It’s quiet (other than the occasional crumb crackle). It’s calming. It’s rejuvenating. And it is needed for marital stability. It’s worth paying the price of giving up a night’s sleep entirely now, so they don’t end up paying the high cost of divorce fees by the time the kids graduate from high school. They’ve already got college to pay for, don’t forget.
6. Stuff gets physical.
Don’t get me started on what pregnancy does to your body — I’m solely talking about parenting here. There is a constant worry about torn corneas. Little hands start flailing from Day 1 and continue indefinitely. For the first few years, parents are constantly carrying their kids around, lifting a 35-pound toddler on one hip, and a 20-pound toddler on the other. These aren’t like bags of flour here, they’re writhing, wrenching, bucking broncos. Parents on the living room floor trying to get a push-up in during a Caillou episode are subject to little monsters in superhero capes jumping off the couch and onto their backs. There is little to no chance of getting through parenting without tearing a cornea or herniating a disc.
7. All the mother-loving cleaning.
The other day I was running late for work and when I went to grab the infant from her crib I realized she had puked on herself in the middle of the night. Her hair stood up straight and smelled like sick. I tossed her in the tub and gave her a quick bath, before throwing some clothes on her and tossing her in the car. (There’s another example of physical exertion — lots of child-tossing going on). The amount of frenetic cleaning of bodies and houses that parents end up doing is mind-boggling.
Of course, everyone needs to clean their house, but parents need to clean their house SO MUCH. Bending over, putting away, bending over, tidying up, putting away. Wiping. Wiping. Wiping. Picking up toys. Toys. Toys. Spooling reams of unrolled toilet paper. Dishes. Dishes. Dirty laundry. Bodily fluid-soaked laundry. Replacing grown-out-of laundry. Toys. Toys. Tiny pieces. Puke. Toys. Toys. Toys. Never-effing-ending bowls and bowls of Cheerios. As kids get bigger, so does their stuff. Teenagers have more surface area than toddlers, which means more dust, more circles around the tub. More bodily stench. And definitely more clothes on the floor.
8. Worries wear out their bodies.
There are many mornings when new wrinkles and gray hairs suddenly pop up. Deep grooves. Thick, wiry hairs. I pretty much stopped getting carded the week after I became a mom. My daughter emerged from my body and I immediately developed a web of creases beneath my eyes, not just from the exhaustion but also from the worry. Anxieties tax the body, and parents have a never-ending stream of them running through their heads. Sudden infant death syndrome. Falling down the stairs. Ingesting cleaning products. Bumping heads on the corners of coffee tables. Witnessing the ALMOST bumping of heads on the corners of coffee tables. Thoughts of their kids being bullied, being out late at night, hanging out with the wrong crowd, marrying the right person… Our poor little cells explode from all the stress.
Parents are so tired they sometimes lie on the floor. Face smooshed right in the carpet. Now you know why.
P.S. Even when they’re on the floor, they’re still happy. They’re just too tired to smile.
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This article in all it’s hilarity originally appeared at Christine’s blog, A Morning Grouch. Which you should totally go visit!
