Parenting In Hindsight

What do you wish you would've known back then?

I see them everywhere: mothers with babies and toddlers, going about their lives. I wouldn’t go back. Those days were hell. There was spit-up on everything, and wading in an endless sea of diapers while spending hours on end trapped in the house by the naps schedule made for all sorts of crazy. The lack of autonomy was shocking and confining, and yet, I feel an ache in my heart and a sadness beyond measure.

Old baby photos and chunky toddler legs trigger an onslaught of feelings too gigantic and totally uncontained. The urge to go back and revisit those moments knocks me hard in the chest. Nostalgia has immense power, and on one hand is joy and the other is pain; for me, it’s a messy and muddled conglomerate of both ends of the spectrum.

The multitude of annoying old ladies at the grocery store were right:

“Enjoy it while you can, honey. They grow up so fast.”

How could I have known? Hindsight is everything.

Snippets—reliving snapshots in time and recovering the precious time that I missed—that’s all I really want.

I’d start at the beginning: a newborn baby. The tiny life that grew inside me, torturing me for months, asleep on my chest, while I inhaled the scent of her soft, fuzzy head and listened to the sound of her breath was everything to me. I miss these moments, even though I was tired and wrecked from childbirth and overwhelmed by my new identity.

You can read the rest of what this mom has to say on Scary Mommy. When you're finished, leave a comment and share your take on parenting in hindsight.