This blog post is adapted from a personal Facebook status update; I keep wanting to share it when “BUT PARENTING” becomes a legitimate, all-encompassing argument somehow, so I thought I would enshrine it as a blog post for easy reference.
Parenting social media status updates often sound like chronic condition social media status updates. Basically, choosing activities by what energy you have to use. And yet parents always claim they are the only ones who know what real tired is.
Parents Do Not Own “Tired”
Parenting and chronic illness look damn similar from the semi outside.
And while acknowledging that I don’t doubt parenting is hard (one of many reasons I don’t want kids)… well, most people chose to be parents.
People with chronic conditions don’t get to choose that. Kids might leave after 20 years but chronic conditions are for life.
That and the “ownership” of tired by parents bother me a lot. I actually think the two groups have more in common and could learn from/support each other.
The choice aspect is the biggest thing here I think. While I don’t have a chronic condition, I know I can be made to feel guilty for being stressed or tired because I don’t have children and therefore apparently no reason to be this way. But newsflash, I also have financial stresses and life stresses like the next person. Also I choose to not have them for various reasons including knowing that it’ll stretch me more than what I already give at the moment. I just wish everyone could be supportive kids or no kids.
It’s the comparison that I can most often see – but also, why does it matter? It doesn’t matter if you have kids or a chronic condition or both or neither – if we are feeling something, it doesn’t need to be diminished by competition of who has it worse. It just invalidates everyone’s feelings and experiences for no good outcome.