Stop Telling Young Parents “You’ll Miss This Someday”
The good things will be remembered. It’s okay to forget the bad stuff.
Imagine it: a toddler is melting down in the middle of a grocery aisle. The toddler’s mother is taking deep breaths, staying as calm as she can, wrestling her screaming child back into the cart while silently praying that no one will notice.
But of course someone does notice, and it’s a middle-aged woman with grown children of her own, and she chooses that exact moment to offer relevant, timely and helpful words of advice to the struggling mom before proceeding on her merry way.
“You’re going to miss all this someday, you know.”
In this instance, the young mother isn’t necessarily me. I mean, she could be me. She has been me. But she’s also every mom — and dad — who has taken a child out in public and smiled through a stranger’s unsolicited admonishment.
“I miss those days. You’re going to miss these days. Enjoy it. It won’t last. Just wait.”
It’s not reassuring.
It’s a guilt trip.
One night, when my first son was not quite four months old, it echoed in my brain like a haunting earworm. For a full week, he had gone peacefully to sleep in his bassinet at 7:00 or…
