I have done a lot of hard things in my life. And I love complaining about them.
For many years, I was a runner. I have run two half-marathons, a Tough Mudder, a 15K race, several 10Ks and more 5Ks than I can remember. And like most people who have done long-distance running, boy, do I want to tell you all about it.
I love to complain about the shin splints, the blisters, the lost toenails, the fractured metatarsals. For many runners, the difficulty is the main appeal. That, and the 13.1 bumper stickers you can smugly apply to your car.
In my early 20s, I went backpacking alone across 14 countries in Europe over the course of six months. I love to go into detail complaining about the disgusting hostels, the creepy men I fended off, the loud hostel roommates, the buses I missed, the miscalculations while converting measurements from metric and even the time I missed seeing The Cranberries in Cork, Ireland, by one day. Of course there was the staggering loneliness and fear being half a world away from every person who knew or cared about me.
I love complaining about all the bad dates I went on when I was young and single – the man who talked about his mother for an hour straight and proceeded to call her during dinner to tell her how well the date was going (our opinions on the date greatly differed); the missed turn on what was supposed to be a fun 3-mile hike with a new boyfriend that transformed into a 13-mile miserable slog. (We survived the hike, our relationship did not.); or being catfished by a man online for weeks who showed up to our date with his weird best friend and informed me he actually wanted me to be the friend’s girlfriend.
Not only do I love complaining about the big difficulties I’ve endured, but also I also enjoy lamenting minor inconveniences. Whether it’s a 5 a.m. wake up, a late Amazon delivery or a lingering cold that won’t go away, I’m ready to let you know how much it stinks.
I think most people enjoy complaining about life’s problems as much as I do, except in one area of life – their children. Becoming a parent has been the most difficult experience of my life, and I’m only three years into it (four, if you count pregnancy, and I definitely do.). But it’s taboo to be too honest about parental complaints out of fear that people will think you don’t love your children.
For some people, the rush to minimize child-related suffering begins before the pregnancy even occurs. Couples facing infertility or miscarriage often feel pressured to stay quiet about their pain. I didn’t even know that some of my friends had fertility issues until they finally had a child and offhandedly mentioned they’d gone through a few miscarriages and several rounds of IVF treatments.
“It was five years of unadulterated hell,” they said before realizing their faux pas and quickly added in an upbeat tone, “but it was all worth it for our little miracle!”
I wanted to say, “Friend, can we back up to the part where you said you were in pain for years and told no one? You deserve to shout your pain from the rooftops, if you want. Even if your suffering had a happy ending, it still matters.”
Once you do get pregnant, your body does every weird uncomfortable thing it can, giving you plenty of complain-worthy fodder. You can’t breathe, you can’t sleep, you’re tired all the time. And, then there’s the morning sickness, which is quite a misnomer. It should be called “all freaking day sickness,” but I guess that doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely. If you do mention that constant nausea, some Suzy Sunshine will remind you that “it’s a sign the baby is healthy!”
Thanks, Suzy. Very comforting.
Don’t even get me started on labor. It was the worst 53 hours of my life, four of them pushing, followed by major abdominal surgery to rip my big-headed baby out of my womb. I had the longest labor of anyone I know and plan to complain about it until the day I die.
Then once you have your sweet little angel, the battle for your sanity begins. First off, it’s boring as heck for a solid 6 months. They just sleep, stare at nothing, poop and cry. When my husband returned home from work during those days, I would attack him with a deluge of conversation, desperate to talk to an adult. Why aren’t people complaining more about how boring babies are? Sure, they’re cute, but not exactly riveting entertainment.
Add on the loss of sleep, the loss of your identity and the loss of all personal time, all while you’re battling postpartum anxiety, terrified your baby is going to suddenly drop dead any moment for no reason because babies just do that sometimes.
As my son has gotten older, more intelligent, willful, and insanely talkative, I’ve started wishing for silence, counting the minutes until he goes to sleep and I can have five minutes without hearing “mama” every 10 seconds. Then I feel guilty for delighting in the time away from my angelic child and promptly start watching videos of him on my phone.
Potty training also drove me to the brink of insanity. The terrible 2’s meltdowns and tantrums have me questioning my parenting on a daily basis. Keeping him off the Christmas tree is fraying my nerves. And I’m one of the luckiest parents I know. My son is happy, healthy and extremely sweet.
I love my son so much I regularly cry while staring at him in wonder. How did I make such a perfect little person? I would take a bullet for this kid, no questions asked.
But when he wakes me up at 4 a.m. and pukes down my shirt, or screams bloody murder because I didn’t sing “Ring Around the Rosie” the way he likes, or cries because I gave him the wrong color cup, I’m going to complain about it. Because being a parent is hard. And I like complaining about hard things.
And you Suzy Sunshines can keep your “one day you’re going to miss this” comments to yourselves.