My children have been kind enough to point out, on occasion, that I was born in the 1900s. My husband has long kidded that he’s older because he was born three months ahead of me, and we’re now at that point in parenthood where we’re expected to be not only older but also wiser because, well, we have a kid in braces.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s been over a decade since we became parents. I mean, for 10 years our stone fireplace has been covered with a baby gate to prevent head injuries, so having little ones has basically become a way of life. Despite having a one-year-old, I’m not really sure if I count as someone who’s in the baby phase because with the demands of school and extracurriculars, my husband and I feel we are very much in the phase of having school-aged children. When I’m at a playgroup with my youngest son, accompanied by more youthful moms and their little ones, I almost feel like I’m watching the baby phase from afar.
As we have gone from one child to two to three to four, our house and our calendar have filled up. Over time, I will admit that many family dynamics really do change, though not always in the way parents expect when they’re having babies. Some changes are for the better, and others are merely different. Part of this, in my opinion, is that my husband and I have changed our own expectations about how much we can achieve in a day, and how many minutes we can spend worrying about ourselves (it’s zero, by the way). Based on my last decade of momhood, here are seven ways parenting is different 10 years in.
7. Someone Always Wants to Do What You’re Doing
“I’m going to run to the store. I’ll be right back.”
I wait for it – the moment when a little head will pop up, eyes wide, and shout, “Can I come too?” I can pretty much guarantee the little person asking this question will NOT be ready to get in the car. Most likely, this person is barefoot, on the verge of needing a snack, in the middle of an art project, and in all likelihood really, really has to go to the bathroom but hasn’t bothered to take a break.
For a brief instant, I lapse into a moment of insanity and think maybe it would be fun to take someone along. Then I remind myself that my kids are NBC – Non-Bribable Children – and no amount of negotiation or bargaining is going to make this a fast and easy trip.
“No… I’m… I’m going by myself. You guys stay here with Dad.”
“What? Why??” My kids are always convinced that I must have some cool, secret Mom life where I do exhilarating and awesome things without them. No matter how many times I tell them I am staying within a 10-mile radius of home, it’s not enough to convince them otherwise. They really want to do everything I’m doing, even if it’s something completely routine and benign.
During the initial baby years, we did a lot of things that were strictly activities for little ones. Story time at the library. Baby swim lessons. Toddler gymnastics. Kiddie music time. Everything was for our crew of littles, mostly because these activities were available at non-nap times, and also because they didn’t require hiring a baby-sitter.
Fast forward 10 years, and the landscape looks completely different. The older my kids get, the less of a divide there is between grownup activities and kiddie activities. Last year, Tiny Dancer and Frida wanted a birthday tea party, but not the princess kind, the real kind with Early Grey and scones. Around that time, we watched 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, which I consider to be one of the great movies from the ‘90s. I think Emma Thompson’s screenplay is gold, and the humor is so perfectly subtle I was amazed that Tiny Dancer actually laughed at the facetious lines. My kids can order from a real menu in a restaurant, we can walk more than twenty paces from a public bathroom without having to run in, and T-Rex recently drew a picture of the globe with world landmarks, which was made more precious by the fact that he leaned his body to the side to explain that the Leaning Tower of Pisa actually leans to the side.
I was recently out at dinner with a couple other moms, and one woman who is married with two adorable little ones brought up the topic of friends. She expressed how hard it is to have fewer friends than she and her husband had in their pre-kid years. I remember this feeling distinctly. In the early baby years, when everyone I knew had their hands full taking care of little ones, it seemed like making friends was a much more arduous task.
I commented, “You know, I think once you have a family, your spouse and kids really become your primary friends.” She agreed. In my experience, despite little ones’ overwhelming level of cuteness, it takes many years before they can really have an in-depth conversation with you and keep you company. When that time does come, it makes an enormous difference, at least for me.
It’s the weekend, and we surprisingly have a couple hours available, so I start to think up ways to spend the time together. I ask, “Does anyone want to go to a brewery this weekend?”
They do. “Can we bring a board game?”
“Sure.” Maybe having a family who wants to do everything you’re doing isn’t so bad after all.
6. Someone is Always Awake
My standards for alone time have completely changed, and no time of day reflects this more than the evening hours after dinner. Even for a stay-at-home mom who’s used to constantly having kids around, I believe that stalling at bedtime is where my crew really shines!
Like I said, my kids are NBC, so it’s very hard to persuade them to move along with the evening. “I need a drink. I need water. I need water from downstairs, not the bathroom. I need ice water.” Brushing teeth can somehow amount to half an hour alone. How? I have no idea.
“Mom, how do you know when it’s the person you’re going to marry? What job do you think I’ll have when I grow up?” Bedtime for my kids means lots of existential questions.
Sometimes I look at our Frida, and I can’t believe she’s become such a night owl. When Frida was a baby, she loved sleep, I mean LOVED sleep. It was her favorite activity. She loved sleep so much, she would dive out of my arms headfirst into the crib as if her little life depended on gaining that one extra half a second of sleep. Now she’s so busy, we’ve had to make the rule “No Art at Bedtime” because if her mind gets too occupied creating, she can’t fall asleep.
With four kids, inevitably someone is up early, and someone is up late. There is just always someone awake, and we’ve kind of gotten used to it.
And of course, when they’re sick there’s no telling who will be waking up in the middle of the night. Although I can recall up to three kids being awake at one time, I have to say that we’ve thankfully never had a night when all four were up at once. God is good.
5. Someone is Always Eating
You may think the days of always having to feed someone will go away when you are done with nursing, but no ma’am, they will keep eating, and with many, many more crumbs. Lots and lots of crumbs.
On one of our only out of town trips, my husband and I were eating dinner and he commented, “Did you notice we didn’t drop ANY crumbs on the floor?”
Sometimes I feel like I’m back in my days of waiting on tables. I’ve accepted that our kitchen is always open, and it’s nearly impossible to get completely cleaned up. Hendrix has a big appetite for a little guy, and he usually comes back for a second dinner around 9 o’clock, which I actually don’t mind because he doesn’t know any better. Besides, this fills up his little belly, and he sleeps much better after Second Dinner.
Tired of constantly being asked for food by my older children, I once tried to create a family snack bar, a basket with an appealing variety of munchies that my kids were allowed to graze on without having to ask for permission. Sad to say, this did not work in the slightest. It bothered my kids that the snack bar exempted Mom from having to be involved in the process of producing something edible, and ultimately, I did away with it.
If you have growing children, you can probably empathize with the problem of never-having-enough-food-in-the-house. My grocery orders are so large, the store employees have to put additional bags of food in the side doors of my minivan after the trunk has filled up. Once I got a text from a friend asking if I might be missing some groceries. When an employee accidentally gave her the wrong dairy items, she looked at the name on the bag and saw it belonged to someone she knew – me. She had mistakenly been given part of my order, which was an entire bag of Greek yogurts. I know this sounds gluttonous, but if we all have one yogurt on a Wednesday and one yogurt on a Thursday, then a dozen yogurts are wiped out. That’s just the way it is!
4. Someone is Always Talking
The moment Tiny Dancer gets off the bus, she’s talking. Her feet are still on the steps of the bus, and she’s bursting to tell me something funny that happened at school.
Frida doesn’t care to talk about her day the moment she comes home, but I do eventually get the details about school, like who has the same shirt as her, or which part of her lunch she disliked. A true artist at heart, she is willing to express her strong opinions about sandwiches.
When it comes to school, T-Rex is more reticent to say anything about his day. “What did you do at school today?” I’ll ask.
“I pooped in my pants.” Hmm. I see no evidence that this happened.
“Tell me about your day,” I’ll try again.
“There were no kids there. And no teachers. Only ghosts.”
“Hmm, so you were the only person in school?”
“Mmhmm.”
Okay. I’ll accept this. Maybe he’ll never tell me about his day. I know for sure he’ll tell me if he’s hungry for a snack.
Moments later, my kids have dropped their bags by the front door and are running around, arguing, dancing or playing, and suddenly they all very much have things to say. As long as they’re awake, our house is very, very loud. The decibels are high, the interruptions constant. Sometimes when I try to tell my husband something, it is difficult to complete even one sentence because I have to shout so loudly for him to hear me. A couple years ago, I thought I was losing my hearing and was going to get it checked out until the hubs and I went away for an overnight, at which time I realized I could hear everything he was saying.
Our little guy, Hendrix, can be such a breath of fresh air. Not only is he always pleasant, he also can’t complain in full sentences. Babies are the best!
3. Someone is Always Listening
And by listening, I don’t mean obedience. When I figure out how to get my kids to obey, I’ll let you know.
I know Google Home is always listening in on me, but when it’s my kids listening, it’s a different story. My self-consciousness grows with every year that knowing eyes and listening ears observe me and take in everything I do.
When it comes to listening, there is no time when I’m more keenly aware of this than Christmas. It’s hard to keep anything a secret now that my kids have become tall enough to reach my old hiding spots for gifts, and they certainly can read the “To and From” tags. Not to mention they can read any notification that comes to my phone, so they can easily catch a glimpse of an email confirming a gift that’s supposed to be a surprise.
My privacy is pretty much completely gone at this point, and in some ways, the lack of privacy is not an entirely bad thing. With someone always listening, I have to be careful about what I say and do. I have to be polite, I have to be careful with word choice, and I have to avoid gossip.
Most importantly, our kids are at the age where they start to pick up on our family’s values. I’ve observed that parenting in the baby and toddler years more or less looks the same from family to family. “Don’t eat that off the floor,” “Don’t push your friend,” “Share your toys” are all part of teaching little ones basic manners and rules of society. In the later elementary school years, values begin to diverge from household to household, and kids will inevitably need more guidance on what to do and say, whether it’s a school situation, a friend situation, or something that comes up in current events that they ask you about. We have to think so much harder about how we answer questions because they are listening so intently at this age. One thing is certain though – they still need us.
2. Someone is Always Out of the House
Saturday morning is the important time of the week when my husband makes a detailed family to-do list for the rest of the weekend, broken out into distinct segments of time. As a former Navy wife, I understand this need for structure.
My husband and I have accepted that it’s basically a job in itself driving kids around. This is made easier by the fact that we have sliding doors on our minivan. When we had our old minivan, I told him that I wanted the kind with the sliding doors next time. Mama gets what Mama wants.
We’ve now reached the point where any free time has been completely filled up. Between extracurriculars, school events, church, and friend stuff, the after-school and evening hours are action packed. In the past, maybe one of the adults was out of the house for a meeting in the evening, but now it’s potentially the kids who are gone in the evening. A couple weeks ago, we stayed up to wait for our daughter to come home from a dance. We’re officially Old People.
Sometimes I wonder how someone can be out of the house, and yet it is still so loud(!) in here. Please excuse me, I think I hear a request for goldfish.
1. Someone Gives You Credit For Knowing Things
When I entered the baby years, it struck me how many people equated first-time-motherhood with amnesia. A lot of people would give advice along the lines of, “It’s good to get out of the house. There’s value in scheduling things to do and having somewhere to go.” So apparently, because I became a mom, I had forgotten how to use the internet to find things to do. Also I had forgotten how to drive.
People would also give well-intentioned, important advice like “My kids always loved tickling games.” Well, my three older kiddos never liked tickling games. Turns out, all kids are different and like different things. Who knew, right?
Now that my oldest is approaching middle school, I’ve noticed the advice has stopped. Part of this is because I have four kids now, so they assume I know things. Or maybe it’s because when parents reach the middle school years they realize they’re not as in control as they thought, so they don’t have as much advice to give because the older kid years get complicated.
Not only that, but sometimes, my kids actually think I know stuff. I can produce some random pop culture knowledge from the ‘90s and my kids are astounded. I can mention a place where I traveled and my kids are astounded. I remember something I learned in the third grade, and my kids are astounded (and frankly, so am I!) It’s funny and sweet, and honestly, it’s nice to get some credit for knowing one thing, anything at all. When they ask, “Mom, how do you know this?” I tell them the honest truth. “I’m old.”
We’re driving in the car, and I turn on the good old-fashioned radio. “Who is this talking?!” Frida exclaims from the third row.
“This,” I explain, “Is a commercial.”
Astonishing.
Finally, music returns to the airwaves. My kids can rest easy now.
I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser…
“Mom, do you know this song?” In this case, I do. I’ve been sheltered long enough that Taylor Swift is at the very far reaches of my pop culture knowledge.
“Yes,” I reply, “I know this song.”
Satisfied, my kids nod. Not bad for someone born in the 1900s.
5 responses to “Here’s What’s Changed in My First 10 Years of Parenting”
This is a most fascinating and complete look at ten years of parenting.
I laughed aloud when I read about about the absence of crumbs after you parents had a dinner out sans kiddies.
And I smiled remembering how my kids wanted to come along even on the least of errands.
You’ve captured the buzz and the whirl of a happy home. You’ve
concocted a newfangled recipe for mothering, a perfect balance of laughter, love and discipline.
Congratulations to you and the mister on ten successful years of parenting!
Beautifully written, amusing to read, and very accurate! Yes most nights it does take my 8 year old at least 30 minutes to brush his teeth too! 😂
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