The Joys of Parenthood

We love and adore our son but that doesn't mean we want to see him at 4am wide awake and ready to read a book. I guess if he was a little older and enjoyed the Wiggles we could teach him to operate the electronic babysitter and go back to sleep for a bit. I used to think going to work 9 to 5, five days a week and getting paid for it was hard but staying at home and working seven days a week, 24 hours a day and not getting paid for it is far more challenging.

If I were to do a pros and cons sheet I know which job would come out with an "easy" level rating but it definitely wouldn't rate highly on the rewarding scale. Would it???

Let's take a look

Paid employment:

Weekly pay packet
Air conditioning
Adult conversation (sometimes not necessarily more interesting but easier to understand)
A comfortable chair on which to rest your weary legs
Lunch breaks
Morning tea and afternoon tea breaks
Meetings in which you can catch on sleep by taking a quick nap
Paid sick days
Paid annual leave
Someone else comes to clean the office


Parent:

No weekly pay packet
Constantly empty bank account
Unpaid sick leave - in fact there is no such thing as sick leave, paid or unpaid
Unpaid annual leave - no such thing as annual leave either
Dirty nappies
Dirty house
Dirty clothes
Dirty dishes
Early mornings
No toilet breaks (at least not alone)
No lunch break
No morning or afternoon tea breaks
No interesting adult conversation
No airconditioning
The following qualifications would also be desirablel: Teacher, nurse, psychologist, Financial planner, nutritionist.


The list is not comprehensive but it's plain to see a full time job wins in the easy department hands down. What you don't get with paid employment is the joy of seeing your children learn new and exciting things everyday, having them hug you and tell you they love you, loving them as they experience the first pains of a broken heart, first knee scrapes from falling off the swing, and hearing their laughter as they chase each other through the house.

Still not sure if I'm convinced :)

I went to work yesterday and am going again tomorrow. I've got to tell you I'm pretty excited about that. My mother has Henry on Fridays and although she says she absolutely loves every minute of it I can tell she is exhausted by the time I arrive to collect him in the afternoon. She's not young anymore. When I call through the day to see how she's coping she's usually laughing at some antic he's been up to. How she manages I don't know. Her home is full of beautiful and very breakable nick nacks. She manages to keep them safe with him around. Either that or she just doesn't tell me when he's broken something. She keeps a stash of toy matchbox cars on a shelf in her TV room and this is the first place he heads to when he gets there in the morning. He then goes directly to the front door where he has a view through the fly screen of the passing traffic. "Car, oooh car" he says over and over. She has a fire station in the next block from her house. I took Henry there one day to show him the fire trucks and the very nice fireman allowed him to sit in the front seat of the truck. The seat is operated by a pneumatic pump and this allows it to be raised or lowered. It makes that air whooshing sound as it goes up and down but Henry was a little frighted of this. He prefered to wander aound the truck on the ground and play with the wheels and feel the shiny red paint. He was in awe. Maybe he'll be a firefighter when he grows up. I would rather he was a high paid lawyer or doctor so he may be able to keep Ben and I in a manner better than we live now. Anything's possible I guess.

I'm sure if ever my mother feels she can't cope she'll tell me. She's given up attempting to take him visiting with her. He destroys the beautiful homes of her friends whose children have also grown up and left home and gone, preferably, to live overseas with their grandchildren meaning they only visit once every now and then. I know I over exaggerate and all grandparents love to have their grandchildren around. They also have the luxury of giving them back once they've had their fun with them. So they should too. They've finished raising their children...well one would hope they have. I find I still need to go to my mother for help occasionally or to have a good cry or to just vent about something. Her words are wise and soothing. I guess this is the job of a mother. It starts at birth and doesn't ever stop.