What percentage would you say is stress, raising children

allthingsblue

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 11:26 am

amother [ Amethyst ] wrote:

I don't think 75 percent stress is typical. Sounds very extreme.

Stress= worrying about what to feed baby when she refuses to drink milk, or eat solids.
Stress= going to the dr 5 times in a month for two different kids.
Stress= going out of your way to arrange play dates do your child will have a better chance at social success.
Stress= making sure the kids are dressed and fed healthy food each morning, and are clean and well fed each night.
Stress= taking care of your kids while also somehow needing to put up dinner, perhaps even a load of laundry
Stress= your supermarket is not doing anymore deliveries before shabbos, but you need to go shopping so you go with all the kinderlach in tow because you don't have anyone who can watch them.
Stress= taking off from work for sick children or numerous appointments
Stress= long Friday afternoons when you're exhausted but need to entertain your kids (sometimes their friends too) while not letting your house get turned over before shabbos even starts
Stress= finding and making food that is somewhat healthy as well as palatable for everyone in the family
Stress= remaining calm and loving despite child's tantrum/grumpy mood

I love my children and am endlessly grateful for them but the stress exists.

ectomorph

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 11:29 am

It's all in how you look at it. I could be stressed at going to the doctor, or I can view it as an amazing opportunity to get outside and teach my kids skills of behaving in public.

I could view making food as a stress, or I could be grateful to have money and resources and look forward to delicious healthy food.

I could be annoyed at waking up 10x a night, or I could look forward to my babysitter coming so I can get some sleep.

If you focus on the stress, it increases.

amother

Coffee

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 11:40 am

Every child has different strengths & weaknesses & also diffferent stages as they grow up. You can't generalize across the board.

I had babies who were colic with reflux & kept me up at night. A baby who slept thru, & didn't know what is wrong with him? I thought he might not wake up in morn if he didn't want to eat all night. A baby who was in nicu to start out.

Infants/Toddlers who made huge messes. An infant/ toddler who I had to dump to babysitter in order to run to another child in hospital.

One baby who stayed quiet nicely in infant seat & was such a content baby but is paying back tenfold today with his boundless energy/ aggression/impulsivity.

A bright energetic challenging child who I needed to keep busy with constructive things or get him company because he had no siblings for a while.

A long awaited child who brought us such joy with his arrival but later had to fight for his life.

A delicious first girlie who I couldn't enjoy as I was dealing with sickness of other child.

A girlie who didn't do such antics as her brothers but didn't stop her incessant kvetching.

A teenager who does amazing stuff but also his own stuff that we don't always like

Tzutzie

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 11:52 am

My sil has 12 kids one after the other kyh!. They are fed and dressed and happy socail helathy kids. I always wondered how???
Somehow I always commected to her 8 year old. He reminds me of my own kids... full if zest and life.
She says all 11 of her kids together are easier than her 8 year old..... I wonder what she'd do with 2 of those....

It depends on the nature's of the parent and child. But its not 75% stress. Of it is something needs to be done to change it.

dankbar

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 11:58 am

All things blue you are talking about normal routine stresses. Shall everyone only always be busy with these normal trivial stresses that you need to go thru as kids grow up & nothing worse.

People deal with much larger stresses besides for the regulars.
When someone lives in poverty & has many mouths to feed?
When a parent is not emotionally stable & kids have to witness it?
When mom has to make 3 different suppers to accommodate all her different allergy children?
When she has to be there for all her children home but also to the child who is in hospital?
When she has an otd child? a defiant child? an adhd child? a pyhsically disabled child or autistic child? on top of regular children?
When her kids are expelled from school & don't have yeshivas?
A child she can't find a shidduch for & stays lingering in the house as adult? Can't tell them what to do but they're underfoot?
A husband who is in jail & she has to take care of her kids on own plus the shame from street, and can't get a get & needs to support him despite his wrongdoings as he us the father of het children etc etc
Idk whatever else people are dealing with?
Going through a divorce with custody battles....with children involved
Going through secondary infertility treatments, where she has to be by doctor early morn, but her kids need to go into bus, and she doesnt want her neighbors to know so can't ask for favors.....

Any stress/nisoyon a person go through will be magnified when children are involved. Besides coping & dealing with your own stress you need to take the children's stresses about the situation into account & every child will react differently & need to work on the reprecussions of each individually

amother

Pink

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 12:27 pm

ectomorph wrote:

Op, I don't get your point

Some people have bad marriages. Is it right to tell young people that marriage is 90% stress? Not only isn't it true, you're preventing them from giving it a chance.

Do you tell her that work is awful, sucks up all your time, you never get paid enough and bosses are awful?

For heaven's sake. Let her have some joy in her life! Don't teach her to only see the negative

Ectomorph and some of the others...why do you have the need to be so hurtful and judgmental? So amother lightheartedly warns her daughter about the difficulty of raising children...so she asks if you too experience children as mostly stressful work sprinkeled with the greatest joy that overpowers the challange...why do you need to lecture her about parenting her daughter? why do you need to assume that she doesn't "let her have joy" or teaches her to "only see the negative"...in your deepest heart do you think the way you respond to her innocuous and playful question is not a little demeaning? And when OP reads she's not hurt and disappointed she even dared ask?

Please examine your own motives when answering with directives and lack of compassion...and dont feel compelled to offer your expert opinion if it's not coming from a place of deep consideration and respect

Teomima

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 12:33 pm

You really can never know how your parenting experience will be until you do it yourself. My dh was intent on being a very modern, involved, hands-on kind of dad, just to find that being a father was the most stressful experience of his life. For him it gets easier as the kids get older and he can converse and bond with them, but he can not tolerate them as babies/toddlers/young children.

I, on the other hand, find parenting a cinch. But I also have other issues in my life that cause me so much stress and not nearly the same amount of nachas as my kids do, that I hardly ever feel overwhelmed by my children. I'm also the opposite of dh in that I find it easier when they're younger and the older, more rebellious, emotional, and hormonal they get is a pain in the neck. Ahh, give me an infant or a five year old any day!

ectomorph

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 12:41 pm

amother [ Pink ] wrote:

Op doesn't seem light hearted to me!

amother

Pink

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 1:10 pm

ectomorph wrote:

Oops! I didn't read the op! Sorry!

Sorry to drive the point further, but even if OP wasn't lighthearted, there is a way to use language to dignify and teach (if you have the need to teach) with gentleness and compassion. Ur assumptions and exasperated for "heaven's sake" expression is not an example of that.

Please take into consideration.

amother

Cerise

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 1:48 pm

I also wanted like 12 kids before I had any. My first made me adjust that number much lower. I wish someone would have given me some inkling of how hard it would be. That said, there are so many different possibilities of experience that I don't think you can really expect any accurate "warning". For instance, the conventional wisdom is little kids little problems, big kids big problems. My own experience has been the opposite. I enjoy parenting more and more as they get older. I don't like babies at all and I have not spent so much as a second of my life missing any of my kids' babyhoods. Sleep makes the biggest difference to me, I think. When I'm sleep deprived, it's 90% stress, when I'm getting enough sleep, it's 90% joy.

leah233

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 3:32 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

For instance, the conventional wisdom is little kids little problems, big kids big problems. My own experience has been the opposite. I enjoy parenting more and more as they get older. I don't like babies at all and I have not spent so much as a second of my life missing any of my kids' babyhoods. Sleep makes the biggest difference to me, I think. When I'm sleep deprived, it's 90% stress, when I'm getting enough sleep, it's 90% joy.

Loss of sleep for a baby isn't really a problem. It is the way the world is supposed to be.

When my oldest was a baby I was hosting a few boys from a teens at risk Yeshiva for a Shabbos meal.

My son started to cry. I gave him a pacifier and he calmed down.

Looking at those boys this almost caused me to cry . There was a time in their lives too, that all their parents had to do to was give them a pacifier, a bottle, a blanket, hold them etc. and everything would be OK.

Now just imagine the pain they all must be going through with no clear resolution in sight.

Yes little children little problems, bigger children bigger problems.

chanatron1000

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 3:45 pm

leah233 wrote:

You're comparing unhealthy teens with healthy babies.

amother

Pink

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 3:51 pm

leah233 wrote:

And yet the amother did experience the lack of sleep as a problem! And yet she does recall these years as gloomy due to severe sleep deprivation! Can you let her experience be as she recalls it, as she decides to tell it, as she feels it?

leah233

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 4:26 pm

amother [ Pink ] wrote:

I was only referring to her use of that expression

Something that is the normal way of the world is not usually considered a problem . Even if it is very inconvenient and a big downside to doing something.

A problem is an abnormal situation, that doesn't resolve itself preventing you from achieving something.

The expression" little children little problems, bigger children bigger problems" is referring to the unwanted difficulties that spring up with child rearing.Not standard issues that everyone faces.

Those who use it would not see having a two year old with a serious illness very different than a having a teenager with a serious illness.

They use it in the following context:

A healthy teenager is almost always physically easier than a healthy baby. The question is which is emotionally easier. A bigger child can cause a lot more emotional pain and a lot more serious issues with no known resolution than a little child can.

That is what the expression " little children little problems, bigger children bigger problems" refers to.

Last edited by leah233 on Wed, Jun 12 2019, 9:45 pm; edited 2 times in total

thunderstorm

Wed, Jun 12 2019, 4:44 pm

I honestly wanted 12 kids. I davened my heart out under my chuppah asking HaShem to be blessed with a large family. Little did I know what it would mean to be pregnant 3 weeks after my wedding. Having a child 10 months after my wedding. He was a good baby and I had stopped working but then baby #2 was born 15 months later. I developed thyroid problems. I had zero energy. I felt depleted physically. It all took a toll on my emotionally. I felt like a failure that two kids was so overwhelming. I realized HaShem had other plans and I'm not cut out to be a mother of 12 . But deep down inside I wish I was capable to manage it. I wish I had the mental health to do it. It's a shattered dream that my idealistic self once had. I'm happy I got to at least dream about it. But realty hits really fast and hard and wakes you up .