The Price of Parenthood: The Sacrifices You Make for Your Children

As the holiday season came to an end, and I began un-decking the halls into bins and boxes, I found a handwritten note tucked in a corner near the fireplace. Written in green crayon, barely legible, was a note to Santa that my six year old son must've written on Christmas Eve.

"Dear Santa, I love you.

Love, Mason."

This particular Christmas seemed to be sprinkled with more magic than usual, as we've learned to truly soak in the good moments after several years of having our lives dictated by the ups and downs a cancer diagnosis brings.

This Christmas also marked the last one when there was still a little Santa magic in each of our four children. For our newly minted teenager, he was mostly just pretending to be believe in case the non-believers got a stocking full of socks and undies.

Parenting is a lot like the concept of Santa Claus. This dawned on me one morning when I was emptying the dishwasher. I pulled out one of my “Been There Series” Starbucks mugs. This particular mug from my collection was from The Netherlands, a place I’d never personally been to but Ty brought it back for me after visiting for an Autism conference he’d attended a few years back.

I placed The Netherlands mug in it’s place on the shelf, between the San Diego and Los Angeles Starbucks mugs, two places I had been to several times since I’ve lived nearly my entire life in the Golden State. My mind traveled back to a few months prior, when my 20 year old niece, Lola, traveled to Europe for a grand adventure with her sweet boyfriend. 

I remembered my mom calling me excitedly, telling me all about the different places Lola had visited, and proudly listing off all the new Starbucks “Been There” mugs they’d brought back for her as a souvenir. There was Paris, London, England, and a couple others I can’t recall, and my mom loved each and every one of them. 

In my mothers 65 years of life, she’d only traveled abroad one time and left her homestate of California for a vacation maybe a handful of times. Did she like to travel? Most certainly! Susie Morales is hands down the most adventurous person I’ve ever met and if she wasn’t always putting her childrens needs before her own, I’m also certain she’d be a woman with traveling pants! 

But that’s not parenthood, is it? 

From my vantage point, parenthood looks like my mom, who wouldn’t hesitate to invest her own savings into ensuring her children or grandchildren could see the world before she’d even consider using her money to send herself on a vacation. I’ve watched my dad drive around our city in an old beat up truck with genuine contentment while his kids drove off to college in safe and shiny cars. 

I’m not sure what the opposite of narcissism is, but my parents are the epitome of this. I’ve been lucky to have inherited at least a small fraction of this selflessness as

I’ve joyfully signed up my kids for things like horseback riding lessons and spend almost all of my hard earned money on excellent preschools and well fitting shoes for each of my children. Each time I watch my daughter ride that horse, I feel in awe of what I’ve been able to provide for her. I could feel jealousy or burden Charlotte with guilt about the fact that I never got to have those same opportunities as a child, but my mom taught me that a mother’s love is often quiet and internalized.

It’s not important that she knows how much money each lesson costs, or for her to internalize the fact that her parents have had to rework our own monthly budget to allow her to continue with such a luxury experience. 

You know why? Because what good would this do any of us? If we told her this, we’d be giving her the burden of possibly feeling like she owes us something in return.

And I hate to break this to you all, parents, but our children owe us absolutely nothing.

Our role as parents is to pour as much as we are able to into our children so they can then pour it all back into the world. The sacrifices we make now may not ever be recognized or even returned back to us, but that is not the point of life. When my dad drove around in his beat up old truck, he never once expected that we’d someday surprise him with a new ferrari.

Well, maybe in his wildest dreams he did. 

Maybe it’s all just an evolutionary act, but when I look back at the generations before me, the one thing all the parents have in common is that they want their children to have a better life than they did. 

This morning as I was gearing myself up for another Monday, I glanced down at my phone to see a short text from my best friend. 

“What are your plans for Ty’s birthday?” Jenny had texted. 

Oh, right, my dear husbands birthday is coming up in mid February and it’s just like Jenny to think of others, though I’m continuously in awe of how she remembers anyone else’s birthdays since she has SIX children of her own! I, however, am a horrible birthday rememberer and even my closest loved ones often get forgotten. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a fault I'll admit to. 

After a few hours, I finally remember to write a reply.

Did I mention that I’m also a horrible text responder? I’m lucky I have any friends at all, really!

“Noah’s soccer team made it to regionals, so we’ll be spending Ty’s birthday weekend in good ol’ Bakersfield.” I hit send. 

It hits me that we also spent Ty’s birthday last year in Bakersfield for Charlotte’s soccer tournament, proving my point that there is so much sacrifice when it comes to parenting. Not that watching our children play soccer is an awful experience, in fact it’s an absolute privilege to do so, but I’m sure Ty may like to spend one of his adult birthdays somewhere other than a cheap hotel in good ol’ Bakersfield. 

The crazy part is, when we watched our son’s soccer team win the championship game a couple months back, knowing this meant another birthday weekend dedicated to kids sports, we weren’t thinking about us at all, we were thinking about our 13 year old son, whose days of AYSO are quickly coming to an end, and what an honor it is to be cheering him on from the sidelines. 

As parents, we spend a lot of time “on the sidelines.”

Much of our time as parents is spent watching, listening, and waiting.

We watch them slide and swing at the playground, even though we’d much rather be chipping away at the long To-Do list.

We wait as they go potty for the sixteenth time today and watch our work deadlines go unmet as yet another illness infects their little immune system.

We spend our mornings feeding and dressing our kids as we head out the door with unbrushed hair while tossing a breakfast CLIF bar into our bag that we shove into our mouths as we drive them to school. 

And the waiting! Gosh, the amount of time I’ve spent waiting since I became a mother is mind boggling. Waiting for my baby to finish a nursing session, waiting in the pickup line as my kids sloooowly walk from their classrooms to my car, waiting for that meltdown of a tantrum to finish, and don’t even get me started on how much time I’ve spent in doctors office waiting rooms! 

Life isn’t so much about us anymore as our offspring take center stage. It’s a transition we begin making the second that plus sign appears on the pregnancy test. This is not always an easy transition, nor do I claim that I have mastered this.

Four children later and I continue to struggle with understanding how I can exist both as an individual person and as a mother. So far, this has meant putting my own needs and desires aside as my children’s lives seem to constantly need urgent attention.

This is not sustainable or wise, but so far I have not figured out this whole self-care concept I read so much about in all the parenting magazines. 

I’d be lying if I said that I’ve cherished every moment of watching my kids grow up, but I am telling the truth when I say that I prefer spending time with my children more than anyone else on the entire planet. They are my people. 

So for now, I’ll be content wearing clothes from Costco so my daughter can take horse riding lessons and I’ll forget to make my own dentist appointment for the 3rd year in a row as I wait on hold for the orthodontist office as they find the next available appointment for my son.