alt Hacker NewsHaving kids really helps with making peace with unlived dreams. You simply are too tired to even think about those dreams. You are lucky if you can get one night of good sleep —- and trust me a good sleep when you have kids is different from a good sleep before that.
Maybe you're there already, but there's a transition that happens when your kids become (quite suddenly and strangely unexpectedly) adolescents.
And then many of us have found ourselves staring at the past 15 years wondering where it all went.
There's a deep meaning to be found in comforting a crying child in the night, changing their diaper, preparing their meals, etc. Can be a total grind, fatiguing, but you're living an immanent moment and caring for the being that depends on you fully.
Being a parent to a teenager or young adult becomes something else entirely, and then all the self-needs you put pause on can come bubbling back in ways that can be difficult to deal with.