Today, I just want to make some observations as a parent and see if some of you agree.
1. Mothers tend to use about two to three maybe four wipes for a general messy pamper where we fathers can easily use eight or more for the same job.
2. Mothers take much longer than fathers to bathe, dress, cream or feed the children.
3. Children receive forgiveness for wrongs committed much quicker than fathers who do wrong.
4. God has given mothers a greater grace than fathers to handle messy pampers, snotty nose, vomit and potty training. It isn’t that we can’t do it, but God has blessed mothers with the patience, tolerance and long-suffering. Mothers should walk in their strengths.
5. Most parents can’t remember the last time they spent money on clothes for themselves.
6. No matter how early you wake up to prepare, it always seems you are rushing to get out of the house.
7. A lack of sleep and personal time are two main things you lose when you become a parent but putting up of clothes and washing bottles seem like punishment.
8. It always feels like you are always washing dishes and clothes.
9. At night when we walk in the bedroom and see the little ones peacefully sleeping, nothing wrong they have done during the day matters and we just hug and kiss them and rub our cheeks on theirs and whisper how much we love them.
10. There is not another job more stressful or tiring yet rewarding and beautiful than being a parent.
11. Sometimes you feel like just screaming.
12. Grandparents and parents clash often as it relates to raising the children. One of the comments from grandparents that pushes you over the edge is: “Look I raise you and you come out fine, so give the little ones a break.” We parents often reply, yes, you raised me, so let me raise my children.
13. I don’t know a parent who enjoys packing bags before leaving home.
14. With all the technology in the world, you mean to tell me that no one can invent an easier way to put in a car seat?
15. Most parents have said this: “My phone/iPad/computer is not a toy.”
16. One of a parents most used phrases – “stop it”.
17. Most parents have in their cupboard Panadol, Actifed, children’s Advil, Bisolvon, Histal or Bactrim.
18. Mothers plait children’s hair and work through the screaming and crying. The average dad would put it in one and done with that.
I only have two children and I feel completely drained daily. How do people with three or more do it? A male friend of mine, who has 4 children, shared his Saturday schedule with me . . . Wow.
7 a.m. – Wake children, first load of laundry, (wife makes breakfast).
7:30 a.m. – Get four-year-old and five-month-old ready.
7:45 a.m. – Hang out first load put in second.
8 a.m. – Through the door with wife and kids.
8:15 a.m. – Drop off wife to teach lessons.
8:30 a.m. – Drop off 12-year-old to cadets.
8:50 a.m. – Drop off four-year-old to dancing.
9:15 am. – Back to help with wife with lessons.
10 a.m. – Pick up four-year-old from dancing.
10:20 a.m. – Back home for 13-year-old, hang out second load put in third load.
11 a.m. – Drop off 13-year-old to art class.
12 p.m. – Pick up 12-year-old from cadets.
12:15 p.m. – Buys lunch/snack.
1 p.m. – Drop off 12-year-old at drum class.
1:30-2 p.m. – Pick up wife from lessons/pick up 13-year-old from art class.
2:30 p.m. – Pick up 12-year-old from drumming.
3-3:30 p.m. – Sometimes sound check (if there’s a gig) or take wife to town or son may have to go directly to a performance.
4:45 p.m. – Home, hang out third load sometimes a fourth load if necessary, rest/nap.
5:45 p.m. – Prepare to leave for an event or schedule a studio session, which may go up to 11 or 12 p.m.
• Corey Worrell is a former Commonwealth Youth Ambassador.
