To hate sentimentality about the early years going fast?

[higlandcoo]

Everyone has a different perspective but for me they didn’t go fast at all. The year I had a three year old and a one year old was awful. I worked part time and absolutely dreaded my days ‘off.’

I hate being told I’ll miss it one day. No, I won’t. Life is already infinitely calmer and easier, although we’re not out of the woods yet.

I often feel like I’m the only one!

He went between 7-27. HTH.

Miaow

I voted YANBU because I remember very well how hard things were then.
And yes it felt like things got easier and easier as they get older.

Now I have two dcs who are young adults and I’d probably be more likely to say ‘those years go away quickly. Cherish them’ 😁😁
I think when you’re in the middle of the storm and struggling, it’s very easy to miss the good parts. The cuddles, the laughter, being silly etc…. So yes, maybe it’s worth being reminded of that.
fwiw I think that’s why being a grand parent can be so great. You can get all the nice bits, the cuddles, the laughs wo the strain kf everyday life. Therefore actually enjoying those moments, when you probably didn’t with your own dcs!

The days go slowly but, when they reach 18 and are leaving home for university with their worldly possessions packed into the back of the car and you can still remember the day they were born like it was both yesterday and a distant memory, the intervening years also both feel like they lasted a lifetime and passed in the blink of an eye.

But you can never know that until you are doing that last look around their room before you drive them 200 miles away to begin the next stage of their life.

I don't get all the tears and sadness about childen leaving home for university and I'm not a hugely sentimental person but, when you're still mired in the difficult early years, you can't possibly comment on the sentiments of those on the other side because you haven't been there yet!

It sounds like what's pissing you off is the fact that you've had a really hard time and people around you aren't acknowledging that. When they say 'you'll miss it' you're hearing 'it's not as bad as you think it is.' It is as bad as you think it is. It is bloody awful. And you may still miss it. Which makes no sense, I know.

Are you managing to get some time for yourself at the moment?

Oooh completely agree @AgDulAmach

i’d like to time travel back to the selected highlights of the early years - there weren’t as many as facebook made out.

It did sound really catty and that wasn’t the intention - it was meant a lot more flippantly than it came over. So my apologies for that. I didn’t mean to be horrible it wasn’t the intent behind it, I swear!

I do think I’m possibly a bit more literal than I think because I just see it as … well, children do grow!

I think I found it exceptionally hard for a variety of reasons; COVID, no support around me, feeling inadequate and as if everyone else was going a better job! I find my second born a lot easier but I don’t think she is, I think I’m just more chilled and calmer and kinder to us both. But I do still find the two of them together tricky, although it is getting better. That period of having a one year old and three year old was horrible. I remember crying to a friend that I felt as though I was drowning and was managing to get enough air to survive but that was literally all I was doing. For nearly three years now I’ve been pregnant with a toddler, newborn and toddler and two toddlers/preschoolers. Now I just have one toddler for most of the day and it’s positively blissful in comparison!

I work with early years children and so I definitely have the reality dose daily, my own four range between 27yo -16yo now. I am nostalgic for parts of their childhood but I’m looking forward to be over the hands on parenting stage. I’m enjoying parenting adult children and how our relationship has changed.

There is an element of that but I think it’s the refusal by some to see that we’re different and have different experiences. I can’t think of any other instance where it’s insisted you’ll enjoy / miss something. Perhaps there are but mostly people seem OK with acknowledging some people loved university whereas others didn’t; likewise school and even periods of your life like your teens / twenties. But admit that you wouldn’t go back to toddlerhood and people insist you will - it’s strange.

It does feel endless when you’re in it, and at the time I hated the pre-school years, yet now (with them squarely on the rear view mirror) I do look back at them with great fondness. I guess you remember the fun and cute bits, but erase the mundane and sloggy bits.
My guess is that your current irritation with the sentimental musings of others will dissipate as you move into that timeframe yourself. You aren’t there yet.

I’ll never ever be one of those people to tell someone with small children to “enjoy it while you can!” As I remember how irritating it was.

but now mine are moody hormonal teens… I totally get it.

Not to sound patronising but how cam you realky know when you've been a mother for less than 5 years? I've been a mother for 20 years and my perspective has changed a lot over the years.

For me, one of my DC caused me the hardest time, when they were 15. I am very sentimental about the younger years as we were so happy then, I don't think you should assume that the worst part is over!

See how you feel in 15 years time.

I do wonder if our own age plays a part, I was early 20's when DC were young, I may have felt differently had I had DC at my current age.

Particularly when several of us are on the other side and have said we aren’t sentimental about it. Nothing wrong with people who are sentimental about the baby years but irritating to insist that you will definitely miss it as everyone does, when clearly not everyone does.

How can you know you wouldn’t enjoy a particular activity if you’ve never done it?

I am allowed an opinion, irrespective of how long ago a baby exited my body!

But it is strange how it’s always the toddler period isn’t it?

So for instance, my ds is nearly five as I say and for the most part he is lovely.

He goes to the toilet himself usually and can wipe his own bum. He can mostly eat his own meals without making a mess. He can play independently. If it’s a rainy day and he needs to burn off some energy we can go to soft play or a trampoline park and I can sit with a coffee and he can wreak havoc without me having to jump around to Baby Shark or climb through those tunnels.

He understands reasoning (well we don’t have time now but next week, sure.) He is interested in the world, countries and history (at a really basic level, this is not a stealth boast!) He is excited for Christmas.

If I could choose to go back to four I’m sure I would.

Two? NO!

I know what you mean OP - I had three under four and found it really hard. I don't look back on those days sentimentally, or at least I thought I didn't.

But..... just recently I've felt a real longing to hold a baby. I haven't done it for so long and I don't know anyone with babies any more.

I expect it's hormonal. Damn menopause!

That period of having a one year old and three year old was horrible.

I can imagine!

There are 7 years between mine.

I can’t think of any other instance where it’s insisted you’ll enjoy / miss something.

I think people sometimes say it because, when they do finally reach 18 and move on, it's a shock at how quickly it passed and you wonder how you got there so fast. When you got there so fast because you were entrenched in parenting for so many years and one day merged into another a lot of the time - schooldays, school holidays, laundry, cooking, housework, work, childcare... it's all just a blur and sometimes you don't have the capacity to appreciate it and some of it isn't stuff anyone would enjoy!

You wish you'd done x, y or z differently and you forget that you did the best you could at the time.

When people say it, they're expressing their own feelings rather than trying to tell you how you should feel.

It's that whole, you can't learn from other peoples experiences. But people will have said it to them and they will have felt much how you feel now. And then they got out the otherside and realise they also feel that way after all.

It did sound really catty and that wasn’t the intention - it was meant a lot more flippantly than it came over. So my apologies for that. I didn’t mean to be horrible it wasn’t the intent behind it, I swear!

Thanks, @higlandcoo , I appreciate that.

I think with teen and adult children the hours are easier but the problems are harder because you can't solve them or outlast them. This can make you nostalgic from time to time about the days when a cuddle, feed and nappy change could solve 90% of issues. Or when a kiss on a scraped knee and some time with Lego or a Pixar film made it better.

Once you've got out of the physically exhausting stage the mental work levels up. Thank the gods, because both at once would have done anyone in!

Bullying, SEN diagnosis, the hellscape that is high school, hormones, fights, depression, homophobic bullying, suicidal ideation, redundancy as a result, steering them away from seeking refuge in drink or drugs, advocating for them... being dog tired and sleep deprived looks easy in comparison even though I know damned well it wasn't.

If there were time travel I wish everyone could access a day in the past and one in the future, once in a while. My exhausted mother of 3 under 5 self would relish a day to herself, and my current parent of adults would like a day of physical parenting.

So, I loved the baby/toddler years and DS was spectacularly easy and adorable at that age (not now!)

I STILL find all those mawkish “if only you had just one more day with their little hand in yours” posts!! They make me want to vomit. Basically shaming mothers for not being grateful enough about being woken up five times a night every night for three years.

Everyone’s different and you’re entitled to your feelings about your own life. I don’t feel the same way as you but nobody can tell you you’re wrong so I voted YANBU

Toddler upwards was fun (yes, even the teenage years...I guess I was lucky there), but newborn to toddler....nope don't miss that at all.

I don’t know.. it felt slow at the time but my eldest is nearly 14 and it really does feel like I blinked and now there’s this big tall almost-man. Puberty does hit like a ton of bricks though- he just suddenly shot up, voice broke etc.

Often I really do miss the little, cuddly boy he used to be and I miss the good parts like bedtime stories, the extra excitement of Christmas, little trips out and how the world was full of magic and wonder for him. My youngest is a few years younger and just about still cute but quickly growing up.

But there is so much I love about this stage compared to when they were a toddler and baby- no pushchairs, high chairs, nappies, days out and holidays being a military operation. My youngest has additional needs and the toddler years were hellish with meltdowns and tantrums. I feel so much more free now and love being out as a family. But then I’m probably going to miss this stage as they get even older.

I remember nearly crying when I was with DS1 when he was 9 months old and not sleeping for longer than 45 minutes at a stretch (ASD it turns out) and had been doing this for five months and someone said ‘this will be the best bit of parenting’. Luckily another lady saw my face and told me firmly that this hadn’t been true for her. He is nearly 13 and I cannot imagine anything I want less than to have him as a baby again. Sure, it was easier not to watch him struggle socially but dear god, we were being subjected to something that’s banned as torture by the Geneva Convention.

We can’t solve all their problems and all we can do is hope their lives will be as straightforward and as happy as possible. But ultimately a lot will happen that we’ve got no control over.

I think a lot of it stems from the fact we hanker after the times we maintained a semblance of control, lol. Once they start arguing back with proper thought our reasoning, it goes downhill lol