Learner Dad: do I actually love parenting? No, I don’t. Do I hate it? Sometimes

"Parenting is a little bit annoying or a little bit enjoyable, but nothing that I’ll remember next week. And that’s fine too."

"When you’re tired and run off your feet, something small going your way can change your day."

“I love my kids but I hate parenting”, my wife said the other night when we were pottering around after dinner. I thought she’d finally cracked because the last few months have been hard on all of us, but it turns out she was just reading out a headline that Google pushed out on her phone. But Google knows us better than we knew ourselves, so they were probably trying to tell her something.

It made me wonder – do I actually love parenting? No, I don’t. Do I hate it? Sometimes. Before the kids came along, I’d often unwind after dinner with a nap on the couch. I love falling asleep during the day, a bit of drool dropping out the corner of my mouth. Now the after-dinner half hour is all go, dealing with the dishwasher, saying no when the kids ask for treats, resisting the temptation to put on the TV so they’ll leave us alone to have a quasi-nap standing up because if we put on the TV too early they’ll be like demons going to bed. So yeah, I hate parenting between 6 and 7pm most days, which is probably why Google picked that time to push out the story.