Sharon talks about being a parent vs. pet owner

“My friend thinks she understands what it is like to be a parent because she has pets. She has no idea what it is like,” declared my daughter, a relatively new mother.
“With a child, you have to think about the 40, 60, 80-year impact of your decisions. You don’t have to do that with a dog or a cat. Most of them won’t be around 20 years from now, but my children will, and if I don’t make good choices for them now, if I don’t train them to be kind, gentle, gracious, responsible, my mistakes will be there for others to deal with for a long time.”
Her friend owns a couple dogs and volunteers for a local shelter finding new homes for cats – including my daughter’s kid-friendly, black cat Pirate. Conversations have waned between the two in recent months because the animal-loving friend simply does not understand the role and responsibilities of a mother of young children.
“I thought I was stressed when it was just my husband and I, and I taught school. If folks called and wanted us to do something on Saturday morning, we were just too stressed, too busy to do that. Busy! Right! We were busy sleeping in until noon,” my daughter shook her head in disbelief at that long, lost luxury now that she has a 3 year-old son and a 9 month-old daughter.
“Try sleeping in any day or leaving a 9 month-old child or even a 3 year-old home alone for a couple hours while you go shopping, out for coffee with a friend or to the mall! You can legally do that with a pet, and no will say anything. You can not do that with a child.”
“You can leave a pet outside on the porch all night. You can not do that with a child. If you get tired of a pet, realize its personality does not match yours or that it is simply too big and energetic for your house, you can put an ad in the paper.”
“Just try that with a child. Can you see the ad?” she laughed, thinking about her 3-year-old. “Available, one charming 3 year-old. Too energetic for our quiet home. Needs large house, sturdy furniture and back yard with myriad of playground equipment.”
“I have had a dog and cats. I had a job teaching school, and I thought I was stressed then. Hah! There is an invisible wall that you go through when you become a parent. A wall that you have no clue exists until you pass through it and realize how much everything has changed. Nothing will ever be the same again,” she mused.
“I did not realize all that being a parent involved until I had a child, and now I have two and baby-sit a couple others. It is simply not the same as having a pet. It is not the same living inside the parent world as looking into the parent world from the outside. Everything has changed so much.”
She no longer spends hours shopping for clothes. Now she is lucky to grab a few minutes to go grocery shopping at 9 p.m. after the children have gone to bed. And, now she shops thrift shops for bargains.
Before she could tune in to any stations she wanted on the television or radio. Now, she has to consider what her son sees and hears. Her little boy copies and repeats everything he hears and asks about anything he sees and does not understand.
Before leaving the house, she has to plan for the children. Her hands and time are rarely empty and free.
Her husband cared for the children alone several hours one Saturday and caught a glimpse of her life. When she returned he said, “it takes some of the fun out of having children when you have to stay with them all day and find ways to make them happy.”
“No one said that having children was easy, but there is a lot of difference between knowing that and experiencing it,” she concluded.
As a pet owner she fussed over her withdrawn, depressed, arthritic cat. It responded and improved its mood and looks. That was a walk in the park compared to her daughter’s first year and the three years she has already completed to prepare her son for school and adulthood. Having children absorbs her life these days — and she would not change a bit of it – not even for the world’s cutest kitten or most lovable puppy.
(Writing with her daughter, Sharon Schulte, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)