
I feel seen. By the amazing Grace Farris.
P.S. Mom voices and taking kids hiking.
Heather! I love this story. Hahahahahahahaha.
For anyone in the desert….please add, “look Mom, we found a scorpion!!!” Gulp.
Unpopular opinion, but man, so much complaining from folks who have kids! I know, this is “playful” or “satire,” but at its heart, it is a gripe about how hiking is a lot harder with kids. If you aren’t prepared for everything you do to be harder as a result of the kids, you were kidding yourself when you had them. Please do us all a favor and stop whinging about a decision you made.
As a parent, I see it as an attempt to connect with other parents, and validate the feeling of “this is really hard, right?” I always remark to my husband, after spending time with other parents, that I feel so much better about the whole chaos of parenting. It’s nice to feel like you’re not alone, that your kids aren’t the only ones who drive you crazy; we’re going through it together and need to be able to laugh about it!
I echo what Barbara said. Two things can be true: wanting to have children and acknowledging that things are harder with them. I hope you feel that you are able to complain about decisions you made from time to time!
Corinda I get what you’re saying I do, but: While I having kids as is a decision on PERSONAL level, it is not a decision on a SOCIETAL level. Like, legit, someone has to do it, unless you, Corinda, want to be the youngest person left on earth and grow old and retire have no younger people around to drive your bus or Uber, grow or serve your food or be your doctor or caregiver. People who decide not to have children are entirely justified in their decision, but YES, your life is logistically and financially easier because someone else is doing the heavy lifting of keeping the human race going and society functioning. These people are allowed to lighthearrtedly complain from time to time.
Remember: You were once a child. Every adult ones. Until we start cloning full-blown adults, calling having children a choice is just… Well, it’s just dumb. Sorry, I said what I said.
*So many typos in my response: sorry! But you get the gist I hope. Somebody has to have children in this world and if you personally don’t want to, all you need to do is show a wee bit of gratitude that other people on this earth are doing the hard work that you don’t want to. That’s all.
To Embed, that’s…one way of looking at the world. All childfree people are selfish and parents are doing all the hard work that support all freeloading childfree people. With that attitude, gently, any wonder that there is some pushback?
What about “stopping to play for a minute” – “this is our house and we’re all dinosaurs…”
If it were up to my child every ten minutes we’d stop to play for half an hour. It’s agonizingly slow. Continuing to hike while playing or trying to work hiking into the game is…not ideal. There was that one time we were a dinosaur family being chased, which resulted in him trail running the entire second half of the hike. It was amazing. That one time lol.
Including the BEST advice on sibling rivalry.
13 great links, including the “dad-ification” of fashion and the best TV shows of 2022.
When my husband and I took our daughters to visit family in Puerto Rico...