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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been kind of surprised at how unenjoyable large parts of the having kids enterprise has been.

On an UMC income, you can often end up with precious little left over for any kind of enjoyment luxuries once you have coughed up for what is not expected for UMC kids -- music lessons, extensive SAT tutoring, test prep; daycare; sports lessons, daycamps, more tutors, driving lessons, orthodontics, etc.  It's entirely possible to be UMC and still live in a tiny house and drive old cars while saving all your money for college.

It seems like the only way around that is to only have one child.

I also was simply not prepared for the fact that today expectations are that you will be "on" all the time with your kids, that you have to go over every homework assignment, stay at the music lesson with them, know all the kids' friends, be at the elementary school seemingly all the time volunteering, that you will use up all your leave some years just staying home with sick kids and volunteering at school with no time left over for a vacation.  (In other words, parenting seems like a lot more fun in Europe than it does in the US what with maternity leave, generous summer vacations and a lot less parental input into the schools.)

I also didn't expect it would feel so damned lonely.  If your kids are doing well at something -- music, athletics, school -- you may find that you are therefore surrounded by competimommies who want to race your musician against theirs, your athlete against theirs.  Not a lot of real true friendship there.  If your kid has issues, people will avoid you.

I've been amazed at how stressful parenting is in this environment, how lonely it is and how expensive it is.  It is not at all what I envisioned.  The kids are great but all the other stuff kinda sucks.[/quote]

I can relate to this poster and we are just MC, not UMC, which makes it even harder.

I'm not sure if its just this area or the US as a whole, but we do seem to have lost some of the joy of parenting in this country. Everything is high pressure, high stakes, high anxiety, expensive as hell, competitive and just plain stressful. Sure you can tell yourself you just aren't going to buy into it and disconnect. I really do try to do this and keep things in perspective. But the point is, even having to do this on a daily or regular basis is a stressful thing. I would still choose to have kids all over again, but I do understand why some people don't. [/quote]

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