Ranking Hardship Severs Connection

This is the face of an exhausted, ragged woman, one week into middle-of-the-night potty breaks and helping calm four little nervous systems, not including her own, at 5 am, still choosing to do her PT and workout. And as it turns out, experiencing some unexpected triggered grief.

This is the version of “parenthood” I get to experience.

I never carried a growing baby who pressed on my bladder all night long.

I never did midnight feedings or soothed fears about monsters under the bed.

I never waited up wondering if someone would make curfew.

This is what I get.

And before anyone rushes to rank the hardship, I know two new puppies is not the same as raising human children. I don’t claim that. I also don’t diminish this version of exhaustion, love, responsibility, and nervous-system care. Both things can be true.

Every time we compete over who has it harder, we lose connection. And disconnection gets us nowhere. You only have to open your phone to see the evidence of that.

What the world needs is not more comparison.

It needs more courage.

The courage to say, “Ugh, it is so hard.”

The courage to say, “I see you.”

The courage to say, “I’m tired too.”

Because then we are in it together. And that is kind of the point. To turn toward one another and walk one another through it and home.