It left me feeling sad, mad, but mostly left me feeling introspective. (I will say the last page of the article is a great read so if you do start to read it, read it to the end!)
Do I hate parenting?
That's what I've been asking myself after reading this.
There are moments that are hard and you don't always know what to do, but it seems to me that you have that in every aspect and phase of life.
Did I have kids expecting them to make me happy?
No! It made me sad to think that people have children with the expectation that kids will make them happy. That's putting a lot on your kids. I definitely think that if you are already happy that having children can enrich your life, if it's something you already wanted. I think my dad drilled into us (not in a bad way) that babies are born being selfish and needy. It's how they survive by letting you know they are hungry, poopy, uncomfortable, hot, cold, etc.. but don't have babies expecting them to love you and you make you happy. (atleast not right away) ☺
Did I have unrealistic expectations of having children?
Personally, I don't think I did, I might have been more on the too realistic/ pessimistic side. (Lets just get through the next 18 years!) ☺ I don't think any of us can fully know what we're getting into when we first have a baby and you're going through the newborn phase. There is just no way for you to, until you go through it yourself, and even then it's different for everyone (and every child).
(It's been a pleasant surprise, by the way, how much fun I have with my kids, but don't let me raise your expectation!) ☺
Is having children hard on your marriage?
Heck yeah! Sometimes it's easy to let all the things that come with parenthood be your excuse to not take care of your marriage and every now and then you need the kick in the butt that you need to work harder at it, not let it be your excuse. "This too shall pass" is my favorite mantra, but you still need to remember to take care of each other in the meantime.
This isn't supposed to be a, why you should or shouldn't have kids, by the way. Just thinking.
Those are just SOME of my thoughts! Anyway, if you read the article I'd like to know what you thought.
My favorite excerpts from the article-
But for many of us, purpose is happiness—particularly those of us who find moment-to-moment happiness a bit elusive to begin with. Martin Seligman, the positive-psychology pioneer who is, famously, not a natural optimist, has always taken the view that happiness is best defined in the ancient Greek sense: leading a productive, purposeful life. And the way we take stock of that life, in the end, isn’t by how much fun we had, but what we did with it. (Seligman has seven children.)
About twenty years ago, Tom Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell, made a striking contribution to the field of psychology, showing that people are far more apt to regret things they haven’t done than things they have. In one instance, he followed up on the men and women from the Terman study, the famous collection of high-IQ students from California who were singled out in 1921 for a life of greatness. Not one told him of regretting having children, but ten told him they regretted not having a family.
“I think this boils down to a philosophical question, rather than a psychological one,” says Gilovich. “Should you value moment-to-moment happiness more than retrospective evaluations of your life?” He says he has no answer for this, but the example he offers suggests a bias. He recalls watching TV with his children at three in the morning when they were sick. “I wouldn’t have said it was too fun at the time,” he says. “But now I look back on it and say, ‘Ah, remember the time we used to wake up and watch cartoons?’ ” The very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification, nostalgia, delight.
