What it’s like to have a child

Four years in

This is how you see your young child most of the time — right up close. Photo: Author.

Some thoughts —

• Raising children is a difficult and often unpleasant job in which we take enormous care and pride. This is because this job is a privilege — it’s like washing God’s feet.
• Children need love like we need air. To deprive children of love is to suffocate them, doing irreparable harm.
• Your relationship with your partner will definitely come under strain as a result of having a child. A new child has a destabilising effect on your relationship and household. The stamina and strength of two people is required to come out of it in a stronger relationship.
• Your relationship with your own parents will more likely improve.
• Having a child was the worst thing that happened to my former self. Good riddance.
• My daughter cries, with great sadness, when she understands that she has done something wrong. It’s not that she’s upset because she has been rebuked, she’s upset about the wrongness of what she’s done. Children wrestle with their emotions, with their desires and the expectations set for them transparently and publicly. I learn a lot about my own emotions by observing my daughter.
• It’s endlessly fascinating to watch her draw or write primitive numbers and letters. I try to partially…