I think it's a bit of a conspiracy that parents never really admit how difficult raising a child is, particularly the first few weeks & months. I can think of a few reasons for this:
- Rather than a duty or social obligation, having children in our culture is more or less seen as a personal choice, so the attitude seems to be: "Well, you've made your bed, now lie in it!".
- Admitting that it's the hardest thing in the world & we made a bunch of stupid mistakes along the way is a bit humiliating.
- We think we're supposed to just do all this naturally & don't want to admit to others that we don't know what we're doing, or how steep the learning curve really is. Nobody wants to admit that they wanted to toss their baby out the window.
- We do some parenthood math: balancing out the joys with the stress, anxiety & sleep-deprivation, the bottom line being net positive.
- Post-partum depression is a mental illness & our society still doesn't accept mental illness as valid or guilt-free in the way that something like cancer is accepted, so few women talk about it.
- If we were honest about it & the childless actually believed us when we told them what it was like, they would never have kids.
