What didn't you understand until you were a parent and now you do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How little people actually think about and plan for parenthood before they become parents!

Must be too tired. I kept reading this as a comment about little people.
'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much I really used to sleep in.

Yessss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That so many adults are really childish. And that we have very high expectations of children but not of adults.

x10000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How utterly nonlinear their development is.

Yes! No previous behavior is not a prediction of future (consistent) behavior.

For me, the immediate PP's comment also reflects on my similar but different observation: how inconsistent they are. With adults, if they like something, they tend to always like it or at least appreciate it. With children, they love something for months and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, they hate it and only want something else. Or they always avoid X and then when they go to a party and everyone is eating/doing X, they suddenly want and love X.

[Anonymous]

Oh man, so many things.
1. How completely and utterly life changing it is. It’s cheesy, but I really do think having a child is as much the birth of a mother as it is the birth of a child. I feel like I was literally changed overnight the minute my first son was born. He became my first and utmost priority, and everything else fell way, WAY down the line.

2. How nothing can really prepare you for what it will be like. You have literally NO idea what you are getting into when you have a child, and the only thing you can do is dive in and do your best.

3. How each child is completely different.

[Anonymous]

How little parenting goes on... they are a sleep and then they are asleep then they sleep. They sleep 1/2 the waking hours and most of the night.

Then when they are toddlers... they eat, play a little then sleep, then eat, play a little then sleep.

Once they are old enough to not be sleeping alllllll theeee timmmme, they are in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How little parenting goes on... they are a sleep and then they are asleep then they sleep. They sleep 1/2 the waking hours and most of the night.

Then when they are toddlers... they eat, play a little then sleep, then eat, play a little then sleep.

Once they are old enough to not be sleeping alllllll theeee timmmme, they are in school.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

My children barely slept as babies, particularly my oldest. This is why you cant' expect to learn anything from other people's experience - every child is completely different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How little people actually think about and plan for parenthood before they become parents!

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much I really used to sleep in.

This and how much free time I used to have. And how much time I wasted!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How little parenting goes on... they are a sleep and then they are asleep then they sleep. They sleep 1/2 the waking hours and most of the night.

Then when they are toddlers... they eat, play a little then sleep, then eat, play a little then sleep.

Once they are old enough to not be sleeping alllllll theeee timmmme, they are in school.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

My children barely slept as babies, particularly my oldest. This is why you cant' expect to learn anything from other people's experience - every child is completely different.

true i had 1 sleeper and 1 non-sleeper but even then... he is in a bouncy staring at stuff or chewing a toy... not exactly lots of parenting.

Homework though, that was my albatross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had kids later than most in our friend group and I'm still eating the humble pie - my opinions on everything from sleep training to when/how/who to leave your kids with have changed now that I'm a player instead of a spectator. It's a rite of passage to realize you can't judge someone until you've been in their shoes, and I'm grateful for the experience.

Except I still don't understand parents who get upset when their kids aren't invited to weddings. Sorrryyyyyy.

This is nice to read. I was the first in my friend group to have kids and got so much judgement from the non-parents who knew everything ("I would never do IVF." "I would never adopt" "I would never get a c-section." "I'm going to be a working mom. I hope you understand" lol what?).

Permanently altered those relationships. Anyway, they mostly had kids a few years later and got their humble pies (and their fertility meds, c-sections, and flex schedules -- welcome to reality, people).

What I didn't understand until I had kids -- that my career would become more of a means to an end (pays for health insurance and soccer cleats) than a "passion," and even more surprising, that I'm fine with that shift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much I really used to sleep in.

This and how much free time I used to have. And how much time I wasted!

So much free time on weekends in particular. Night and day difference. Our weekends are now early rising, soccer games, 6 loads of laundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much I really used to sleep in.

This and how much free time I used to have. And how much time I wasted!

So much free time on weekends in particular. Night and day difference. Our weekends are now early rising, soccer games, 6 loads of laundry.

Yes! What did I used to DO all day?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many decisions there are to be made while parenting and how hard it is. Am I being too hard on her? Am I not being hard enough? Do I push on this or let it go? And you second guess yourself all the time.

When I was growing up, I thought my parents just made up a bunch of rules or decided based on their whims at the moment, but they probably put a lot of thought into things and there were a lot of things they thought about that I wasn't privy to.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How damn hard it is, how much of yourself you lose, how much sacrifice you have to make, how much society judges you as a mom (I think this was not as bad for our parents though), how frustrating and infuriating the "clueless dad" thing is.

All of this.
And I appreciate my own mom so much more now!