No, dads, you don't have to love every moment

Thursday morning was tough. I woke up with a tummy bug and was feeling horrid. On top of that, Alice hadn’t slept well in the night, and I didn’t sleep particularly well either. On top of that, she fought going to sleep [something she’s prone to doing every now and then] and made Megan’s Wednesday evening particularly hard, especially as I couldn’t help because I was working. On top of that, it came on the back of a difficult and fighty Tuesday night. And on top of THAT, it was midst a stupidly busy and stressful week at work for the pair of us.

I wasn’t at my finest on Thursday. But Alice didn’t know that. And, frankly, she didn’t care. She’s 15-months-old; of course she didn’t care.

She still wanted us to pay diligent, uninterrupted attention to her. She still wanted me to bounce her on my tummy. She still wanted to go outside and look for birds and play with her neighbour, a morning traditional that I absolutely love...most of the time. I did those things, but I didn’t enjoy them.

And then the guilt hits. Because, you know, children are special and wonderful and little angels and you should enjoy every moment with them, right? WRONG!

Children are all those things, and more, and I love Alice to a depth that I never knew I was capable of until she was born, but some moments are hard. Painstakingly hard. And I do not love every single moment.

There’s a double standard when it comes to parenting. We can love our jobs and also be allowed to have days we hate or aspects of it we hate. We can love our partners and also be allowed to be angry and grumpy with them. We can love our siblings and also be allowed to be infuriated by them. We can love our sports teams and also want to burn our replica kits. But we’re not allowed this with our children.

Megan and I were having a conversation at the weekend, when Alice had gone to spend the night with her granny and aunty. It revolved around us talking about the guilt we feel when we hand Alice over to family so that we can have some time off; how you feel like a bad parent because you need a break. And it’s ridiculous that we feel this way, because taking some time out and unwinding -- even if only for an afternoon -- makes a huge difference.

I was a better parent to Alice on Sunday than I was on Saturday after that short time out. I was a better parent to Alice on Thursday evening when I was feeling better and had slept off the bug, and an even better parent on Friday morning when I got her dressed for school and took her to play in the puddles caused by overnight rain. And I was better because I had a little break.

Glennon Doyle Melton, in a 2013 blog post for Huffington Post says it better than I could:

“Don’t carpe diem,” she writes, with the italics, bolds and CAPS for emphasis all her own. “Every time I’m out with my kids — this seems to happen: An older woman stops us, puts her hand over her heart and says something like, ‘Oh, Enjoy every moment. This time goes by so fast.’ “Everywhere I go, someone is telling me to seize the moment, raise my awareness, be happy, enjoy every second, etc, etc, etc. I know that this message is right and good. But, I have finally allowed myself to admit that it just doesn’t work for me. It bugs me. This CARPE DIEM message makes me paranoid and panicky. Especially during this phase of my life - while I’m raising young kids. Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I’m not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I’m doing something wrong.”

And she’s right. We have this drummed into us all the time -- moms more so than dads, because the parenting pressure is way more intense on moms, fact -- that we have to enjoy every.single.moment of being a parent. It’s not a good message. It’s unrealistic, and it creates parents who are constantly worried if they’re messing up.

No, dads, you don’t have to love every moment. You do have to love your kids and you do have to keep being a great dad and you do have to keep being a hands-on husband and daddy. But you don’t have to love the tough times. You just have to push through them.