Right now, I'm goo

Why does millennial parenthood feel so much harder than ever?

The other morning, woken up out of a dead sleep at 6am by my littlest, I found myself standing in the kitchen, bleary-eyed trying to maneuver making coffee and cleaning up cat barf, all while still holding the toddler because she would scream if I set her down. Living in a tiny house, I dare not disrupt my preschooler’s sleep.

How did this become my life? And, how could I transport myself to an alternate universe where I was still peacefully in bed with considerably less responsibilities?

Parenthood is very hard in 2023. Though I don’t think facing cat bile mushed into the carpet and a screaming baby at 6am is really groundbreaking territory in the world of a newish mom, it does become the straw that breaks the millennial parent back when you consider how hard we have to work to MAYBE buy a house and afford just enough childcare to get by.

I don’t need to explore the ins and outs of why it’s actually more expensive and logistically more difficult to raise children than it was for our parents, and their parents. The stats speak for themselves––millennials are not reproducing because it’s so hard. Regardless of whether or not you’re a parent, you’ve likely felt the financial vice grip in your rent, interest rates, and even at the grocery store.

But still, I think a few glaring differences in why parenthood FEELS so much harder than any previous generation.

I lived 34 years without children…

I loved living alone. RELISHED it. Moving in with my now husband caused an existential crisis, not because I doubted the relationship. On the contrary, I knew it was a forever kind of thing, and leaving my perfect West Hollywood adjacent one-bedroom with two bathroom sinks was the last chance I’d ever have of living alone for a long, long time––if at all. It was hard for me to give up that type of independence.

But, as it turned out, I also loved living with my boyfriend, turned husband. We had so much fun together in our steal of a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment in Los Feliz. We had game nights, watched countless movies, worked days and nights from our little home office, hosted improv practices, survived a few heat waves, almost ruined the garbage disposal by shoving it full of potato peels, and rallied our entire building to demand bed bug removal. We even got engaged and pregnant in that very space.

My husband and I loved our lives. We went on trips, stayed up late, waited in long lines for brunch, lazily perused farmer’s markets, got cool new jobs, hustled our passion projects on the side, went to the movies when we were bored, and generally did whatever the hell we wanted both together and apart.

I loved our lives as a couple and as individuals. I know what it’s like to be a functioning, financially flush adult without children. Perhaps I am looking back through some distorted, sleep deprived lens, but damn, it was nice.

I remember it. All of it. And, in the toughest moments when the baby is clingy and my preschooler goes limp while pulling on his pants, and the cat won’t stop eating the plastic bread bag and barfing all over the house, I can’t help but think about what if I hadn’t made this choice. It’s not a regret, but rather a remembering.

I know the answer. I can picture it. If I blink, the fever dream of the last few years of pregnancies, babies, and pandemic is gone. I even feel it when, on the rare occasion, I am able to leave the house without children. It’s like simultaneously time traveling backwards and sideways through another sliding door dimension where I never had kids.

Is it bad that sometimes when I’m out in the world, or traveling for work, I forget I have kids? It’s like being transported to 2018 for two days at a time.

And, that makes all the hard stuff feel even harder.

Of course there are exceptions but, I don’t know how much previous generations felt this way. They weren’t encouraged to take their time, put their career first, or invest in growing up before starting a family. They also didn’t have crippling economic and health crises to contend with as they entered parenthood. Peter Panning wasn’t cute and postponing having a family to live a little––not too fashionable. I suspect they didn’t know what they were missing.

Sure, they likely felt regret, or disappointment for all the paths not taken, but who doesn’t have some of that? I’m specifically referring to missing a very visceral, tangible life you once lived in the not so distant past.

I was taught to want more…

And, the 2.5 kids, white picket fence bullshit doesn’t really hold much water anymore when childcare costs more than a mortgage (if you’re lucky to even have one). I’m part of the generation who got told we could be whatever we wanted, and then still managed to do that in spite of tumbling into adulthood in the midst of a major recession.

I was told to pursue passions, put career first, and establish myself before settling down. So I did. But, those ambitions didn’t just…go away the moment I gave birth. And, now they sit, competing for my attention right alongside my children every day.

I want more time work or study––I’m a bad mom. I need more time for childcare––I’m a poor employee or student.

It seems like champagne problems to complain about wanting more when you seemingly have it all––and maybe it is––but I’ve been conditioned to want it all and believe it is possible. And, it’s really not. Even if I wanted to put all ambition outside the home aside, I can’t afford to do so.

So, I’m left with clumsily carrying both.

Having a family isn’t the end all be all anymore…

Children or not, it’s difficult to deny our cultural definitions of success have expanded and grown more diverse. Sure, having the house and kids and a bunch of money is still the dominant paradigm, but it’s not quite as en vogue (or feasible) as it once was. People now have plenty of societally acceptable, even enviable, options outside heteronormative family life. Leaving a legacy no longer needs to include creating new human bodies.

People are exploring their options and finding purpose in traditionally unconventional ways, and that is very cool! I’ve never thought kids were for everyone, and now having two, I wholeheartedly celebrate people who are child-free by choice. Good for you!!

So, when I’m scooping poop out of the bath, or trying to safely maneuver traffic with a toddler screaming at me, it’s more difficult to seek solace in the reassurance that this is just what I’m “supposed to do, and everyone else is doing it too.”

There is complacency in compliance, and the immense effort it takes to parent today, without a proper community or infrastructure, makes me question the conformity I’ve bought into.

And yet, it’s still profound.

For the past month, we’ve been trapping monarch caterpillars and moving them into an enclosure for them to safely form chrysalises and eventually emerge as butterflies. I’ve witnessed two caterpillars go into a chrysalis and one break free as a butterfly. I still can’t wrap my brain around what I’ve seen, even after googling the intricacies of the process multiple times a week.

I won’t bore you with details you can also google on your own time, but I will tell you that when a caterpillar is ready, the chrysalis is pushed out of the middle of its body like an organ. Then it shimmies inside of it, just as the last of the caterpillar skin pops off and falls to the ground. Whatever is left of the caterpillar’s body produces an enzyme that turns it into literal goo. In two weeks, the goo somehow reconfigures into a butterfly.

There are a great many ways to find meaning, joy, and transformation in this world, but nothing will melt you down and rebuild you into something completely different, but better, like parenthood––at any point in history.

Right now, I’m goo. So, everything feels mucky and unclear because I’m currently under some major construction. Every parent who came before me, all the ones who are here with me now, and those to come will also become sloppy, gloppy ooze.

And, in that way, I suppose I’m lucky. At least I know I am goo.

I’m part of the first generation of parents to have a certain level of self awareness about how hard this experience is, the capability to express it, and a limitless internet audience to receive our complaints. Our parents, and their parents, did the best they could with what they had. And, that’s what we’re doing too.

Parenting never has been easy, but it’s hard to ignore the unique ways that it presents a truly fresh hell for millennials struggling to find affordable housing, pay down insane student loans, secure safe and budget-friendly childcare, and climb some sort of corporate ladder––all while making sure we GENTLY parent and shape our children into the next generation of change-makers without raising our voices, showing them TV, and giving them our full attention and love at all times.

It’s a lot to ask of anyone, let alone someone drowning in their own messy soup. But, in between the tantrums, bribes, approximately 500,000 cereal bars, rejected meals, tub water covering the entire bathroom floor, and poopy diaper changes in the back of the car, there are sweet, loving moments where I don’t feel like goo at all.

Toddler cheeks spread into a smile trying to say “cheese” for the camera, an unexpected, “I like your outfit, Mommy!”, juicy, pudgy strawberry hands in the backyard, first words, sippy cup cheers, diaper hats, and fuzzy livestreams of soundly sleeping babies.

While it’s mostly mind-numbingly exhausting, I have mornings where I feel like the strongest version of myself, afternoons where I’m in awe of my ability to distill complex ideas into simple words, and evenings where I appreciate being forced to put someone else’s needs above my own petty anxieties. I don’t always feel like this clearer translation of myself, but I’ve gotten glimpses of what she might be like one day.

As I’ve also experienced these past few years, you can’t remodel a house without making a big fucking mess. It’s deeply uncomfortable and stressful while it’s happening. But, boy is it worth it when you come out on the other side.