WHATEVS…

Roughly eight years ago, I published a post called The Learning Curve. It was a list of 10 things I’d learned about parenting in my 28 day tenure as a mom. <insert eye roll here> To be fair, at one point in the post, I acknowledged that my future self would mock my naiveté. (This older and wiser version of me prefers that spelling—naiveté—to the spelling I used in 2013—naivety.) And before I go any further, I’d like to pause here to acknowledge the same; that the future, more-experienced-mom me is going to roll her eyes, too, and have much sager words to offer. For now, though, I’ll submit to you my current “top 10” list of stuff I’ve learned about parenting over the past eight years. Which honestly feels much longer, perhaps because I’m looking at it from the back end of a global pandemic.

1. You’re going to eat your words. – All of them. Every last “I’ll never let my kid…” and “I always… / I’d never…” you’ve ever even thought with your pre-parenting brain. Open wide because here comes the airplane. At some point, even if it’s just a one off, you’re going to let them… and you sometimes… / you might….
   
2. You only think you’re the one in charge. – Sure, you’re the parent. You make the rules. But time and money are both controlled largely by the kid. That weekly date night that was non-negotiable before kids suddenly relies on finding a sitter. That weekend excursion with your girlfriends now has to be planned around dance competitions. That glass of wine you used to indulge in after work now has to wait because you’ve got to drive the kid to and from soccer practice.
   
3. Your house is always going to be messy. – There are going to be toys. And books. And craft supplies. And sports equipment. And Legos and Barbie shoes and endless little bits of cut up pieces of paper and random pieces of board games you didn’t even know you owned. NONE of it will be where it belongs. It’s going to need to be picked up before you can clean. Unless you try to clean around it. Which, let me be clear: You will try. On the days that you do put things away and clean, it’ll be short-lived. So short-lived, in fact, that the desire to do it again will be tarnished by the disappointment in how long it lasts. The stretches of messiness will get longer and longer, spurts of clean becoming more and more rare, until eventually you just embrace the chaos.
   
4. Get used to repeating yourself. – Kids have selective hearing. That’s a fact. Whether or not they hear you is determined mostly by whether or not there’s a screen on in their proximity and whether or not they want to hear what you’re saying. You’ve opened a fun size KitKat from your secret stash (also known as last year’s Halloween haul)? They’ll hear the crinkle of that wrapper from the neighbor’s house. But it’s time to brush teeth and get ready for bed? They might be seated next to you on the couch and still won’t hear you. And the things they do hear will eventually become things that they “forgot” or “didn’t know.” So you’ll have to tell them again and hope they hear you. Rinse and repeat for all of eternity.
   
5. Screens aren’t really all that bad, in moderation. – No, I’m not advocating parking your kid in front of a screen all day, every day. I’m merely suggesting that they’ll survive a little screen time, even as a toddler. There’s lots to be learned from lots of children’s programming nowadays. The app store has tons of games that help with fine motor skills, vocabulary, logic…you name it. Without a screen, kids in 2020/2021 would have missed out on over a year’s worth of schooling. Technology is here to stay and we have a responsibility to our kids to teach them how to use it all properly.
   
6. Making friends is going to get weird. – The friends you used to have pre-kids may still be there. But they’ll be off doing whatever their kid wants to do every weekends because they, too, only think they’re in charge. So you’ll have to consider making some new ones. The likely choice here will be the parents of the kids that your kid hangs out with. You may have nothing at all in common with them other than having kids who like to hang out. Or you may have tons in common and get along great…until your kids have a falling out or are no longer on the same team and suddenly your friendship suffers for it.
   
7. You’re not doing it wrong. – You’re going to feel like you are. Often. But you’re not. When you need parenting advice, turn to those whose advice resonates with you. And find people who can remind you that you’re doing a good job even when you’re sure you’re not.
   
8. Don’t expect appreciation but know it exists. – You know that scene in Frozen II where Olaf opines about “this will all make sense when I am older?” Of course you do, because you have kids. Well, I trust that the same is true with kids and appreciation. Right now, you may be stress eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and stewing over the fact that your kid not-so-kindly reminded you that you forgot to buy more tape at the store—seriously, where the eff does all the tape go?!?!—but didn’t so much as thank you for going to the PTO meeting, doing three loads of laundry, and schlepping them to their sports practice. (Okay, I’ll admit, that sounds oddly specific. I digress.) But someday, they’re going to look back their childhood and appreciate your involvement in the things you did. Not an empty tape dispenser.
   
9. You’re going to miss this. – Whatever “this” is, it’s not going to be that way forever and when it’s not there, you’ll miss it. So when you’re dog-tired and feel like you have nothing left to give, take a breath and remind yourself of that.
   
10. Motherhood is amazing. – This is the one hold-out from the 2013 post because it’s still true. I know because she and I laugh together in a way that neither of us laughs with anyone else. And we have secret kisses akin to secret handshakes; including not only the standards (regular kiss, butterfly kiss, “bunny” kiss, etc) but also some of our own creation like the slow-motion kiss and the whisper kiss. I know because when she’s hurt, it’s me she looks for. And at the end of a long day her rough behavior melts into a teary hug while we talk about what’s bothering her. I know because she drives me BONKERS but is also my favorite person in the universe.

To learn more about the inspiration for this post…