The Secret of Parental Happiness

A study came out recently about parental happiness. It found that mothers of large families were one of the groups “most satisfied with life.” I am not surprised.

The researchers correlated it with how much effort parents had to go through to achieve this kind of family. They also found that adoptive parents and parents via IVF tended to be more content, which would also support that theory. When you’ve had to work pretty hard to get the family you hoped for, it can be a very satisfying thing. And I think you appreciate it in a unique way.

But here’s the other thing– I think mothers of large families are just OVER IT in so many ways. You know what I mean? You realize about the time that your three year-old feeds your six month-old a corn syrup laden fruit snack while your back was turned that this whole motherhood thing is probably not going to go as ideally as you’d envisioned. I think I gave up competing for the Mother of the Year award about four kids ago and I’ve been happier ever since.

My toddler at a fast food restaurant- where parenting expectations go to die.

Can I just tell you how impossible it is to be a “good” mother? When we adopted our first child 7 years ago, we were warned about the dangers of introducing peanut butter too early. This was on the level of “don’t shake your baby” seriousness. Introducing peanut butter prior to age 2 = instant allergic reaction. Good mothers do NOT give their babies peanut butter. Fast forward to our fifth and sixth babies just 5 and 6 years later (yes, go ahead and do the math. . . we’ve had 6 kids in 7 years so let’s all just be thankful I’m still mostly sane). Now we are told the best thing we can do to prevent a deathly peanut allergy is. . . drumroll please. . . introduce them to peanut butter early. Like, just wait until they’re holding their head up, done with the tongue thrusting reflex and then just shove some peanut butter in there and hope for the best. (Okay, I may be slightly exaggerating how early. Check with your pediatrician or something.)

This is what mothers of “large families” know that is so incredibly freeing– YOU CAN’T WIN AT MOTHERHOOD.

As soon as you become the perfect mother, somebody changes the rules. You thought you were a great mom because you were rear-facing your baby until age 1? GASP! SCANDAL! Now everybody KNOWS you have to rear-face until age 2 and the Super Moms are rear-facing those kids on the way to Kindergarten. Good Moms watch their kids all the time to make sure they aren’t being bullied, don’t get injured, and feel secure that Mom is always there. AND Good Moms let their kids have the freedom to learn how to solve social conflicts on their own, get injured so they learn their physical limitations, and have independence so they make good decisions even when mom isn’t around. I’m convinced Good Moms are about as “real” as Santa Clause- able to be everywhere and nowhere all at once, always aware of what their kids are doing, offering some perfect balance of mercy and justice at all times, and perpetually jolly.

This is why if I’m looking for some idealistic mom advice, I like to ask first time moms. Particularly ones that only have babies. They’re up on all the latest reading and have faith in all the answers before any baby has asked the question. If I don’t really want advice and just want somebody to say, “RIGHT?!” I like to ask a mom of lots of kids or one who has at least been parenting long enough to have already failed a time or two.

This is why I think first time moms are so stressed out. Can you imagine if your whole parenting reputation was hanging on the success of this one tiny person that at some point around 4 a.m. the first week of motherhood you realize you can’t actually control? That’s a terrifying thought. And it’s even more terrifying to me when I find a mom who has made it to year 4 or 5 of parenting and hasn’t yet realized she actually CAN’T control that child. Compliant children are a blessing (okay, ALL children are a blessing, but complaint ones do tend to make the toddler years a little easier) and sometimes a parent can believe it was their own awesome parenting that created this tiny angel. I would like to apologize for all the times I have felt smug about those hell raiser second born children who believe it was their destiny to undermine those parenting assumptions. I have one, so I’m allowed to giggle about it. I like to call him my “Humility Baby” because when it’s YOUR toddler that snuck up to the front of church and took a bite out of the Communion loaf prior to the service starting, you learn humility pretty quickly.

I kind of think it’s a great kindness when God just ruins your plans for your parenting reputation right off the bat. Planning a natural birth? Nope. That baby had other plans. Breast is best? Nope. Not for your little angel. Babies that don’t sleep through the night, have no desire to hit milestones on your schedule, toddlers that don’t believe in your potty-training methods, preschoolers with no interest in the alphabet, these are all ways you learn that nobody wrote a parenting book about your specific child and if your self-worth is based on them performing up to some mythical parenting standard. . . well, good luck with that.

I am not advocating that we just give up on our kids and let them be free roaming, naked, heathens because what even is the point (although I have had my days). I’m just telling you that if you’re looking for the secret to parental happiness and contentment, it may just be giving up on the idea of parental happiness and contentment. This is what I think moms of large families have learned. This family took time and intentionality to create and during that time we’ve figured out that we can’t do it “right” all the time. When you’ve got three kids crying and they all want you to pick them up, you have to learn that you can’t please everybody or else you will go insane trying. When you’re buying two carts full of groceries a week, you may have to give up on your dreams of feeding them all organic. When you get the first email home from school that simply has your child’s name as the subject line (spoiler alert– this is rarely a good sign), you learn that your academic dreams may not be their academic dreams. And that’s OKAY. The reality is that somewhere around the third kid, I lost the adrenaline response to the sound of someone crying or the crash of something in the other room. And my life is less stressful because of it. Turns out, it rarely was a life and death scenario happening and I was only traumatizing everybody by running in there in a panic.

If I could go back and do my first child over again, I wish I could offer him the grace my sixth child gets. But mostly, I wish I could offer it to myself. Maybe it doesn’t take every mom six kids to figure that out, but apparently I’m a slow learner. This parenting gig is hard work, but it’s so much more enjoyable hard work when you stop taking every perceived failure so personally. I think that might just be the secret to parental happiness.