These days, it’s becoming more and more common, and more and more acceptable, to be honest about something that used to be hugely taboo: How hard, and often miserable, parenting can be. Parents no longer feel the pressure to pretend that every part of raising tiny humans is sunshine and rainbows. It’s expensive, exhausting, and some days downright frustrating.
But, like most things, this honesty has an underbelly of making some new parents deeply anxious as they wait for their bundle of joy to arrive. Case in point, one soon-to-be dad on Reddit who is starting to dread something he wants to be excited about.
I’m not a parent, but most of my friends and siblings are, and there’s no question they’re all in love with their kids. But I’ve watched as they’ve fallen apart for the first year or so, looking like hollowed-out zombies who can barely string a sentence together.
Of course, it used to be the social norm to pretend like this, and everything that comes after is the most joyous thing you’ve ever done. A dear friend of mine once said that being able to just be honest about how much parenting sucks “literally saved my life.” She wondered how her own mom ever made it through in an era where such candor wasn’t acceptable.
But for this dad-to-be, it’s got him a bit unnerved. He and his wife are expecting their first in a month, and they are hugely excited for this new chapter in their lives. “However, anyone around us, whether it’s family, work colleagues, friends, etc have all had the same outlook of: Our lives are over,” he wrote in his post.
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The people in his life have been so negative about it, in fact, that it’s begun to “almost feel passive aggressive” and “make it seem essentially like they think being a parent is miserable,” he wrote.
He’s not exactly a naive newcomer. He works with children and has a background in early childhood education and psychology, so he knows his stuff. “Obviously I know having my own child will be much different,” he acknowledged.
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But he can’t help but wonder if he’s missing something, given how outsized everyone’s reaction has been. “Is it really as bad as people make it out to be?”
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There’s a kind of ugly elephant in the room here, unfortunately. A lot of parents, if they were honest, would say they regret becoming parents. They post about it on anonymous forums like Reddit all the time, in fact.
There are scores of posts from parents who talk about having bowed to societal pressure, or caving to their partner, only to find that, while they love their children just like anyone else, they are, in fact, miserable, and if they had it to do over again, they probably wouldn’t.
It’s hard not to feel like this guy is probably hearing a lot of this angst being projected at him. Misery loves company, of course—especially when that misery comes from a decision you have no one to blame for but yourself.
Among his fellow Redditors, however, he got some sage advice. Fellow parents told him that, yes, it is hard and it is often unpleasant. But “you’ll deal with the difficulties as they come,” as one parent put it.
Others called out the way parenting has changed in our modern era. Whereas most parents used to have family nearby to help, that has mostly vanished as families scatter, leaving most parents to go it alone. This dad is unlikely to be in quite the same predicament, though, given his training and education, and several Redditors pointed out that that gives him a leg up.
Regardless, it sounds like he’s clear-eyed about what he’s getting into, and it definitely sounds like something he chose to do, rather than gave into. That’s probably half the battle. As for the rest, one Redditor had probably the best advice of all: “Don’t let anyone take away your joy… The expression ‘the days are long but the years are short’ has rung really true for me.”
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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
