Things you never expected from being a parent (good and bad)

[aurynne]

Hi all,

After 33 years being child-free and never even considering having a baby, I am now living with a wonderful man that has made me, if not change my mind, indeed think about the possibility and what it would entail.

I have been lurking in MN for months now, participating sometimes in the "relationships" thread, but also reading the parenting ones. I remember several threads in which parents express their utter surprise at this or that. I would like now to ask all of you mums and dads (or the ones of you who have some time to spare to talk about your experiences) what are the things that came out as completely unexpected when you had your first child, the situations that you never counted on when you thought about maternity/paternity and that simply blew you away or utterly horrified you.

Perhaps I'm just bracing for the shock if it ever comes?

You willnot has hit it on the head. I was astonished at how dull babies were. My dd was born when I was 37 and didn't expect to ever maintain a pregnancy beyond 21 weeks. She is a gift, but bloody hell tiring is not the word.
Once she got beyond a year or so old, I really started to enjoy her. She is a bright and sociable child who is totally indulged by her dad so I am Mrs Rulemakerandenforcer. I do adore her now,she's got a brilliant sense of humour and is interested in what's going on.
You need to prepare yourself for having a lot less dispsosable income to spend on yourselves. If there's a toss up twixt something for her or something for me, she wins every time (except when it's a fag/choc question). You will find elements of your personality you never saw before. Recently my dd was being bullied, I was ready to kill both parents of the perpetrators. I was always pretty pacifist before dd.

I too was 37 before having children.
DH and I had been together for 19 years but never particularly wanted children. We sat down and decided to make a firm decision yes or no. I had never had the slightest maternal twinge, not one.
We went for a yes as we feared a lifetime of regret when it was too late. I was convinced I wouldn't conceive as I'd never had a scare in 20 years. I was pregnant within a month.I spent nine months in terror that I wouldn't love the baby. I was also disgustingly sick for nine months.
All those fears evaporated within seconds of his birth. I never in a million years expected the volume of emotion and love that having a child would bring. Two years later DS2 was born. My only regret was not doing this sooner as I would have had more.

The bad? Hard work and lack of sleep for years and years. DH and I were an old married couple and were comfortable to put ourselves and our needs very low on the list of priorities. Much harder in a new relationship I suspect?

What a lovely post inthesticks

I never expected the tiredness - I'd always either studied or worked fulltime, and been a "busy" person, so thought a baby wouldn't be that hard work. I had no idea what it was like to be chronically sleep-deprived for over 2 years.

OTOH I had no idea how strongly I could love any other creature, with a powerful protective love totally different from what I feel for DH.

I also had no idea how completely a separate person a baby would be - I had a vague idea that some parts of their personality would be genetic, but thought the majority would be nurture and therefore moulded by me. What I got was, from Day One, a small individual with his own personality - it's been steered a bit by us as parents of course, but he was and is a completely separate unique person who never existed in the world before and won't again, which is totally awesome.

Inthesticks my story is similar!

Unlike you we'd always expected to have children but had never got round to it. My DH and I had been together for 15 years.
when DS1 was born a couple of weeks before I was 37. DS2 arrived over two years later.

I so wish I had started earlier and had more. I had been very scared about being able to do the whole thing, and scared about giving up my "lifestyle". Although I was really ready to move on a good few years before hand but wasn't able to resist career and travel opportunities.

I honestly thought that things got easier after a few months. They weren't terrible but it was - and is - a constant demand on you until they are five or six. We still have some bad nights even though DS2 is nearly four. Even great sleepers are ill from time to time and have bad nights. Usually one child followed by the next interspersed with both you and your DH being ill too. I reckon I could sleep for about two years if I was given the chance!

My boys are a source of unimaginable joy and frustration. When they play together and we all have fun and they go around saying to the other (and us) "I love you" it's amazing. Sometimes they just tumble and wrestle around laughing like a pair of baby polar bears. My DH and I look on in love and we all bond together in a remarkably slushy way.

And then they fight for half an hour over who should be playing with which individual piece of lego and we all bump down to earth.

Your budgets are stretched beyond belief. Mainly because you now drink about sixteen pints of coffee a day just to keep going .

I once heard the ages six to twelve described as "the golden years". All the drudgery and lessons of babyhood behand you and you are still the centre of their wonderful little universe.
The learning curve steepens again with puberty and teens, which is where I am now.

A friend of my Dh once described having children as the best 13 years of his life inthesticks! His daughter had just turned 14!

I never imagined how tired I would be, it is a tiredness that you cannot explain only experience. And yet no matter how tired I am I can always get up to him IYSWIM.

Ds was an accident (I am 28 and had expected a few more years before kids) and I was terrified I wouldn't love him etc. It is a weird kind of feeling, sometime I feel a bit sick at how much I love him, I feel overwhelmed by it. Other times I want the world to stop so I can get off!

im another one for never thought i would be a mum...unplanned pregnancy, paniced the whole way through, thought i would just be able to continue with life as before, then when he was born i didnt want to be apart from him for a second. the previous party girl disappeared.
Ds is now 3 and is fantastic, it just gets better and better, more independant, funny and opinionated ( we can work on that one!)
random moments when something funny happens or when i left him at nursery on his first day and he told the teacher he needed to open the door as he had forgottent o say something to me and he shouted mummy i forgot to say i love you melt your heart.

the only bad part is sleepless nights followed by awake days, yet if you offered me a time machine to go back and change things i would still go through it all again and worse to have him the way he is.

DH and I had a wonderful life before the kids -

2 big holidays a year, (now we go to a caravan in France for 2 weeks in the summer)

We would meet in town after work for dinner and sometimes get horribly drunk and have such fun (now, we don't actually live in London, I don't work and he has a horrible commute to work)

I could go shopping and spend a bonkers amount of money on a new outfit (now, I'm not entirely sure what size I am or what clothes actually look good on me any more, baby 12 weeks old and would now describe my shape as 'apple' rather than my former hourglass)

We could stay in bed all day (now, fat chance, the 2 yr old wakes up at 6.30am, everyday, without exception).

Having said all of that, for some reason, I cannot fathom or usefully put into words, despite being skint most of the time due to smaller income and more people to clothe, feed and keep well, life is far better now.

I wouldn't go back to my twenties for all the tea in china. Life today is tiring, demanding, emotional and far more of my time is spent dealing with washing but it's meaningful, the best of fun and joyful. (Life, not the washing so much).

And I wouldn't swap the first few minutes of my children's lives when I got to fall in love with them for anything.

Definitely not for a shopping trip in New York. Although, I have booked this trip in my imaginary diary for sometime in the future when I can a)afford it and b) cope with being away from my babies for more than 24 hours!

P.S. My babies are asleep at the time of writing, I don't usually have this long to think about and put together an answer.

I agree with AMuminScotland about the personality thing. Before I got pregnant I wanted "a baby". I got my son who is totally his own person and it feels more like I'm getting to know him, than I'm moulding him. It's really lovely.

I also never thought I'd be a mum. Didn't meet DH until my early 30s, married him when I was 35. Started to try to conceive when I was 37 and a half. 2 years later was about to give up with that little stick said yes, Tee, you are pregnant (was a very intelligent stick ).

I had DS 4 months after my 40th birthday, after a horrid pregnancy.

He is 7 months today. It is the hardest, most exhausting, most rewarding, most special and best job I have ever had. So much so that I am negotiating with my company to change my job so I can work from home for hours I choose so I can keep him out of day care for as long as possible.

I can't remember what life was like without this little person in it. And my life is so much richer with him here.

inthesticks (and others) I too was 37 and with nary a maternal bone....the minute dd was born I remember that all-consuming lioness thing raising up inside me, which 6 yrs on, is still there.

I also expected to shave my legs more regularly as a mother, have more sex and bottle feed.......(dd stopped bf at 5)

PS the latter 3 not all at the same time. Am not one of those women who feel urge to bunjee jump when menstruating.....

I am still surprised at how I look, so so tired and old....
I am surprised daily at how rubbish and brilliant I am as a parent!!

I didn't expect the number and intensity of replies. I can't take my eyes off them! And I am surprised no one has accused me of being a "journo", as it has happened before when I've asked about opinions.

At the moment I keep thinking: I have never wanted kids, and my DP and I are so happy together. We can do whatever we want, spend (almost) as much money as we want, travel the world, have unexpected dates, improvise and extend that weekend for another day, make love in any room in the house, and even outside the house sometimes. We can wake up and stay in bed for a bit longer. We can go to bed late and make as much noise as we want without fear of waking up anyone. We can be grumpy, and make up, and know that only our own lives depend on ourselves.

Whatever you get with a child, is it better than this? Is it really? So far I have only read good things here, but I also know children have put considerable stress on relationships, and many have broken. How do you know it's worth it?

Sorry for the rant, I think I am a confused person trying to make a definite decision on this. Either I forget about kids and enjoy life, or I jump in the pool and risk everything. If things go well, as it is evidenced by your messages, my life could be much more enjoyable and richer. But if it does not go well, there's no going back...

I got pregnant unexpectedly at 21. Me and dp had been together for about 4 years and had lived together for about 3 years.

The bad

That it brought up issues from my own childhood that floored me and were difficult to deal with.

That the friends who were so interested during the pregnancy either a) didn't bother to phone once baby born or b) stopped seeing us when they realised we couldn't find a babysitter on the spur of the moment and toddlers don't just sit quietly for hours on end.

That some points of his baby/toddler hood would be the hardest things I could ever deal with (like when he wouldn't eat/when he didn't sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time).

That I would become scared of how dangerous the world was and how much there was out there that could hurt him.

The good

It has strengthened mine and dps relationship - although things were hard at times. It has brought us closer together - to share in our child.

That he would have a strong personality from day 1 and would always be the person he wanted to be aand that there was very little I could do to shape it.

That I could love another human being so much.

That he could make me laugh and smile so much and that I could just be happy to watch him sleep.

That he would develop into an interesting person that I enjoyed talking to at a young age.

That having my son around made me stronger, unleashed my primal urges and made me sort out my life (not all in one day )

Other stuff

I was surprised that I didn't become the parent that I expected to be, that my child developed problems that I thought were just down to poor parenting. But that also I became the parent who had less rules than I thought I would, who liked to have my child round me all the time and who was more affected by crying/my childs emotions than I thought I could ever be.

I always knew that I wanted children, I am the oldest of 4 so I was always around young children and I went on to work with children. I really thought I was going to be quite good at being a parent.

I am not the fantastic parent I thought i would be, I have a 5, 3 and 1 yr old and am sleep deprived beyond belief, which changes you, I am a different person and the world is a sunnier place when I have slept.

It certainly isn't terrible, and there are moments of pure joy, but they are, for me, moments in an intense sea of drudgery, washing, ironing, preparing meals, wiping bottoms and noses.

Please don't get me wrong I don't for one moment regret having children and I love them with an intensity that I didn't think was possible.

Knowing what I know now, and how little my own needs now get met, through lack of time and emotional space,
I would have spent more time meeting my own needs, and less time wishing and waiting for children to come along.

The overwhelming sense of love I felt for the tiny baby that appeared,I never understood the concept of a mother fiercely defending her young to the death on those nature programmes until I held ds

How utterly TIRING it is

That I would be thrust into the world of parenting a child with a disability with number 2

How they can be utterly infuriating one second and utterly beguiling the next

That I can forgive number 2 anything when she gives me one of her smiles.Honestly,she cannot talk and is quite intellectually disabled with all the challenges that brings, but when she smiles it lights up the
world

That I now know far more than I ever thought I would about Dr Who and the nintendo Wii courtesy of ds

Neither of mine were planned.Had first early 30 s .Do I miss my pre dc days?God yes!Long lie ins,sex whenever and wherever,holidays!!!!

would i be without them?

Occasionally,yes,mostly,never ever

Bruises. I expected exhaustion etc but I never expected to be covered in bruises caused by a hundred little knocks and bumps every day by little people who love you and (mostly) never mean to hurt you but just clamber all over you.

I also never expected to feel so guilty and inadequate, and to feel guilty for bringing my DC into the world with such a mother (in my more melodramatic moments!).

I always hoped I could be the type of person who could sacrifice myself for another (specifically thinking of DH and my own mother, who I'm incredibly close to) but now, with DS, there is no doubt in my mind that I would willingly die any type of death imaginable to save him from harm. I can imagine myself lifting up cars, running from burning buildings and shooting strangers (and I'm six months pregnant with number two, so all the above unlikely ) Just that I would do anything to protect him.

Oh, and how much I adore staying home! Yes, I do get bored (sometimes) yes, I do think that if I have to pick another effin' Mr. Man book up off the floor my head would implode, but I genuinely love watching his personality emerge..

And lastly, how much I would want to EAT him He is so delicious and edible and even has sweet breath in the morning!

God, I'm one sad individual, aren't I?

I honestly didn't have any comprehension - not even in my wildest dreams - of how hard it would be first time around. Nor of how completely and utterly it would change me, my relationship, my views on almost everything - my entire life. To say I was knocked for six would be a gross understatement.

However, I also couldn't ever have imagined how much I would eventually come to love being a mother and having my own family. It has honestly become the biggest and best part of my life - my family is my life - and it makes me giggle inwardly to think of me - the original career/p[arty girl - having two kids and seriously considering having more...

aurynne we can all tell you all the stories in the world of how wonderful/horrible it is to be a parent. But no one can tell you what it would be like for you.

Its one of those things that you just can't 'get' until you have one of your own.