Writings by me

When I read about parenting in the media, it often seems like it is either the most wonderful of experiences or the most terrible. My experience has been neither; instead it’s been a bit of a see-saw between the two. It’s hard to capture the nuances in parenting and it’s even harder to make peace with it, especially when your expectations of parenting may have been very different.

If I think back to myself during my first pregnancy, a neutral or even realistic opinion when it came to parenting was extremely rare to find. As a result, I was completely unprepared for its realities, in negative and positive ways.  It’s extremely rare for anything in life to be all bleak or all rainbows and sunshine. In fact, the majority of life experiences are ambiguous at best. Why should parenting be any different?

So when trying to define parenting, if I could go back, I would take every (often, unoffered) opinion with the biggest grain of salt and refrain from asking for opinions at all. I’d hope to read a column like this one, which takes Wonder Woman as it’s inspiration today; like life, parenting is so many things, all at the same time and accepting this reality makes things just a little bit easier.

So for fun, and because I really like a list, here’s a top 5 of parenting contrasts I’ve grappled with:

1. Parenting is both beautiful and disgusting
Our children are beautiful. From the tips of their toes to the ends of their inexplicably long eyelashes, looking at my boys turns me into a baby-talking, emotional wreck. When those school photos come through or I catch them doing something cute for the first time, the beauty takes my breath away. They’re also really gross creatures that lick mirrors, pick their noses and create poos that make my eyes water and test my gag reflex (already useless) to the max.

2. Parenting is a journey of both love and loss
Love that you’ve never experienced before, not just for your kids but for the relationships that developed further because you had children. I love my family and friends more now than I did before purely because I get to see them be a part of my children’s lives as well as my own. I also get to see my kids love the people I love. There’s a LOT of love. But there is also a sense of loss for the person you were, the life you led before kids and the people that maybe didn’t stick around for the journey. That feeling of loss doesn’t make that love you feel for your kids mean less, or make you ungrateful. It’s ok to feel it.

3. Days when you’re nailing it, and days when you’re just not
The days we nail it, they are the best days. That feeling of getting it right, when everything falls into place, where you feel that you and your kids are fulfilled, happy and healthy is totally empowering. It’s also quite a rare feeling and because we’re nailing it that day, we expect to continue to nail it. So on those days when we are not, the comedown is huge and sharp. But I bet on the days you’re not nailing it, you’re still trying really hard and that’s all that really matters.

4. The mundane and the exciting
The day to day of parenting can feel like a mindless slog of nappies, potties, mealtimes, nap times, sports dates, play dates, errands, parks, walks, tantrums, and back to nappies, potties, mealtimes and nap times again. That can feel really mundane and overwhelming. I do not want to wash the same baby gro, deal with another dirty nappy or wipe another snotty nose ever again. But then there are the days you get to go to the zoo, or the theme park, or just hang out in the back garden splashing in a paddling pool. I’m not going to suggest this balances out the mundanity of parenting (it doesn’t!); just that thank goodness there is a contrast to it! 

5. Parenting can often be depleting and energising
You can be totally depleted fighting the same fights about food, potty and behaviour and totally depleted having the same conversations about why your kid needs to tick all these boxes you might scream. In ten minutes time though you might find yourself infected with that crazy energy kids get; the energy that makes them wrestle or pillow fight or tickle.

I haven’t figured out how to handle these contrasts yet; I suspect it’s unlikely that I will any time soon. But just knowing that there is that nuance, that it can feel mundane, exciting, depleting, energising, fulfilling, lonely, happy, sad with the odd disgusting and beautiful moments thrown in, is sometimes enough.