Is Parenting as Hard as Being Blown Up?
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We just completed a birthday party weekend. It started with a birthday boy recovering from a fever and ended with a 5-year-old vomiting all over the carpet.
We typically host parties three times per year, usually at our house. Coincidentally, these are the three days a year our house is marginally clean and orderly. Well, for the few hours before the party and the first fifteen minutes once the party starts before complete chaos ensues.
The way we do birthdays isn’t particularly elaborate or structured, but it is kind of a lot. It requires infinite busy work before, during, and after. But the kids have a great time and the parents seem to also enjoy it (we have beer), so it feels very much worth it.
I wrote this essay before the party weekend, but it kind of fits. That labor of parenting can often be so difficult to quantify and value. But trying to clean vomit off of carpet is certainly a challenge. That’s for sure…
I was at the playground with my 3-year-old daughter one day recently when I was informed that parenting is harder than being hit with an improvised explosive device. I have to admit, even though I’m pretty numb because weird things happen at the playground all the time, I was a bit taken aback.
A portly gentleman with flecks of gray in his goatee was pushing a small child and a baby on the double swing. I was pushing my daughter on the adjacent swing.
“How do you do it?” the man said without any prologue.
I gave a nervous laugh and shrugged as if to say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m frightened.”
“My son is thirty, I thought I was done with this,” he continued. “Then, my niece calls and asks if I could keep her kids for a week. I called up my old Army commander yesterday and asked if he needed help because getting blown up is easier than this!”
I laughed again because, well, it seemed like the thing to do and I had nothing to add to the conversation.
I have no experience with military service, but I was almost certain he was exaggerating. However, when the baby immediately spit up all over the front of her clothes and into the baby swing, the look on his face was one of abject horror mixed with a dash of devastating defeat, so I suppose he could’ve been speaking truth.
As he rushed off toward the car with the explosive baby, I reflected on his words.
How hard is this parenting thing, really?
I’ve been immersed in it for eight years now, and I’m still not sure. My parenting experience feels all-encompassing—it’s certainly crowded out many things in my life—but I don’t usually think of it as difficult. Certainly nothing akin to suffering catastrophic bodily harm.
For example, “trick-or-treating” with my 3-year-old for an hour in our living room isn’t that difficult. All I have to do is knock on the door of the bunny, the teddy bear, and the doll and collect wooden blocks and plastic ice cream in my bag. It’s a bit boring, perhaps, but not particularly taxing in any way.
Similarly, riding the space scooter in circles around our street every morning for thirty minutes while my daughter rides her bike isn’t that hard. It tests my cardio a little, but enough cars turn down the street to give me breathers every now and then.
And playing dolls and toys with her in the playroom doesn’t seem particularly challenging. Actually, never mind, this one is objectively difficult. The level of dialog I have to memorize is extreme and she is unforgiving when lines are forgotten.
Now, flinging pillows at my three children as they run back and forth on our L-shaped couch laughing their heads off isn’t difficult at all. It’s actually a bit cathartic to be honest.
But I will admit that staying on top of my email so when the call for donations for the class Thanksgiving party comes in I can pounce on paper plates or napkins is definitely a skill. After all, no one wants to get stuck with mashed potatoes or anything else that requires real effort.
Once I became accustomed to the fact that my life is now completely dictated by school schedules, dinner time, bath time, and bed time, and we were through the really terrible lack of sleep periods, things aren’t necessarily easy, but they don’t seem diabolically difficult either.
Of course, there is certainly a difference between just doing something and truly excelling at it. I feel like I’m a decent parent most of the time but I’m far from an overachiever. I’m perfectly happy allowing my kids to watch several hours of TV when I’ve had enough interaction, for example.
In addition, I recognize that every parent’s circumstances are different. Many parents face challenges that I could never fully understand. So there are parenting situations that I can recognize as very difficult, I just don’t typically include mine in that category.
But perhaps I underrate the difficulty of parenting in general—even though parenting has been the central part of my identity for eight years—because societal messages have conditioned me to undervalue emotional labor.
From the time we’re little, we are bombarded with subliminal and direct messages that paid labor outside the home is more valuable than unpaid labor in the home.
In a recent essay, Darcy Reeder spoke to this discrepancy in value assigned to labor, and specifically emotional labor — the even less tangible work like remembering the soccer jersey needs to be washed before Saturday morning or scheduling doctor appointments for the whole family. She concluded that the emotional labor she performs as a mother is her superpower. I think that is a brilliant re-framing.
Reeder asserts that “...when we make (emotional labor) seem effortless, it doesn’t mean it is. It just means it’s time to recognize how powerful we really are.”
And while I probably don’t make anything look effortless, as I’ve explained here, I often feel like I’m not putting in that much effort. That’s probably because it’s not so much that any of the most typical parenting responsibilities are difficult on their own, but when you add them all up, it’s a lot. Particularly since most of the things have to be repeated almost every day. (Except for baths...that’s more of a few times a week thing.)
Often the sum of a parent’s effort is greater than the parts. The most important work can just be showing up every day. Filling the space. Like a nose tackle in football taking on blockers so the linebackers can tackle the ball carrier.
I feel for the gentleman at the park. Even if you’re familiar with armed combat, it’s disconcerting and difficult to be thrust into the parenting trenches without significant preparation or an extended stint at basic training.
I’m also thankful he voiced his feelings. Because they helped remind me that even if my day-to-day “work” doesn’t always feel particularly taxing or even productive, it must be. Not everyone could do it.
Just like not everyone could march off to war. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is no matter what you’re doing, you have to keep your head down. And bring an extra towel. You never know when the baby is going to blow.
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