“You’ll Miss These Days” : Remembering the Joy, Delight, & Drudgery of Parenting Little Kids

 

Last week, as the sun began to start warming up early April Wisconsin, I was walking with Lily (11 months) and Jackson (3 1/2) when two older women passed and called out, “We’re jealous of you. We miss that stage!”

 

 

I laughed and thanked them. But inside I thought, “Well, you wouldn’t have been jealous of me this morning at 4 am when I was up for the fourth time with a teething baby.”

 

 

And yet, the next instant, I thought of this particular moment: my baby sleeping in the carrier, my son quietly riding in the stroller on a sunny spring day, the first daffodils opening, and thought, “I’m kind of jealous of me. This is a great moment.”

 

 

Seriously, though, it had been kind of a day filled with a handful of unusual annoyances. We were all sick with colds that we brought back from our North Carolina Spring break road trip. I had spent the whole walk looking for a sad little mitten that I had lost the day before, and somehow in the middle of finding that mitten, I lost one of my new very warm mittens and winter fleece headband. It just seemed like a metaphor for not having my life together. Or how one day it’s 70 and sunny here, and the next day we’re getting 3 inches of snow on Palm Sunday. Is it glorious spring or eternal winter?

 

 

That day, I was also trying in vain to move the whole day up so that nap time would start earlier, so that bedtime could start earlier, so that Evan and I could both get more sleep (and ideally the kids as well), and I was not making any progress on that. As a matter of fact, about two minutes before the ladies talked to me, Lily had just fallen asleep for her first morning nap at 10:30, which was going to make her second nap late, which was going to make her bedtime late, which was going to mean I was never ever going to get any sleep.

 

 

This particular morning was so exasperating that that afternoon I called my husband Evan at work (he’s a teacher and normally we just text because he’s nearly always in class) and cried while relating the stories of the lost mittens and the naps and the general small tragedies of my morning.  And I hiccuped as I wrapped up, “…and these ladies said they were jealous of me!”

 

 

Evan, laughing partially in relief that I was calling him about a lost mitten and not something that actually merited a crying phone call, and partially because having a baby and toddler means that people (often strangers) are constantly admonishing us that these are the very best days of our lives.

 

 

I try, as a rule, to not let things strangers say to me bother me too much, since I cannot control what they say. ( “You’ve got your hands full!” is another popular refrain strangers like to offer up to me.) But I do try and make sense of why so many people love to remind us of the fleeting and wonderful nature of caring for tiny children.

 

 

Because sometimes I think it can come across as a bit panic inducing: this is the best time of your life so don’t mess it up and cherish every moment! Every single second! Or kind of a forecast of doom: the rest of your parenting life, or maybe even your whole life, isn’t going to be as good as right now, and you’re going to miss this so much. Neither of which seems particularly encouraging, which I think, many of these strangers at the grocery store or out and about mean it to be.

 

 

A few days ago, I just finished reading the book All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior. The last chapter of this book addresses this phenomenon. Evan had suggested that we read this together (i.e. listen on audiobook), I love a good self-help book almost as much as I love a good parenting book, and Evan dislikes both a great deal. So when he said that he wanted to read this one, I was like: Yes! I don’t know what it’s about, but I’m in.

 

 

What it is about is modern parenting, and what parenting does to parents. The book looks at the loss of autonomy (and sleep) and the change in relationships (especially marriage and division of domestic labor), as well as the challenging nature of older kids (so. many. activities! & the angst of teenager parents). And in the end Senior says that many social scientists have found this: when you survey parents in the moment, in the day-to-day caring for small children, they report it being full of many difficult challenges.

 

 

But when you survey them afterward, reflecting back on parenting, they remember it as one of the best and most meaningful parts of their lives, and on the whole positively. She offers up a few suggestions as to why this is, the way scientists understand memory to work (your remembering-self verses your current-self), the difference in considering your day versus your whole life in terms of meaning and value.

 

 

What it helped me realize is that when people give me these nostalgic exhortations, they are having a sweet moment of remembering their own kids, and it actually has very little to do with me. (This may be a broader principle in general for unsolicited advice from strangers.) And that someday I am going to look back on these toddler years with a fondness that is not at all representational of the day to day life with my kids because I will remember the highlights—the metaphorical and literal pictures of special days and sweet moments.

 

 

My take away is this: savor the sweet moments. Savor them without feeling panicked that they are ephemeral and fleeting. Savor them without feeling pressure to make every single moment amazing. Savor them because they are good, because your children are the ages that they are, and they are a gift.

 

 

Savor them like a piece of chocolate. You can’t eat just chocolate (You can’t just have fun with your kids: sometimes bedtime means a bedtime tantrum, and sometimes it’s Lent and you aren’t chocolate at all) and trying to eat a week’s worth of chocolate in one sitting is rarely a good idea (You can’t force all the funny or sweet or meaningful things a toddler might say into one sitting, especially when you’re trying to film it to send a video to grandma).

 

 

As my wise mother-in-law likes to say: Delight in Every Stage. Every day they are your kids, and there is something sweet about that day (some days it’s the sweetness of them being asleep after being awful, but most days there are little pockets of harmony and kindness).

 

 

Even though my children are so young, I can feel that this is true. I look back on the newborn days fondly. The memory of sleep deprivation is softened by time, and the difficulty of early breastfeeding overshadowed by the years of easy nursing. But when I talk to dear friends who are in those first days, I can hear in their voices how hard sleeping and nursing are. Because those first days can be so incredibly hard.

 

 

And for a couple of my sweet friends the feelings of bonding and love are slow to come. And then there is a burden of shame piled on the challenges of caring for a colicky newborn. And I like to remind them that they are doing all the work of love, their baby is wrapped up in all their love, even if they don’t feel it.
It seems to me, that is a greater love. And that slowly things will get better. (Perhaps with just time passing; perhaps with reaching out for some support and help.)

 

 

In the meantime, focus on the little sweet islands of the day between swimming in turbulent seas: rubbing chamomile and rose lotion into a clean bottom, dancing with the weight of a slumbering newborn on your shoulder, or marveling at eyelashes and perfect little fingers.

 

 

Those moments will grow bigger as the baby grows, and it will get easier. But not easy. Parenting babies and toddlers (and might I guess parenting in general) is never easy. It always involves swimming through stormy seas. One of my favorite quotes from the book is “Parenting is a high cost, high rewards activity.”  Or as I’d put it, for every glorious spring morning walking with a sleeping baby on your chest and a quiet toddler in the stroller, there was a night of getting up 4 times, some lost mittens, and some burrs on your hat.

 

 

But you’ll look back and remember, for the most part, just the islands.

 

 

It’s a mysterious thing how memory works: turning the most difficult time into a blurry watercolor thing tinged with nostalgia, glossing over all the difficulties. In the end, as Jennifer Senior says, it is less that we care for our children because we love them, and more that we love them because we care for them. That all the thankless work—the nights with little sleep, and toddler tantrums—they allow us to be there for the sweet moments.

 

 

Do you find strangers telling you to savor the little kids years? Or do have the impulse to give that advice yourself to parents you see out and about?