I’m going to say it. Parenting fucking sucks. It’s the most beautiful, wonderful, emotional, difficult job you’ll ever have. Now, I’m not saying quite literally that parenting sucks and I hate it. I love it. I enjoy it (95% of the time when I’m not arguing with my toddler). But it is so hard in so many ways. Not just the ways that some people might think, but in the happy tears, joyous moments of watching your child become a person; becoming who they are, forming who they will be day by day. No one tells you about the overwhelming grief that comes with every new stage of your child’s life. This grief coexists with the happiness and joys of parenting. I’m actually starting to cry as I write this, because this grief is something I’ve been really struggling with lately, and it seems to be consuming me a bit. Watching my beautiful daughter who was once my tiny baby become this tiny human with her own thoughts and opinions has brought me through surmountable stages of joy and sadness; all at the same time. Something I like to call the emotional turmoil of parenting.

When you get pregnant and become a parent, all the generations before you, and friends and family with kids give you all the unwarranted or unnecessary advice. No ill intentions, but they say things like: sleep when the baby sleeps, watch out for the terrible twos, just wait until they start walking then you’re really in trouble, let them cry it out, and so on. I think the one thing some people tell you, and it’s usually an old lady at the grocery store, is that they remember when their kids were that age and they’re all grown up now with their own babies, so enjoy every minute of it because it goes by too fast. Those comments always make my heart swell and bring tears to my eyes. When these kids are small, we are truly living the best years of our lives. But no one, absolutely no one tells you how hard it is when they take their first steps and are no longer your stationary baby. No one tells you how difficult it is when they lose their babble and start saying real words. How wonderfully exciting and terrifying it is when they go down their first slide all by themselves. When the fragmented toddler words that only you can understand become full sentences; all the words are pronounced correctly, and gone are the days when they call Paw Patrol “pah cho.” It’s hard. It’s so fucking hard. You’re so happy that your little human is constantly growing and learning, but you’re also in a constant state of grief for the little person/baby they were before this new stage. They should teach that in the ‘Ages & Stages’ class.

I seriously was not aware of this perpetual emotional turmoil, therefore I was not properly prepared. I’m a very sentimental person and I feel things very deeply. Probably a little more deeply than the average bear. My wife actually gives me shit for this. I start thinking about the age of our dog (which is 7 by the way), and I start to get very emotional and tear up thinking about the amount of time we have left with him is probably close to the time we’ve already had with him. That went by so fast, so it makes me feel some type of way. Another example is when we were getting ready to move out of our first house, I had to leave the house and take a walk because I was so emotional. I couldn’t keep it together to clean and pack the last few things into boxes. I started crying and telling myself that this will be the last time I ever walk this loop (dramatic much??). When I returned, I spent time in each room of the house just stewing and brewing. Thinking of what happened inside these walls. The memories that were made. It’s where we brought our daughter home from the hospital. It was our first house. I was a wreck, even though we were starting a new chapter that was great for our family. I was happy and sad at the same time. I still think about that house sometimes, and it still fells like home.

The examples I just shared are similar to my emotions when it comes to parenting. I wouldn’t call it dwelling so much as reminiscing, but I do sit and think about the newborn stage, the baby stage, the fresh toddler stage and so on. Instead of doom scrolling on social media, I scroll through my pictures and videos pining for the small child my daughter once was. I watch videos where she was starting to talk, but it’s so fragmented and adorable. The videos of her babbling as a baby. Pictures of the food messes, the first painted picture. All of it. And sometimes this can be just as detrimental to my state of mind and mental health as the doom scrolling. I’m stuck living in this past that no longer exists and sometimes it inhibits my ability to be present with my daughter and accept who she is now. Because one day I’m going to miss this stage as well. I’m also told not to worry, because this stage will come back around as a teenager so I’ll get to experience it twice. But back to the comparison to doom scrolling, I’m doing just that. I’m comparing. I’m comparing my older toddler to the newborn, to the baby, and to the fresh toddler. Comparing my stages of motherhood, thinking I was a much better mother back then. I’m also reminded that it’s easier to be the parent of babies because they don’t talk back and throw tantrums because we can’t find the ‘most beautiful’ dress in the closet. I was more patient yes, but there wasn’t a whole lot to be patient for. I was more present yes, but it was easier just to be and not have to constantly micromanage every decision made by said toddler. Also, they know more at this age and push back heavily. At a fresh 2 years old, it’s easy to get them dressed, throw them in the car and go. They don’t know where we’re going, we’re just going. And everything is magical and fun, even if it’s just going to drop something off at they dry cleaners. It helps that they have a candy dish on the front desk, but still. Now it takes a half hour to get dressed because they have thoughts and opinions about what they wear, how they want their hair, complaining about where we’re going and so on. Also, I got lucky with the hair thing for a while, because my daughter didn’t have hair that I could actually style or put up until she was about 3.5 years old. But now I’m in trouble because we’ve got a full head of hair and there are MANY opinions and do overs in the morning. Send help!

These sort of things like the comparing that I do destroy me a little bit. I don’t think we’re supposed to have full access to all the pictures we’ve ever taken of our child and all the videos we’ve ever made. The instant access makes us go to it and look over everything only to make ourselves sad. All the time. What ever happened to home videos and printed pictures in a dusty old album somewhere that you pull out every once in a while and look at as a family. I miss that. I want that for my daughter. Maybe I should bring that trend back. But only if I can do it on a VHS tape for it all to get ruined when the film gets stuck in the VCR. What do VHS and VCR stand for anyway? I guess I’ve never inquired so I’ll Google it. But anyway, my daughter has even witnessed me reminiscing on these pictures and videos and then, naturally she wants to look. She will watch one video of herself and watch it on repeat. Then sometimes she starts saying things in the way that she was in the video. For some reason this just makes me sad. It’s almost like a part of her misses it too. Or maybe she doesn’t even remember and is just being silly and copying, i don’t know. That’s probably more likely, but I’m dramatic and sentimental remember?

Being a mom has also taught me so many things about life that you just can’t fathom or learn without being a parent. That sounds a little harsh but it’s true. One time in my early twenties, my wife and I had tickets to an NFL game and my friend and her boyfriend were supposed to come with us. She had a 2 year old at the time and he came down with some type of illness the night before the game, so she stayed home with him. In my mind I was upset and a little bit irritated. I thought we’ve had this planned for months, can’t one of her sisters watch him. They watch him any other time… I was naive. I wasn’t a mom. All I could think about was her “wrecking” our fun plans just to stay at home with her 2 year old. But now years later, I’m a mom. I GET IT NOW! No shit. Her baby boy was sick and needed his mama. Of course she’s going to stay home with him instead of going to some football game to get tipsy with me and probably go out to some bar afterwards. I would do the exact same thing. Especially for football. I don’t even like football, it just used to be an excuse to get drunk. In the end, her boyfriend and his cousin ended up coming with us, and we were all friends so it was just fine, but there was still this part of me that hung on to that irritation with her. Like forever. Until I had my daughter. I wouldn’t even go to a scheduled Taylor Swift concert if my daughter was sick. She would need me. And I would be there, home with her. And that’s really saying something because I’m a Swiftie and you don’t fuck with Swifties.

As a parent, I’ve also learned a lot about myself. Parenting brings up your own childhood traumas in a very unique way, because there are so many things that are constantly triggering you. All. The. Time. Certain events, holidays, how you speak to your children, conflict, all of it. It brings every emotion to the surface. At least for me it does. And I have to figure out how to navigate these things. I sure know how these things were handled when I was a child, and I strive to be different in so many ways. We always want better for our children than what we had, and we bend over backwards to give that to them, but sometimes it backfires. Sometimes the very thing you’re trying not to be comes to the surface because you’re gripping so tight on to the negative instead of focusing on the positivity you want to create for your child. It’s like the sand metaphor. If you have a handful of sand, the tighter you squeeze, the more sand you’ll lose as opposed to letting it just be in your hand. I’ve found this to be true in some areas of my parenting, and I have to remind myself to take a step back and look at the big picture.

I love to read about parenting and consume all types of media surrounding the topic. I do so with the thought in mind, that no one gets it right all the time and many people just speak from their own experiences after they make their own mistakes, or learn from other people’s experiences. Dr. Russel Barkley says “we are shepherds, not carpenters.” And this really stuck with me. I suggest checking him out. He has some really good videos on parenting. But the idea that we are merely here as parents to guide our children and not create who they are is quite profound. I had always looked at it as: well if I don’t do XYZ, my daughter is going to end up a certain way. While things you do have an impact, it doesn’t tell you who they’re going to be. You could do everything “right” and they could still struggIe with addiction as an adult. You could do everything “wrong” and they could be the most successful and happy person you know. Nothing you do matters while simultaneously everything you do matters. know that no video, parenting book, podcast, or grandmothers hold the key to perfect parenting, but they certainly do help. And I take tidbits from everything I watch and read. Don’t take it as Bible, or you’ll feel like a failure every day. Take it as mere suggestions and little nuggets of knowledge, at least that’s what I do.

All I’m saying is: stop comparing your past self to your present self. Meet yourself where you’re at as a parent. Some stages are harder than others and this looks different for everyone. Take something with you from each stage of parenting and hold on to it for dear life. Learn from yourself. Educate yourself. Talk to your friends and family whom you admire and look up to as a parent. And just be. Do what feels right for you and your child. Model the behavior that you want to see. And quit trying to be perfect (Ahem, Corrah). No one gets it all the way right, and we all snap at our kids, so don’t feel bad. We’re all just out here living and trying to figure it out, because let’s be honest; none of us know what we’re doing, we’re just doing it.

Talk soon,

Corrah