These 10 Things I Love About Parenting (And Didn’t Expect Them)

Posted September 22, 2021

I spend a lot of time complaining about my motherhood, its constraints, its obligations, the sometimes heavy responsibilities that it forces me to have, the not always easy decisions that I have to make for a human being other than myself.

If I had to make a quote, a sort of daily “advantages” and “disadvantages” ratio of having a child (and soon a second), I would say it is 50-50.

And again, it depends a lot on the periods, on the age of the child, on my state of fatigue, on the patience I can have after a day of work, on the difficulty of the child himself, etc. True, sometimes the ratio can be more like 40-60, or even widen further.

I may love my daughter, I may have chosen my role as a mother, but I remain a human (really?) With limitations, emotions, easily irritable nerves and a relatively high (or rather reasonable actually) sleep need, it’s just that I like it. sleep more than three hours a night).

If I have decided to share with you my (non-exhaustive) list of little details that make me, despite everything, adore parenting, it’s because it can help you too.

When you feel at the bottom of the hole, when you want to take the baby back to the maternity ward with a return voucher, or give up everything to go and raise goats in Larzac (there is no personal attack, eh, I love Larzac), when you close yourself in the bathroom crying because your son is driving you crazy, I hope this list can help you rebalance your relationship a little, even if it may, at the moment, seem all messed up.

These little details of parenting that I love

I particularly like:

1. When the alarm goes off on school morning, and my daughter comes and slips into our bed with her stuffed animal to wake up sweetly feeling the warm baby
2. When she tells me her gossip from the playground, and we can spend fifteen minutes trying to solve the case of the day, which is why there were pearls in the toilet when jewelry is banned at school (but whose were these pearls then? broke the jewel? So far the mystery is intact)
3. I love going to meetings organized by her mistress, which really make me feel like I’ve passed a milestone in adulthood
4. I like to explain the importance of bees when we meet them during a walk in the woods, and see her indignant when she sees the anti-covid masks thrown on the ground.
5. I love when we’re all happy to watch the Sunday cartoon the three of us curled up on the sofa with the curtains drawn, showing him all our favorite Disney
6. I love Christmas even more as she is in our life
7. I love it when he spontaneously draws a heart on my wrist, when he guesses I’m going to have a hard day at work
8. I like it when she thinks I have all the answers to all her questions, and her amazement when I tell her I don’t know and we’ll find it together
9. I love it when it’s in my arms running when it hurts or is scared
10. I like it when I notice his personality and character that assert themselves as he grows up, and that he looks less and less like me.

And you, what are the little details that make you want to bring your baby back to the after-sales service in days of crisis?

Photo credit image of one: Flora Westbrook / Pexels