I think this captures, in a general, symbolic way, the rationalizations people typically deploy to keep themselves engaged in the culturally extorted shared fiction that children are, at least by default, wonderful little bundles of joy and inspiration and that parenting is the most important and fulfilling role you'll ever have.

Sometimes I wonder if this is made way worse than it needs to be for parents because of all the tropes we buy into around childhood and child-rearing.

Frankly I'm not 100% sure what I think about the concept of childhood as purely a carefree time of nurturing and play and enriched learning. This is a fairly new concept really, not much more than a century old in its current form. The Sunday School movement of the 19th century, for example, started out as a way to provide education for working children on the one day they had off each week. On the one hand, such efforts countered the exploitation of child labor and similar practices, and opened up compulsory free education and set certain humane standards of how children should be treated. On the other hand, it went so far in removing any constraints from their existence that it made it a relatively raw deal for parents, and such a sweet deal for children that most of them are entitled little shits.

One thing I know for sure: the fact that a bunch of us hang around in this group grousing about coming out on the short end of the parenting stick, or having seen it happen enough around us that we're not interested in risking it, reveals that something is off-kilter in how we approach this. And I suspect part of it is that we give too much of ourselves and our life force to the little darlings.

Sounds like any member of a family to me..