I can speak for myself when I say I envisioned parenthood looking a lot differently from how it actually looks IRL. I love being a mom so incredibly much, but there are plenty of things that are far from my idealized, pre-baby vision. So I was intrigued when I saw that Redditor Kitkatcreature asked, “What was your parenting delusion you had before having kids?” Here are the ways people envisioned themselves as parents…before they had kids of their own.
1.
“I thought I’d continue living a flexible life with a baby. I’d see relatives with young ones who took hours to leave their house because of all the prep, timing naps, and feeds. I’d think to myself, wow, couldn’t they just do all that outside the home, like at the mall or in the car? Surely, when I have a child, they will fit into MY schedule, not the other way around. Welp… I was very judgemental and naive.””
2.
“That all you had to do was feed kids a variety of foods to give them sophisticated palates. LOL…nope. It’s like a love of Mac and cheese and Dino nuggets are innate in every (American) child.”
3.
“I didn’t understand why people would use leashes for toddlers. I’d ask myself, ‘What kind of monster would chain their kid to a leash!’ No,w I have a toddler, and I can totally see why people might need a leash in public places. 😂”
—Ordinary-Broad
4.
“I imagined baby snuggles. My baby does not snuggle. He is too busy moving and looking around to snuggle. I’m crushed. But also happy that he takes such an interest in the world.”
5.
“I thought I would get so much stuff done around the house and on my to-do list during my maternity leave because babies and kids nap a lot. Jokes on me…sure, they nap a lot…but mine still needs a contact nap 50% of the time at almost 14 months. Nothing gets done around here.”
6.
“I guess it never occurred to me before I became a parent that young kids and teens could be so chronically mentally unwell and how much it would take to monitor that and attempt to keep them well.”
—anonymoususer37642
7.
“I thought my baby would be happy laying on a blanket near me while I did whatever. I didn’t know she would scream unless she was held 99% of the time.”
8.
“I swore I’d never use the phrase ‘because I said so.’ As a parent, I would explain things to my kid instead. And I do. But after the third or fourth time explaining the exact same thing, you just have to take a bath because I said so.”
—LuuluSoul
9.
“I said I’d never make special food for the kids. I judged my parents so hard for that. Now, I’m a short-order cook. Oh, well.”
10.
“I thought movie nights would be fun. But my kids want to watch the same movies over and over again, and most of them were never interesting to me to begin with.”
—JoyceReardon
11.
“I SWORE up and down my baby would never sleep with me… then the PPD/PPA hit. The long nights of waking up every two hours to breastfeed. Then, he woke up every time I set him down in the bassinet. I gave up and decided I needed sleep.”
12.
“I thought that I would magically come up with daily creative activities that my child would love. Turns out my brain is too sleep-deprived to think of anything other than a trip to the park and reading the same books over and over again (by request.)”
—ButterflyNDsky
13.
“I imagined doing super cute arts and crafts with finger paints, etc… but in reality, my toddler screams at any instructions and just wants to squirt glue and play with the scissors while scribbling on everything.”
14.
“I thought my life would be more or less the same but with a baby strapped to me. That delusion was broken the first time I, a 5-foot-tall woman, attempted to wash dishes while baby-wearing.”
—meekonesfade
15.
“I said my child’s diet wouldn’t consist of chicken nuggets. I remember my mother-in-law telling me an air fryer would come in handy for chicken nuggets, and being like pshhh, I read Bringing Up Bebe; I won’t be feeding her those. I fed her microwaved chicken nuggets for lunch just today.”
16.
“I thought I would be able to get work done on maternity leave. LOL.”
—Moritani
17.
“I imagined story time would be her sitting quietly next to me while I read books. Not her grabbing the books, throwing the books, deciding halfway through we should read a different book, and climbing on top of me and changing positions 20 times during a five-page book.”
18.
“That my kids would be cool, and I’d be a cool parent and able to hang, like ‘dinner’s at 8 at a restaurant, yeah, I’ll bring my kid along!’ or to the music festival or whatever lol.”
—NectarineJaded598
19.
I thought I was gonna teach my kids to ✨breathe✨ and they would be ✨emotionally regulated✨. But in reality, I say, ‘Okay!!! Smell the flowers, blow out the candle!!!!!” and their response is “🦖🦖🦅🦅🦅🌋🤬🤬🌋🤬🦖🦅🦅”
20.
And finally…”I was one big-ass delusion. Parenthood has HUMBLED me.”
Do you have one to add? What delusion did you have about parenthood before you had a child and realized that the reality is entirely different? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.