Nice memories.

Yep, once you have them, your kind of committed,
Little late to back out now.

Quite a head of hair on Lil' Claire

Complicated question with a complicated answer.

I was completely taken by surprise by the fierce love I felt for my firstborn. It was completely unique in my relational experience. I felt no different about my son when he came some years later.

I will die loving them, and there are some wonderful memories. The rituals my daughter and I used to have where I would take her out to breakfast on Saturday mornings. The "grand tour" I took my son on after he finished high school, to London, Paris and Rome.

But ... that is not to say that I have found being a parent to be that rewarding, either. It is a thankless job. Kids can be selfish little walking buzz-kills. They do not necessarily shower you with appreciation for "all you've done". They can just as easily judge you for "all you've done wrong". And they don't necessarily grow out of it.

My son was dutiful and did all I ever asked of him that he was capable of doing. But he's gone now, a little over 3 years ago at the age of 30. My daughter has issues she can't really articulate, I suspect even to herself, but near as I can figure, she feels cheated of some idyllic childhood she imagined for herself because of her mother's schizophrenia, and I'm the handiest throat to choke. Fortunately my current wife, her unofficial stepmother, is also a motherless daughter, and so has been instrumental in somewhat normalizing our rather fraught relationship.

My daughter is 40 now and has children of her own, and I keep pecking away at improving our connection as best I know how. They are about 600 miles away and I am going to have to figure out a way to gently tell her when we visit this spring, that it's on her to put some effort into our relationship to balance mine. we've visited her many times over the years and flew the oldest grandson up to spend a few days with us, but she hasn't been to see us once, yet she's driven the same distance to Chicago to visit an old high school girlfriend pretty much every year. The highways, as they say, work in both directions. I will have to let go and let the relationship be what it wants to be I guess. It's getting harder for us to travel so much and we have a lot on our plate with my wife's 27 year old son, who is on the autism spectrum and having trouble launching.

Bottom line, my wife and I both agree that parenting isn't all it's cracked up to be ... but we keep being present for them to the extent they'll allow it.

I remember when it was my turn to get up in the middle of the night, slip my hand down to check if our first was wet. It turned out to be the first poop after nine months. It was quite an unwelcome surprise.

I've never been a parent, but I'm an uncle to 3.

Sorry your family did not prepare you for diapering....large Iowa families had new babies passed around alot so children of all ages earned their references to graduate to babysitting for money....I am 4th of 5 had dozens of cousins all ages ....next door neighbors helped out alot vice versa.....and what church did not have a "nursery" so parents could go drink grape juice eat crackers while babies were kept quiet away from geebush jeehobah ghostholes

I loved parenthood, up till the teen years. The level of hilarity and love was just full speed in those days. My sons were 5 years apart, and were always very close. They still are as grown men. We laid down a base of love, empathy and appreciation of nature that has carried them forward into adulthood. I miss those days!

You are not alone. Here is a song about Joseph and Mary, sung to the tune of "Oh Holy Night":

Oh holy crap! Jesus just pooped his diaper,
And he has spread it all over his face.
He's smearing it all over the manger,
It smells so bad, it's a holy disgrace!

Oh holy crap, Oh holy, holy crap!
We have to clean up all this holy mess.
Shepherds are coming, followed by three wise men.
Oh crap, holy crap. It is filling us with stress.
Oh crap! Oh, oh holy crap! Oh holy crap!

I ardently wish I had gotten the chance. Hell I'd do it now if the steps to get pregnant weren't ridiculous expensive. I'm trying to adopt out of foster care, but if you want to adopt a child instead of a teen, you'd better be a postcard christian couple with a stay at home mom. As a single woman they'll only ever let me adopt an older teen. Which was actually my plan for my 50's, just adopt one after the other as I get them sent out into the world. Give them help starting life as adults, and college, and a place to call home for the holidays and someone to call for advice etc. But before then I wanted at least a couple kid years. I love kids, heck I love teenager as well. But I wanted a few years of silly and kids songs and tiny hands breaking things and chaos. I'm slowly letting that dream die, but it tears me up.

They are a lot of work, no doubt about that. Back in the day, my hopes and wishes were so different than what I do get to experience today with my grownups. It's a life time sentence, that much I know.......

The poo thing wasn't a problem for me. The ritual of getting baby to go to sleep at night is my biggest memory. He was determined that I wasn't going to get any peace.

There are so many times when I feel like I dodged a bullet by
"missing out" on parenthood.

Stories like that one, are definitely part of those times.

very unique memory ,you are have