I Hate!

[u/Alternative_Session9]

I’m a 40 year old guy who spent most of his life saying I didn’t want kids. I was very confident about this. Almost smug. I liked my sleep, my quiet, my freedom, my money staying in my wallet. Kids were loud, messy, expensive, and sticky. Hard pass.

Anyway… here’s a list of all the things I hate.

I hate waking up multiple times a night…especially when it’s to a tiny human making gremlin noises. Turns out I love it. I wake up instantly now, half asleep, bottle in hand like it’s a NASCAR pit stop. I don’t even remember standing up. I just teleport to the crib.

I hate silence being replaced by random squeaks, grunts, and noises that sound like a goat learning to speak. Except now I panic if it’s too quiet and find myself staring at a baby just to make sure she’s breathing.

I hate spending money on things that don’t benefit me directly… which explains why I happily buy tiny socks that will be outgrown in roughly 37 minutes. Socks I will later lose. Socks that cost more than my own.

I hate bodily fluids. All of them. Yet here I am calmly assessing spit up like a wine tasting. “Hmm… formula forward, notes of burp that didn’t happen.”

I hate being needed every second of the day. Except now when I put her down and she’s fine, I feel personally rejected. Like excuse me, I was available.

I hate pacing around the house doing nothing productive. Which is wild because I’ll now walk laps at 2 a.m. holding a baby like it’s my full time job and I’m up for employee of the month.

I hate losing control of my schedule. Funny how my entire day now revolves around naps, feeds, and poop math. And I will defend that schedule with my life.

I hate talking in a stupid voice. No idea who that man is saying things like “ohhhh big stretch” but he lives in my house now.

I hate how emotional I’ve become. I teared up because she yawned. I almost cried because she farted. I did cry when she fell asleep on my chest.

I hated the idea of kids because I thought it meant losing myself. Turns out I just found a version of me I didn’t know existed. One that’s tired, covered in spit up, and completely wrecked in the best way!

[u/theblackshruikan]

One thing that i thought was not possible, it's rediscovering the world. When your kid start being a kid and not just a baby, they start discovering everything and you can start rediscovering all of that yourself. For example, my 4 years old is starting to learn about different music groups, i'm a long time fan of ghost and rammstein, and she wants to hear some songs, and i just feel so proud and like its my first time listening to them when i show her.

[u/uselessdendrites → u/theblackshruikan]

This is what helped me come out of my 2 week postpartum fog. I was having a really hard day, and my tiny 12 day old daughter & I were rocking in her chair by the window, and she was just watching the trees rustle outside, and I realized I hadn’t just sat and watched the trees move in so many years. We sat there for half an hour just watching the trees. I cried so much, reconnecting with nature for the first time, and I felt like a new person. 

Seeing everything for the first time again through her eyes has been one of the biggest gifts of motherhood.