Hacker News Reader

Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

I wish I'd understood the degree to which small children destroy you. The amount of focus time you get falls by 90%+, you sleep horribly every night without fail, and you spend every quiet moment waiting for one of them to start screaming because they found some new and ingenious way to hurt themself.

Maybe a lot of that was having a 1-3 and 3-5 year old wfh during covid, but I feel like I'm broken ever since.

View on HN

Before I had kids, whenever I was tired at work, someone would say "you think that's bad? Wait til you have kids." I would roll my eyes and assume it was either hyperbole or that it was a mildly more intense version of what I felt. Of course, you know that I was wrong, and after 96 hours with a newborn I knew I was wrong too.

I compare the exhaustion you feel from parenting tothe effects of psychedelic drugs. It's pervasive, life altering, and impossible to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Anecdotal comment inbound, but you sound like you could benefit from a bit of hope: it really should get better, and soon. I have kids similarly distanced in age, the years you mentioned were the hardest so far and by far, even without a pandemic in the mix. That said, after they both were above age ~7 and able exist with a small bit of independence, things became easier. Like, an order of magnitude easier on my subjective and invented scale. Sleep improved, activities became fun again... in fact, I'm a bit sad when I can't convince one or the other to join me to do even simple things like picking up groceries.

Hang in there. Good luck.

Thanks. I'm not as miserable as I make it sounds but the life I had before is 100% gone and dead. I enjoy much of my days and adore my children but I do spend a lot of time realizing there's a lot of things I want to do that just won't happen. I also notice that every time a colleague talks about "working on something over the weekend" or learning more stuff after work I fall further behind professionally.

Honestly? They are doing something “productive” over the weekend but may be burning themselves out or won’t experience the good parts of parenting that weekend.

Don’t mean to put down those who don’t have kids - like myself - but I’m sure the grass seems greener elsewhere, especially when you’re tired.

Nah my kids broke me before Covid. Covid just made it harder. Obviously ymmv but your kids breaking you happens without it without a pandemic.

I think the big question is once broken, and the kids finally start not completely breaking you every week... can you rebuild with the pieces left :)

We'll see! I have 10+ years to go before I'll find out for sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com