Sne247

What bothers me about the internet – and why I’m not on social media anymore – is that it feels like people either present parenthood as perfectly perfect OR horrifically hard. There doesn’t seem to be anything in between. I never felt strongly about having children and neither did my husband. When I met eachother at age 30, having a family together made sense – we generally agree on life choices and felt confident that we’d be able to find a supportive, loving and healthy way to work together as parents. We now have two wonderful kids. Our life is neither perfect nor hard. Our kids are easygoing and love to travel. We both have jobs we like, and feel content and happy with the season of life we’re in. We really enjoy spending time as a family. For us, it feels like the main reason we’re feeling this way is because we are fully committed to each other and our kids, to both the extreme joy and the imperfections children bring to our life, and we don’t try to continue to have the same life we had before kids (we don’t really long for it anymore either, which makes me feel like we were ready to have kids). I’m not sure if this helps. But I wanted to share it. Have you considered talking with a couples therapist about this?

Being from Europe, I have noticed that American society tends to see adult and kid lives separate, rather than something that can coexist, through increased independence of the child and less kid-specific activities (but, rather, stuff that everyone enjoys) – think: chuck-e-cheese or other hyper kid-focused horrors.

Little kids love being helpers, and I have found life with kids much easier and very enjoyable if you just take them along in what you’re doing. Open-ended toys are also a great way to support children to play independently when you need a break or want to get something done for yourself.

Perhaps being able to do more of what you enjoy (museum? hiking? music? sewing? yard work? travel? running? whatever it is) would make the extended time with your kids more enjoyable. We’ve been taking our kids everywhere (nice restaurants, museums, backpacking trips through Europe, etc.) and they’ve been helping us with everything (preparing dinner, unloading dishwasher, meal planning, doing groceries, gardening, cleaning, etc.) since they were tiny, and while they don’t always feel like it, we have an understanding that we do things together that each of us enjoys and/or has to get done. We definitely adjust expectations when kids tag along, but at least we can still do things we love doing or what needs to get done.

Montessori does a good job encouraging the principles of autonomy and independence. There are many resources available on this, but I’ve found Simone Davies’ books very helpful. Hunt, Gather, Parent is also a great book that also dives a little deeper into this subject matter.