Parenting Kind of Sucks, TBH

There is no universe in which I wish I'd made a different choice than to have Zoe << FULL STOP>> ...but I do not love parenting.

She is an amazing, brilliant, clever, kind person who absolutely needs and deserves to be here, but I do not come easily to parenting.

I am grateful every day that Zoe chose me to be her mom, and am blessed by her existence, but I often resent the requirements of parenting.

To me, parenting is exhausting, boring, stressful, and frankly mostly sucks. (AND I ONLY HAVE ONE CHILD. I literally do not understand why anyone would want to have more than one.)

I don't really even like kids. I don't want to play pretend. I don't want to go to the park and stand in the sun and push a child on the swings. I don't want to go to kids soccer games and plan birthday parties. I don't want to listen to whining voices or crying babies.

The weirdest part about parenting is that all of this is true. I absolutely do not enjoy parenting.

And/but I also love this child more than I could possibly imagine loving anyone. She is hilarious and sensitive and deep and creative and delightful. I would do anything for her.

In fact, I do basically everything for her, mostly stuff that I don't want to do.

Every day I wake up and take care of her, when all I actually want is to sleep in and drink my coffee in bed while I read or write quietly for as long as I want to. It is hard not to feel resentful that I can't do that without booking a hotel or leaving town.

You wonder why I go out of town or on staycations so often? It's literally the only way I am surviving this life. It's been 6 years since I was free. that is how it feels, anyway. I'm just being honest.

But the love, man. The love. It's wild. It's overwhelming. It's the one thing that makes it make any kind of sense.

The love makes me able to forgive every smartass comment my precocious child makes and every time I have to say "put your shoes on" ten times. Every time she wakes me up in the night from the sleep that is so hard for me to find or breaks or destroys something of mine.

When she climbs on my lap and presses her face to mine or makes me a card that says "I love you mommy" my heart swells with an almost painful amount of love.

When she is sick, I can't relax because I just want to take any discomfort away. She is, as they say, my heart walking around outside of my body. I didn't get it when people said that before but I get it now.

I am eternally grateful my co-parent is not ambivalent about parenting. He is not resentful. That is the main ingredient that makes this whole thing work. If he wasn't so present, if (for example) he wasn't RIGHT THIS MINUTE doing bath time, I would be losing my shit every other hour.

I will say I am a much better person for having had this child. I am softer, and kinder, and more patient. I am infinitely less selfish, although I am still very selfish. I still very deeply desire to do what I want when I want.

This is probably always going to be really hard for me. (UPDATE FROM 2026: CAN CONFIRM)

But I think part of the process is giving myself permission to feel the whole range of the feelings.

If you're a parent having any of these feelings, I empathize deeply. If you're a parent and you just love every second of it, well, good for you. We are made different and you're not my target audience LOL.

I guess my point is just to say: parenting is hard, summer break is bullshit, and I'm really glad school is starting soon. The end.

ETA: Well I wrote this four years ago when she was almost 6 and every word is still true only now she's almost 10 and is funnier, smarter, smart-mouthier, and even more herself. In some ways easier, in many ways harder. Also now I'm a basketball parent which is cool...but she doesn't do freestyle raps anymore which is sad. She does read with me now which I LOVE but she also thinks she knows everything which I do not love. Her current special interest is professional WWE wrestling (LOL).

Photo by Raquita Henderson, Pinxit Photos, 2017