The Best and the Worst Parts of Becoming a Parent – Mommy Blogger

03/26/2019

Hi, I’m Becca. I’m a mom to a beautiful and wonderfully silly toddler named Bridget who is 2. I stay at home with her, but I’m also growing a business and have recently started my own blog. When I’m not busy figuring out how to balance mom life and taking on the world, I love to bake, watch Netflix till 1am, have game nights and read. I survive on caffeine and sarcasm and try to live a life full of gratitude. You can follow my exploits on Instagram @brighteyeshappyheart or visit my blog brighteyeshappyheartcom.wordpress.com

I’ve heard it said that one of the hardest things about being a parent is trying to discipline the “you” out of your child.  I am definitely not here to disagree with that! When I call my own mom and complain to her that Bridget won’t nap or that she is so willful and keeps giving me that “you’re not the boss of me” toddler look, my mom just looks at me and says “Becca, that’s exactly what you were like at her age.”

Great!

I’ll be talking to my mother in law and mention how Bridget is in full on toddler tantrum mode and how she just likes to throw herself around, and she will say “Alan did that exact same thing.”

Fantastic!

I just know that the sarcastic eye rolling comes from both sides. So we have created a willful, sleepless, sarcastic toddler who is prone to tantrums and we really have no one to blame but ourselves.  And even though we get frustrated and angry with her sometimes for doing all of these things (and more!) we just know that this behaviour isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  It’s ingrained in her on a cellular level it turns out.

Fun!

On the flip side though, one of the best things about being a parent is seeing all of the good qualities of yourself and your partner that you have passed on to your child. I love the way that she has Alan’s curiosity and intelligence.  (I’ll claim a little of that myself, but I know a lot of it comes from him.)  She has my focus and determination and when she really wants something, nothing will get in her way. That can be good or bad for us as parents depending on what she has her mind set on, but it will undoubtedly serve her well in the future.  She gets her sense of humour from both of us and she can be a huge goof, which I just love and wouldn’t change for the world.

Sometimes when I am having a bad day or I’m really hard on myself, I just look at Bridget and she reminds me that I’ve passed on the best of who I am to her which means it has to be in me to start with.  If she can achieve whatever she puts her mind to, then so can I.

Becoming a parent has changed many things for me.  How I spend my “free time”, my priorities, what I feel is truly important in the long run, and so much more.  But one of the biggest things that has happened since I had Bridget is the fact that I have learned to love both the good and the bad parts of myself that I see in me and in her.  All of those qualities from myself and Alan have mixed and been integrated into what is all uniquely Bridget to create this amazing little girl.  So are those “bad” qualities really so bad?  No. They just make things a little more difficult at times.  And sure, wouldn’t life be great if parenting was always easy and your kids always listened to you and napped when you told them to or didn’t throw tantrums because they want to eat out of a different coloured cereal bowl? Yes, it would be, but that isn’t reality. Those difficult qualities are still there and always will be. What we can do though is teach our children to love all the aspects of who they are and to deal with those difficult parts of themselves as best they can, and maybe we learn to love ourselves and our difficult qualities along the way.