Veteran Mom Gives Us The Reminder We Need About "Loving Every Minute"
The days are long but the years are short... but no, really, the days are really long...
It’s one of the most dreaded refrain new parents hear. “Love every minute of it!” “You’re going to miss all of this!” “You’re going to wish they were this little again! Just wait until they’re [whatever age], you’re going to be longing for these days!”
Honestly, it’s not exactly something anyone wants to hear after three collective hours of sleep with a shoulder full of spit-up and a hair full of dry shampoo. That’s not to say a child’s early years are all bad: there’s a lot to enjoy! And TikTok creator Annie of PNW Doulas (@pacificnwdoulas) has a message for the parents who have been given this advice: it’s OK not to like everything.
“As a parent of 27 years, can I just say something to the young parents?” she begins. “Somebody might say to you that you’re going to miss this stage someday. That the days are long but the years are short. That you’re going to look back and just really miss this part. My oldest is 27 right now. She’s going to be a mom herself this year; I love this age that she’s at. I also loved high school, and middle school, and elementary school, and her as a baby.
“I’ve loved every stage that she was at. And? I don’t miss having a baby. I don’t miss dirty diapers, I don’t miss spit up at all, I don’t miss being woken up ... every single day: there are parts I don’t miss! I’ve enjoyed her entire life, but I don’t look back and think ‘Oh, I wish I would have enjoyed that part more! I regret not enjoying that part more.’ There are parts you don’t have to like. Dirty diapers weren’t meant to be fun. It’s OK to not like it. You’re not a bad parent if you say ‘I don’t like this part.’ It’s OK.”
Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of guilt exiting the bodies of a million parents via a long, relieved sigh.
This advice feels like common sense, right? It’s something, deep down, a lot of parents probably already know. But then, when we hear veteran parents claim “Oh no. You’re going to miss all those body fluids and crying” we think ‘Oh. Well, they’ve been there so they must know better. So I’m clearly doing something wrong if I can’t find joy in the 17th diaper of the day...”
I’ll speak up as a fairly veteran parent as well: I connect to what Annie is saying really powerfully. Every stage has come with its own particular challenges and joys and at no point have I wanted to trade one stage for another. My kids are tweens and teens and while I look back fondly on so much of their baby and toddler years, I definitely don’t think “Actually, those bedtime routines that took 90 minutes every night were really very fun. And also I didn’t realize it then but I simply adore being woken up at 5 a.m. and miss it terribly.”
I miss the little baby feet and going to the playground and the way they’d mispronounce words (I correct them every time they don’t call a popsicle a “popsipop”). I miss versions of who they were but I don’t miss everything they did as those versions of themselves. I don’t miss wiping their butts. I don’t miss watching them like a hawk just in case they put something in their mouth. I don’t miss having to follow them around everywhere so they don’t get hurt when we’re at a family gathering.
And you probably won’t either, despite what some wistful parents of older kids might tell you. And even if you will? That doesn’t mean it’s not hard as hell right now. So enjoy what there is to enjoy and don’t stress the rest.
