I have found that friends and acquaintances that do not have kids often have an unrealistic expectation of what life with children is like. My opinion is that they have 1. forgotten what it is like to be a kid themselves and/or 2. been unduly influenced by movie and television children who are extra-cute, extra-brilliant, or extra-obnoxious. Those of us who have taken the parenting road know, however, that real live children are really nothing at all like television characters…
Sometimes my kids are cute, sometimes they seem like the most brilliant people on earth, and sometimes they are pretty obnoxious. They can also be messy, amazing, helpful, selfish, lazy, industrious, opinionated, etc. I think you get the picture. They don’t always behave and I don’t think it is because of any deficiency in them or me. They change with age, the time of day, and the weather. They are just real, human kids.
For some parents, accepting the realness of parenting can be as challenging as it is for those people I know who do not have kids. We wonder why our kids can’t be more like those characters we see in movies and on TV. Well, unless we get a wardrobe consultant, a script-writer, a director, and an expert lighting director—our family life is not going to look like those movies and television programs and it is unfair to our children to expect them to compare and comply.
It is as unrealistic of an expectation on our children as if we expect ourselves to be just like those television and movie parents—either perfectly dressed and coiffed and eternally svelte, or always saying the best, most humorous, and brilliant lines of wisdom. Either way, we are all just people and accepting the realities and humanness of family life is the cornerstone of a healthy, functional family.
Also: Motherhood Dreams
The “Idea” of Children and Family Vs. the Reality