We Are Raising Little People

Being a parent is bloody hard isn’t it.

I feel like as a parent we are always expecting it to get better, and easier…

We will get more sleep.

They will start listening to what we say.

But we are raising little people. People who don’t yet understand the world. Who don’t know what is or isn’t acceptable to do or say in public. To whom those things that are little to us can be really big things to them, and it affects them even though we don’t expect it to.

And of course it’s our job to teach them these things. To help them learn right from wrong, teach them to be polite and use their manners.

I hear all the time, people saying – ‘I thought it would be easier by now’, ‘I thought he would be better once he turned three’. But the reality is we are raising little people – that’s a pretty big job and it’s always going to hard in some way.

Yes, sometimes things get easier – once their teeth are all through they may sleep better, and once they can speak they may cry less because they aren’t so frustrated. Things change and improve, and other challenges appear.

I think it’s just been making me think about the fact that it seems like we are fed this idea that our children will suddenly become easy to look after one day – at a certain age, when they can do a certain thing.

But I’m not sure it does.

My daughter turned four and she did get a lot easier for a while. We had loads of fun together and she was really lovely to spend time with, and it was generally a lot easier to go out with her. But then she started school and went from playing at nursery for three days a week, to five full days of school learning new things every day and having brand new experiences. She’s tired all the time and a nightmare every day when I pick her up, as soon as we have said goodbye to her friends.

It would be nice if we could just accept that being a parent is bloody hard; it always will be, and there isn’t a cut off for when it becomes easy. Things change, the hard bits change, but being responsible for a little person probably isn’t ever going to be easy.

I feel like we need to stop waiting for that magic ‘easier’ age, so we can appreciate things and them right now, without waiting for that time. It would be nice to just embrace that, and enjoy all of the good bits with our children, and accept the tough bits and deal with them the best way we can. We chose to be parents, we knew it would be hard – so lets accept that it’s always going to be and stop wishing time away.

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