> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.

I was starting to feel this way before I had kids, but having kids completely changed everything for the more interesting.

It’s funny because it’s the exact opposite of what I was told would happen: The story goes that you have kids, lose yourself, and become a boring old parent. Instead, I’m never lacking for fun or creative ideas because I can pick up a creative and hilarious child and go do literally anything together and we’ll have a good time. I’m meeting more new and interesting people than I have at any point since college simply by doing parent things and meeting other parents. I still have time to work on one specific side project, but I’ve learned to stop grinding through the side projects that I didn’t really enjoy anyway. Becoming a parent is a great forcing function to get out and shake up your priorities.

Obviously I’m not recommending becoming a parent as a solution to this problem. However, I wanted to note that the realities of becoming a parent are literally the opposite of what I was led to believe by peers and social media while growing up. Contrary to everything I was told, it’s actually the childless people and couples I know who are entering these periods of “boring” where they struggle for interest or motivation or meaning, while us parents are off having an extremely non-boring and fun time with this new chapter.