15 Things You Don’t Realize Until You Actually Become Parent

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Embarking on the journey of preparing for a new baby and embracing parenthood, it’s genuinely challenging to fully comprehend the life-altering transformation until it gradually begins to unfold. On an online forum, a community of parents has come together to share their fresh perspectives and lessons learned in the wake of becoming parents. As a fellow parent, do any of their experiences and newfound realizations resonate with your own?

1. Understanding Time is Relative

Many parents scratch their heads and wonder what they did with their time before their kids. When there weren’t constantly growing to-do lists and 24/7 needs from their littles, what did they actually do all day?

2. Experiencing Exponential Love

Someone writes, “The love you can have for a human being. It’s beyond anything you can experience.” From the moment the little one is born, they can take your breath away and steal your heart for the rest of time.”

3. The Reality of Casual Potty Talk

One mom shares the norms of parenting a young child and being in charge of cleaning up their bodily functions: “How often as a couple you are going to talk about poop or pee. Just so casually in daily conversation. Was it pee or poop? Maybe they need to poop. Or…. they pooped their pants.”

4. Prioritizing Time for Each Other

It can be easy to forget about your partner when caring for needy kids. But don’t! Someone shares the trick they learned, “That you should take a vacation with OUT your kids, let me explain. You go on vacation with the family and then you do one vacation with you and your partner. It really helps!”

5. The Realization That Parenthood is Permanent

Someone writes, “realized beforehand but didn’t really sink in that it’s permanent.” Once a parent, most never lose that feeling of responsibility, worry, love, and all the other feelings that parenthood brings- no matter how old the kids get.

6. Immense Gratitude for Our Parents’ Sacrifices

It’s often hard to realize all the sacrifices a parent makes until you are one yourself. Many people expressed gratitude for all that their parents did for them.

7. Truth: Kids Are Crazy

Someone writes a common sentiment, “That my parents were right that I’ll understand when I’m a parent. These kids truly are menaces! I love them more than anything but my god, you need patience to be a parent. Also, some of the things I thought my parents were TOTALLY mean and rude to me about, they were right too. Sorry.”

8. Kids Are Bottomless Pits

When kids are hungry and going through a growth spurt, watch out grocery bills and pantry! A mom writes, “How truly expensive it is to keep food on the table and in the pantry. Biggest household expense. Just crazy….”

9. Helplessness When Your Child is Hurting

“At the moment just how gutted you feel when something doesn’t go right in your child’s life. Hell you take it more to heart than they seen to,” shares a mom. This is always a tough pill to swallow, whether the hurt could have been prevented or not.

10. Parenthood is Hard

A parent writes, “How hard parenting is. I knew there would be a lot of challenges, but I didn’t realize it was going to be this much.” This is an ongoing debate in the parenting world. Why is everyone always complaining vs. why didn’t anyone warn me it was going to be this hard? It ultimately depends on your perspective and situation. Regardless, there will be hard times indeed.

11. Roller Coaster Emotions

Since most parents love their children deeply, this opens up the floodgates for other extreme emotions. Parents joke that they never knew they could simultaneously love and be so mad at the same time at a little person.

12. Constant Worry

Many parents talk about the constant worry they have for their kids, for both present and future issues. Moms talk about how it starts the moment they learn they’re pregnant- asking all kinds of “what ifs?” While debilitating worry and anxiety aren’t normal, it’s pretty normal to worry about our kids sometimes.

13. They Just Let You Take the Baby

When new parents leave the hospital, they often have a mix of feelings and anxiety about how they will take care of a tiny baby. Someone writes, “Well, they just leave you with this baby. And you’re like, “wait. I don’t know what to do with this. I’m just a kid”.” Many parents can relate.

14. Learning to Pick Battles

A mom writes a very true scenario that parents that want to keep their sanity realize. “Kids sometimes think they’re getting away with breaking the rules, when what’s actually happening is the rule isn’t very important and the parent is picking their battles.

I sometimes wonder what kind of stuff I did that I thought my mom didn’t know about that she actually did know about.”

15. Leaving the House is an Achievement

Getting out of the house with all the things for a potential disaster is a big accomplishment and doesn’t always happen. A mom shares, “I did not realize how tied down I would be. I thought I would bring my son everywhere and we would do everything, but I’m always tired. I love my son more than anything and would spend all day everyday with him if I could, but to get out of the house and go do things is hard for me because of the chaos that can ensue.”

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