Stuff No One Will Tell You

Here are some things that no one will tell you about parenting:

The concept of a good night's sleep will never be the same after you have kids.
You may sleep for eight hours straight (eventually) but it won't be the same peaceful sleep you got pre-kid.

You will want to fight your child.
I'm not talking about abuse. That's something else. What I'm saying is that the day will come where they will work your very last nerve to the point that you'll drift off into a fantasy where you can somehow magically become the same age as them and fight them.

You will think the child is doing "it" on purpose.
My daughter is eleven months old and I swear that some days she has moments of clarity where she gains the intelligence of a 15 year old and does stuff just to spite me.


You will break down.
Male or female, old or young parent, you will break down. I've seen some shit in my life and even I was brought down to a level of "what the hell am I doing" one night. The baby kept crying and trying to pacify her only seemed to make her madder. After an hour of endless crying, I finally just had a moment where I wondered if the hospital made a mistake giving me a baby.

You will learn to magnify small accomplishments
Being a parent fucking sucks some days, but unlike regular life where shitty day after shitty day eventually makes you bitter, parenting has the opposite effect. Shitty day after shitty day makes you more optimistic that things will get better. It makes you appreciate the smallest thing. It's as if our minds evolve to be able to make do with less. Changing a shit-filled diaper while my daughter lays completely still is like a gift from God. Normally she takes off running the minute the tape comes off the diaper. Or...being able to go to the grocery store and come home without my daughter throwing a fit, screaming or whining is a damn fine day.

You'll secretly enjoy your time away from them.
I love my wife. I love my daughter. But, I swear that one of my happiest moments is walking out of the house alone to go somewhere. I don't care if it's just me running back to the car to get something out of the trunk. That three minutes is like a mini-vacation. No noise, no requests, no judgmental eyes from the baby...just a man and his thoughts.

You'll miss it all because time works differently
As crazy as it gets, as stressed as you get and as relentless as the baby gets, it passes by incredibly fast. It's hard to explain, but while you're going through it, it seems like forever. When you look back, however, you'll wonder where the time went. They go from being this little thing that fits in one arm and makes a bunch of random noises (mostly cries) to being this mini-person with an opinion that clashes with yours yet still wants you to hold them (only now you have to use both arms) and finally they just become hell on wheels walking/stumbling around the house like a drunk making demands. Before you know it, they're grown and you kind of miss it all (Stockholm syndrome?).

It isn't a bad job, if you know what to expect. That's why I'm telling you what no one else will. The brochures lie. Oh here's one more I learned the hard way...

They won't play with anything that costs more than 15 bucks.
Nothing is more soul crushing than going out to buy something (a jumper, a swing, a walker) that costs fifty bucks only to come home, put it together, go back out to get batteries for it, then get pissed because they fell asleep before they could reward your efforts by playing with it and finally after they wake up...they play with it for two or three minutes and get bored or they play with it in a way that wasn't intended (like pushing the swing while sitting in front of it). Worst yet is when they get bored with the toy and go play with something free like an empty water bottle.