Speaking as a new parent, I think that if parents remembered every little detail, no one would ever have more than one child.
And another comment I'm making recently is ... "Everyone says they want to have a baby, but nobody ever says I want to have a teenager!" It's probably for the best people don't think that far ahead. I'm growing gray hair at a prodigious rate right now, and my oldest still has six months before she's actually a teen.
Ah, the threenager!
Spoiler alert: even more tantrums, which also last longer and are trickier to defuse. Talking them out of one gets more difficult, as the kid will likely talk back, and might even catch you in the act of committing logical fallacies, because in this period of time, their 3yo brain works better than your sleep-deprived one.
On the other hand, the feats of logic my kid performs to argue their case - hearing them almost makes up for all of it.
It is awesome. Teenagers are the best age group there is.
I highly suggest that people take a book or two on parenting and seriously adopt what they have to say. Raise your kids from a young age on the premise that you want to have a relationship that will last till you die.
(In my experience, the best book I've read is "Raise your children without raising your voice".)
Set aside time and effort to make the relationship work for real. This is an investment and will not invest itself.
Religion is important, family is important, cellphone use should be filtered and limited in a matter-of-fact way from when they are first getting a cellphone. [OK, phones are a big deal to get right, but this is not a blog.]
The result is relationships with your own kids that have unbounded energy, talent, resources, interest, etc. - that are just going out on their own to explore the world and conquer it.
Well, well, worth the investment.
Yes, parenting can be challenging and a lot of work at times. However, it’s silly to let the first few difficult months define decisions that impact the entire rest of your life.
It’s not that we forget that the early months are difficult. It’s that we realize they’re temporary and that they’re worth enduring.
I have several videos of things I don't remember doing or saying.
When I read that, I thought to myself: if I don't take others into account, what do I personally want? We now have one daughter and there's not going to be more kids.