DEAR SPRINGFIELD MAMA

ESSAY |

There’s been a trend in the past decade or so of parents sharing the “realistic” side of parenting, particularly the hard parts — the exhausting labor of it, and the emotional drain. 

Video shorts are loaded with venting parents, clips of children in tantrums, and haggard mothers desperate for a moment of peace.

In the comments, there are always those who write, “This is why I decided not to have kids. Childfree and loving life.” 

There was a time when people called it “childless” rather than childfree. I think there was a collective knowledge that children were additive rather than just draining. Maybe that’s due to different values, different economies or different parenting trends. Now, I imagine people don’t like the idea that their experience of life is “less” of anything by not caring for children. After all, the TikTok story of parenthood looks ghastly.

It’s true that I’m tired. I’ve been tired since I was pregnant in 2020. It’s true that my son threw tantrums, drew on my walls, and constantly—infuriatingly—did the exact opposite of what I said. It’s true that I can never finish a thought when he’s around, that I can never take a sick day. And there are days I feel like a slave to my role.

It is shocking to lose the freedom of a childless lifestyle, especially when you’ve lived a long adult life without kids. That shock sends parents, I think, into a state of awakening. We realize we never really understood parents before becoming one, and we make it our mission to teach everyone else how hard this phase of life really is. We want to feel seen because we know how blind we once were ourselves.

The parents who vent their frustrations on social media often say they want to spread a realistic view of parenthood, as they feel too many people sugarcoat the experience. But I believe the pendulum has swung the other direction, from the once-popular saccharine family photos on Instagram and Facebook to the now-popular parental lows going viral on TikTok and Reels. 

Parents always say, “But I wouldn’t trade this life for anything” or “It’s so hard but so rewarding.”

I don’t know about you, but those vague statements felt empty and unconvincing before I became a mother.

So, specifically, here’s why I don’t mind being tired. 

Because being a parent is euphoric

In the early days, joy shot through my heart with such little acts as rubbing the soft pads of my baby’s foot, or feeling his body relax when I picked him up. When he was a toddler, I experience concentrated waves of euphoria daily from simple things, like my son swinging his legs in a chair, or tasting a new food and smiling at me after. I got drips of that euphoria when his eyes lit up over something I never notice, like how a bird lands on a fence or a bee hovers in the air. 

Every “milestone” — walking, talking, eating, empathy — happens as slow as molasses, and watching him edge toward mastery is just as sweet. When one milestone wraps up, another begins anew. All the things we take for granted as an adult — the beauty and complexity of language, physics, sights, smells and food — are reintroduced to our adult minds with a new ability to appreciate them. You know that feeling when you get to watch your favorite movie with someone who’s never seen it? Every sweet part of your life — a pretty sunset, a delicious meal — sparks that same pleasure of sharing something wonderful with someone who’s never seen it.

Because being a parent is grounding

A child brings steadiness into your life, perhaps for the first time since you left your own parent’s home. A pair becomes a family. Rituals and rhythms begin, replacing the spontenanity of youth. Meals become more scheduled, and bedtime more consistent. 

Young children force you to slow your pace. It’s painful at first, but you begin to appreciate the forced stillness. Apparently, the Italian have a phrase that’s fitting — dolce far niente — “the sweetness of doing nothing.” 

Caring for a child is also edifying in the way it forces you to reconnect with your own roots and draw on them for support. Children connect you with your own past self — and often with your parents after a phase of complete independence. You may realize all your parents have done for you — and still do for you. You learn that parenting is a choice, and — for the lucky ones, we learn that our parents, grandparents, or adoptive parents made the selfless choice to show up for us every day. That knowledge permanently shifts how you relate to your elders, and it unveils a dimension of life’s journey that’s hard to understand from the outside.

For those whose own mother or father didn’t or couldn’t be there, parenthood serves as a second chance at the parent-child relationship; an opportunity to close an open gap — to give what you did not receive, and in doing so, to finally understand what was missing.

Because it’s beautiful

And last, it’s fulfilling because it’s the most compelling and real thing we’ve ever experienced. Children teach us the sheer ugliness, the awesome beauty, and perhaps most jarringly, the brevity of life.

Parenting a child is like watching the flashing beauty of a falling star; like trying to hold sand that’s slipping out of your hands.

N.D. Wilson describes it perfectly in his book Death by Living: “Watching one’s small humans age and grow up packs a serious punch. It’s like being stuck in a dream unable to speak, like being a ghost that can see but not touch, like standing on a huge grate while a storm rains oiled diamonds, like collecting feathers in a storm. Parents in love with their children are all amnesiacs, trying to remember, trying to cherish…”

We’re all trying to catch the diamonds as they fall. I guess on the outside, that looks like chaos, exhaustion, and so much work.

I like to imagine that parents — especially ones with young children — look to outsiders like weathered old hags wearing dirty, ripped trench coats. But inside our pockets are oiled diamonds and emerald feathers. And we just jingle along on our tired feet.

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