Parenting opens up a lot of unexpected avenues in life to which one did not even know one could even go, and most of which are as unpleasant as much as bewildering.
But soon parents find that these things are realities they have no choice but to endure.
One father candidly listed the 26 no bullsh*t realities every parent faces at one point or the other at Scary Mommy.
Clint Edward has been a father for almost nine years, and going into parenting he has been told that it would be rewarding.
“They told me about snuggles, and they told me about challenges,” he said. “Some parents told me about long nights, but most of them really didn’t go into too much detail.”
What they failed to mention, however, was the inherently odd and curious departments of parenting, “the way they can do surprisingly strange things that would make me question their sanity and my own.”
How many of these can you relate to?
1. Putting children to bed two hours late means getting up two hours earlier the next day
2. 90% of parenting is arguing over pants, basic hygiene, and how toast is cut
3. The fact that shoes come in pairs means that God hates parents
4. In the hands of a toddler, one granola bar can destroy the inside of a minivan
5. Modern parenting means keeping children away from smartphones
6. Parenting is more about poop than peekaboo
7. Wet wipes. So many wet wipes
8. Parenting makes you qualified to manage a nudist colony
9. 75% of parenting is screaming at children because they are screaming
10. Poop doesn’t easily go down a tub drain
11. Things will be sticky, so don’t ask. Just assume it will be sticky. Sticky is the parenting default
12. 20 minutes of arguing will get a child to brush their teeth for two minutes
13. Forcing a child to eat one bite of a burrito will ruin their whole life
14. No one will ever be more interested in watching you use the restroom than your children
15. One of the proudest moments in parenting is when a child can get up on a Saturday morning, turn on the TV, and get themselves a bowl of cereal
16. Kids love to talk about how independent they are until you ask them to pay the water bill
17. The best way to get a child’s attention is to start watching a YouTube video, get on the phone, or use the restroom
18. Parents can drive on the freeway with a screaming toddler. That’s legal for some reason
19. Puking in the toilet and wiping their own butt—these are the real parenting milestones
20. Somewhere between having children and buying a minivan, parents begin to wash and reuse cottage cheese containers
21. Regardless of how pissed off a parent is at their child, they will still want to snuggle
22. Helping a child with homework is a mix of boredom and rage interspersed with short moments of satisfaction
23. Fact! A college degree means nothing once you have a 9-year-old
24. Bedtime takes at least two hours and one Valium
25. Approaching a child with a comb is a lot like approaching someone with a chainsaw
26. A child can look cute even at 4 a.m. after they’ve been up for three hours. This is how they survive
READ: 7 Challenges that make parenting very difficult
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