Parenting is Hard. Should we hide that from our kids?

 Good morning world,

Today my thoughts and feelings are bubbling up in that very specific way - where all I know how to do is write about it. So here we are. 

This morning I woke up a bit early with grief swirling around my heart. It was 6am. I turned on my bedside light and took out my journal and started to word vomit. Mostly feelings about my ex, about my broken heart, about how love doesn't last and wondering "did it all really happen? and does anything matter?" Stuff like that. 

About a page in to my ramble, my blurry eyed 8-year-old stumbled into the room to crawl into bed with me. He snuggled up to my side wanting to cuddle. After finishing a particularly morbid sentence, I put my journal down and curved into him, holding his little body, kissing my favorite dot on his forehead. 

We started to talk a little bit. About age and aging, how someday he will be 43 just like me. His eyes widened, wow. I asked, "What do you think you might want to do when you are my age?" 

He wants to create video games - the illustrations and the sound effects - hopefully with his two best friends, Bro Studios, they call themselves. God, I love my kid. 

Then I asked, "Do you think you might want to have kids someday?" 

"No, I'm not really sure I want to have kids, because you make it look really hard." 

GUT PUNCH. Ooof. I had to stop myself from starting to cry right then and there. 

"I know it may look hard, honey, but loving you is the easiest thing in the world. You are so easy to love. And everything worth doing in this world is hard. Even making video games is hard, but if you love it, it's worth it." 

He hugged me and smiled. "I love you Mama. My beautiful Mama." 

"I love you too, baby."

We thankfully moved on pretty quickly to toasting bagels, drawing Kirby characters, packing lunches, etc. My little sticky note in their lunchbox today said "Happy Friday, love Mama" with a little drawing of fries with smiley faces on them. 

It was a desperate attempt. 

Inside my head as I'm driving to school, I'm being berated. You've failed. You are a failure of a mom. You haven't fooled them one bit! They know. They know how hard this is for you. And they are internalizing it and they are feeling as if they are hard to care for. That they are a burden. The jig is up, they now how much you are struggling. It's going to ruin their lives. You've done it. You've ruined them. 

I managed to sing song my way to the drop off line, give them big kisses, shout out "I love you, have a great day! Be a careful walker!" 

And as I pulled out of the parking lot, the tears streamed down my face. 

You have no idea how hard it really is, kid. 

I texted my best friend, also a parent, "When your kid tells you they don't want kids because you make it look really hard." 

Text back: ROFL, laugh and move on. Kids are dicks. Don't take it personally. Also it IS hard! Tell him not to have kids anyway because the planet is dying!!! *emoji emoji emoji*"

Thank God for friends. Soldiers in arms. This feels like the fucking trenches somedays.

Kids ARE dicks. And we are supposed to love them unconditionally, no matter what shitty thing they do or say. And we do! And it's hard! 

It's hard to make the 700th peanut butter and jelly sandwich and today they "Just don't like peanut butter anymore." 

It's hard to care about comic book fixations and listen to shitty cartoon shows on the television and not look at your phone constantly for intellectual stimulation and make small talk with the parents at pick up. 

It's hard to show up day in and day out and smile and play some sort of pretend restaurant game with your 5 year old daughter when you know the President of the United States is denying that her other mother is even a human and restricting her right to have a passport. 

It's hard to console your child when she says she misses the woman who broke your heart because, "She was the only one who made me happy." 

How do you juggle the existential dread of parenting in this political and climate crisis and make it look fucking easy? How can you protect your kids from the actual hell that the world has to offer - fostering big dreams and love and happiness in them - when you are afraid of the world they will inherit?

What is the special sauce? How do you juggle all these plates and make it look...fun?

How do you go through a heartbreak? How do you lose your partner? How do you grieve the death of your father and still pretend to care about Bluey or pushing your kid on the swings? How do you entertain them while the world is burning and your heart is breaking?

And is it wrong for them to see you struggle? 

It's sort of the like the Santa Claus issue. Do we want them to believe in a magical fat old man who brings them whatever they want, no matter how they behave? Or do we want them to know that their parents work really really hard for everything that they have, and spent money on each gift and wrapped them, and spent hours creating the 15 minutes of magic on Christmas morning? 

Do we want them believing that life is easy? Or do we want them to understand complexity, pain, paradox, struggles? 

Maybe part of what is happening here with my son is that he is growing up. When you are 8 years old, you are starting to understand something important about life. It's not all puppy dogs and unicorns. It's a mixed bag. And you are trying to understand what gives you joy, and what is going to make life worth living for you. My son is doing that beautifully. He has passions and friends and a vision for his career and a vision for the world he wants to create. He already understands some very fundamental things about himself. I am really proud of that. I know I had a small part to play in that.  

When I was 8 years old, my parents got divorced. It was the same year I found out Santa wasn't real, the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, etc. Once one domino fell, they all did. I was a pretty smart kid. I understood that if love doesn't last, and mom and dad aren't perfect, and Santa isn't real, then maybe this God thing is a crock of shit as well. I went dark very quickly! My heart was broken.

But then I spent the rest of my life seeking my own understanding of God and magic and love and art. Not the prescribed version that my parents had believed in and fed me, but my own. It has been a difficult and beautiful journey of self discovery, liberation and deep deep spirituality. It has been hard. And wonderful. 

Ultimately, we cannot protect our children from the realities of life. And as parents, we will watch their innocence and bright eyed wonder fade right before our eyes. We will watch them get hurt and try to attach meaning to that pain. We will watch them create beliefs about themselves and life. We will watch them make horrible decisions and experience huge triumphs. 

And it will be hard. 

But it will also be so worth it. 

Life is a mixed bag, but I wouldn't take back a single mistake I've made. I regret nothing. Je ne regrette rien. 

And I hope my kids can live bravely and fail biggly, just as I have. 

And I hope they know that they have my love and support all along the way. That is the only thing I can do right. 

Teach them that hard things will happen, and we get through it and we survive and we learn. And we find our pockets of joy and love along the way. 

Maybe the trick is not to fool them into believing that life is easy. Maybe the trick is to show them how to survive the inevitability that life is hard. And we can do it.