Is raising kids really the hardest job there is?
In my opinion it is the hardest job. It certainly was for me. Don't get me wrong, I had great kids, who now have kids of their own. And yes people do it everyday, most of them successfully. However that doesn't make it easy.Children come to us without a set of instructions. I know of very few people who learned how to be a parent and raise a child BEFORE they had a child. Most of it is learn as you go. You draw upon how you were raised by your parents. The thing is sometimes they made mistakes too. Yet we often don't know what they did wrong or even that it was wrong. It's what we experienced and knew and since we feel we turned out OK that's how we raise our kids. Which is sadly why all too often things such as child abuse, or absentee parents, run in cycles from generation to generation. So you might think after your first child, "OK I got this.I finally figured out this parenting thing." And along comes your second child. You think it will be easier. yet SURPRISE, your second child is totally different, has different needs, different personality, different issues, different crises. And you don't have a "playbook" to go by that applies to this second child.So your children come out of childhood and become teens. Who then become totally different people. You think, "My god,what happened to my sweet little kid?" Raising teens triggers yet another round of new challenges and surprises.These cycles of our children changing and our roles as parents just keep altering throughout life.Parenting is an evolving process of constantly adapting. Each child is different. Each period in their life is different. And this isn't a job that has defined shifts and work periods. It is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for your entire life. And yes even when your kids are grown adults, and have children of their own, you are still their parent. Except now you have to learn to let go. To simply be there when they might need you. To not try to tell them how to run their lives, or raise their kids. Rather you are there to support their decisions, give advice only when asked and see how much you might have gotten right, how much you might have gotten wrong and know that most of who they are is their own innate reality.Parenting has been the hardest, at times most heartbreaking, at times most frustrating, at times most puzzling, most challenging and yet most rewarding and joyous "job" I've ever seen or had. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
Why are young people these days so lazy?
Yeah it must have been really hard for you baby boomers to come of age during the greatest economic upswing of the century. That $500 per semester must have really set you back during college, and I'll bet you guys just had a horrible time in a job market where you could get a good career with a highschool diploma. Luckily kids today have so many advantages, like McDonalds restaurants who want a bachelors and five years experience for a minimum wage cashiers job, or the tens of millions of illegal immigrants people like you imported to destroy the job market, or better yet all the outsourcing of what few jobs are left. Yes sir, you guys really have a lot of room to criticize us lazy youngsters! For the record I'm one of the few people in my age group that does have gainful employment in a good career, but I'm lucky as hell to have it. It annoys me to see older people acting like they worked so hard when they pretty much destroyed the country for short term gains and now they have the nerve to go around accusing others of laziness. If the generation that fought world war 2 is the greatest generation then the one that came before us can certainly be called the WORST.
What is the logic behind saying a stay at home mom is the hardest job?
Thankyou for posting this Q. Trixie... Made me feel at least one other person sees it my way! I completely and totally agree with you. Obviously there is nothing wrong with being either a SAHM or a working mom - to each her own! But I feel SAHM do so much moaning and b!tching about how "hard" their life is and make endless lists to make it seem like such a difficult chore their doing. What they don't seem to realize is that working moms do ALL of the things they do each day - except working mother's manage to squeeze it all in after working 9 to 5. (or whatever crazy-*** shifts some mothers manage to do-personally I couldn't work back shift! so hats off to anyone who does!) They seem to assume that we go to work - have a blissful time - then just come home and we're done for the day - We're moms too!!! We still do all the washing, cleaning, shopping, bathing, cooking, bedtimes etc and miss our babies terribly when we're away from them :-( "Babies are such hard work, they cry all day - We have no adult communication. Blah Blah Blah." -Well I'm sorry but if you find watching over your own children so horrible then why on earth did you have any? I used to be a SAHM and LOVED it... It's so easy and enjoyable, I used to take all day to get chores done, my house was spotless and I got to see my little girl's every milestone! Bliss. If only I could go back to that lifesyle...