during her entire pre-kid life like, "it's so worth it", "it's the most important and most rewarding job in the world", "it's the best thing you can do", "you can do it all", "you just make it work" (you know - the same propaganda we childfree people were smart enough to recognize as a BS brainwashing scam), while turning a blind eye to the conflicting evidence before her very eyes. It's interesting how the human mind works, isn't it - how people believe what they want to believe and then are shocked when reality smacks them in the face.

P.S. After you read the article, be sure to scroll down and read the comments by more stressed out parents. Lots of bitching, and minimal backpedaling.

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If you'd like to read more from regretful parents, click here.