- In real life you get to change jobs. In parenting your job changes you. (You thought I was going to say, “you get to change diapers”, didn’t you?)
- In real life you get a salary. In parenting you try to serve celery.
- In real life you wonder whether anyone likes you. In parenting you know they do for 2 years, you know they don’t for two years, you know they do for two years. you know they…
- In real life what you wear matters most when you are a teen. In parenting what you wear matters most to your teen.
- In real life sleeping late is a weekly reward. In parenting, sleep is a weekly reward.
- In real life you wish you could scream at your boss. In parenting, you actually do scream at your boss (and then beat yourself up for yelling at a child and then for for letting them be the boss)
- In real life you can’t wait til you are older. In parenting, you can’t wait until they are older.
- In real life, you wonder whether what you are doing matters. In parenting, you wonder whether what you are doing matters…but some days you get a hug.
by Jon Swanson
Photo graciously provided by the author, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
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3 responses so far ↓
inthefastlane // Aug 20, 2008 at 5:14 am
In real life you don’t get to “quit this job” when the boss is too demanding or changes their mind every two seconds, or throws a bowl of food during a “meeting.”
jon // Aug 20, 2008 at 5:28 am
actually, I have in real life.
8 ways goes parenting « Levite Chronicles // Aug 23, 2008 at 9:32 am
[...] 8 ways goes parenting Filed under: 8 ways — Tags: 8 ways, gnmparents, parenting — Jon Swanson @ 12:24 pm I write elsewhere on occasion. This week I took my 8 ways series to GNMParents.com with 8 ways parenting is not like real life. [...]
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