I'm afraid it ain't getting any easier, folks

Since I became a parent and especially since I went back to work, I've had this general idea that the toughest years were the first few ones. I mean, right now, my family is my one priority as opposed to say, my career, and so obviously my efforts are put into spending as little time as needed at work so that I can spend as much time as possible with LP. I'm responsible for my own schedule and it's perfectly OK for me to leave early most days, but at the same time, you will understand that I'm not exactly overachieving right now. I had not completely thought this through, but I kind of unconsciously figured that I would do that for a couple of years, during the time I thought LP needed me the most.

But recently, while talking about this with co-workers who are a little ahead in their parenting journey, I realized that they were all sort of envying me for still being "in the diaper stage." And it made me change my perspective a bit. I consider our life to be somewhat hectic, not to the point where it's not manageable, because, well, my hours are flexible and we only have one kid, but still, there are days when I can just feel the little veins bulging on my forehead while trying to get through "rush hour" (between 4 and 8, no doubt the busiest part of each day) and not being very successful at it.

Still, a working mom to 3 girls pointed out to me, the "daycare years" are nothing compared to the grade school years. And another co-worker further commented that he personally thought the early school years were nothing compared to the teenage years, when your life essentially consists of schlepping your kids around in order to cater to their super full extracurricular and social calendar.

It figures. Let's say (hypothetically!) that we have kiddo no. 2 in a couple of years. In 4 years, LP will be in first grade. At the end of each weekday, I'll still have to do everything I'm doing now (running errands, putting dinner on the table, preparing things for the next day, etc.), but I'll also have two different stops on my way home: school and daycare, plus I'll have to oversee LP's homework while also taking care of the youngest. Not to mention that LP will probably have at least a few activities, like soccer practice in the summer or maybe English or music lessons or whatever.

Right now, this overwhelms me. I know people do it all the time, and I know we'll be fine. I also know that everything comes in stages, and not all at once: you don't go from being childless to having two teenagers with driving licenses. Before I was a mom I was overwhelmed by the idea of being one, and well, I guess I turned out OK. Before my mat leave ended, I didn't know how we could ever manage with me working, and we do. So it's probably the same when you add another child to the mix, or school, etc.

This brings me to think that there is no "easier" phase to parenting after all. I love working and it's important to me, but I guess there will be no moment when I'll feel that LP "needs me less," not for another ten years at least, and there's not doubt in my mind that he comes first. So this probably means that my career will remain in the background a bit (in the sense that it's pretty much a "mean to an end"), just so I can balance work and the quality of life I want. I'm not the most workaholic or climbing-the-corporate-ladder-driven person, so maybe it would have been the case kids or no kids, but it's still a strange realization that the stage has pretty much been set for you.

And as for the upcoming family-related challenges, we'll take them one by one as they come. Yes, one day LP will mostly see us as his ride, but then when this time comes, he'll also be autonomous enough so that I can rediscover the pleasures of child-free living, like spending time alone, reading a book hours at a time, or going to see a movie with M and have a very inspiring and interesting discussion about it afterward.