{"id":73194,"date":"2024-04-09T15:51:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T08:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/?p=73194"},"modified":"2025-02-04T09:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T02:37:23","slug":"10-things-parents-secretly-sacrifice-to-make-their-kids-lives-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/10-things-parents-secretly-sacrifice-to-make-their-kids-lives-better\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>10 Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better\n<p>Our parents give us so many things throughout our lifetime. From before our birth to our childhood and even into our adult years, they never stop giving\u2026even when it means giving up their own wants and needs. We never appreciate just how much they do for us until we become parents ourselves. Even then, sometimes we don\u2019t know until it\u2019s too late and they\u2019re gone. So, let\u2019s change that. Read on for 10 things all parents secretly sacrifice to make their kids\u2019 lives better. Then, go thank mom and dad for everything they did for you.\n</p><h2><strong>Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better\n<p>I came across this great quote the other day that said, \u201cAppreciate your parents. You never know what sacrifices they went through for you.\u201d It really made me think about the things that we all give up for our kids, which in turn made me realize that our own parents gave up the same things for us. From small sacrifices to major life changes, here are the top ten things that parents give up to make sure their kids have a better life.\n</p><p><img fetchpriority='\"high\"' decoding='\"async\"' class='\"aligncenter' size-full wp-image-111002 src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/justmetalking.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2024%5C/04%5C/kid-wooden-house.jpg%5C%22" alt='\"\"' width='\"526\"' height='\"789\"' srcset='\"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/kid-wooden-house.jpg' https: sizes='\"(max-width:'>\n</p><h4><strong>1. Sleep\n<p>Sleep deprivation is so common in early parenthood that it\u2019s almost an inside joke among moms and dads. In fact, one survey actually shows that brand-new parents lose about 2-3 HOURS of sleep each night (assuming 8 hours for an average night\u2019s sleep pre-baby)\n</p><p>Here\u2019s the thing, it doesn\u2019t end when our babies start sleeping through the night. It lasts throughout their entire childhood and beyond. Although it\u2019s not as extreme as that first year, parents of young kids still lose roughly 6-9 hours a week, or about the equivalent of one solid night\u2019s sleep.\n</p><p>Think about it for a moment. We take turns staying up all night making sure our kids don\u2019t wander those first nights in their \u201cbig kid\u201d bed. The night before their first day of kindergarten, our nerves keep us tossing and turning. When they announce that they want to be Elsa instead of Anna for Halloween, we stay up all night transforming their costume. The list goes on and on\u2026as do the sleepless nights.\n</p><h4><strong>2. Peace of mind\n<p>Everyone has worries some of the time, but before you have kids, you at least have the possibility of a reprieve. You know that once you take care of your responsibilities, you can just totally relax and unwind, let the worries fade away if only for a little while.\n</p><p>Once your children come along, though, you will always, always, always have at least one worry nagging at the back of your mind. Even when you think you\u2019re feeling pretty Zen-like, that little voice is whispering, \u201cWhat if\u2026.?\u201d Peace of mind becomes a total thing of the past.\n</p><p>Just how much time do parents spend worrying? While there aren\u2019t any major scientific studies, the results of one survey found that we moms and dads clock an insane 37 hours of worry time a week. That\u2019s literally a full-time job!\n</p><h4><strong>3. A reliable schedule\n<p>The moment our kids enter the world (either late or early, of course, because very few babies are born on their due date), schedules went out the window. All the color-coded family calendars in the world can\u2019t account for tantrums, sick days, and scavenger hunts for your shoes.\n</p><p>The sad thing? Many employers know that parents put their kids before the job, so they discriminate against them, and it\u2019s not even entirely illegal in most states. So that unreliable schedule costs more than just the idea of an orderly life, it can cost us a job.\n</p><h4><strong>4. The ability to be spontaneous\n<p>Sure, to our kids, it seems like we\u2019re total free spirits, surprising them with weekend trips or fun outings. We know, though, that all those \u201cunplanned\u201d moments revolved entirely around them. We parents secretly sacrifice the ability to take our own spontaneous trips or accept last-minute party invitations.\n</p><p>The thing is, our parents never once complained about giving up all of that spontaneity. They never made us feel guilty because they had to turn down that great offer to go on a cruise with friends or miss out on the movie they wanted to see on opening night to take us to see the latest Disney flick instead. They just quietly gave up their own freedom for us.\n</p><h4><strong>5. Privacy\n<p>Privacy is a totally foreign concept to kids, at least until they become teenagers and demand it for themselves (but very rarely give it to you in return). We parents forget what it was like to go to the bathroom alone or take a shower in peace. We also quickly learn that anything we say (even when they thought you weren\u2019t listening) will be broadcast to just the wrong person at just the wrong time.\n</p><p>My friend\u2019s mom has a great story about this! When her brother was little, he told the doctor right in the middle of an exam, \u201cMy mom is in love with Harrison Ford. She wants to marry him!\u201d Her mom turned beet red! The funny thing is, this is probably the least horrifying example of how our kids say totally mortifying things about us.\n</p><h4><strong>6. Time\n<p>Have you ever really thought about how much time we devote entirely to our kids? Here\u2019s a hint- it\u2019s pretty much every waking moment of the first 18 years of their life. We only take a little \u201cme time\u201d after making sure all their needs AND wants were met. Then, we felt bad about it (it\u2019s one of the top 5 reasons moms feel guilty all the time).\n</p><p>If you\u2019re curious, the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually broke down how much time parents spend caring for their kids which kind of bothers me. According to their research, we only spend about an hour a day directly caring for children under the age of 18.\n</p><p>Studies and surveys like that leave out so much, though. Maybe the number of words that we speak or direct attention to (tying their shoes, playing on the floor, etc) doesn\u2019t add up to much, but remember, we\u2019re spending 37 hours a week just worrying about them. Plus, there\u2019s so much more to parenting than just directly interacting with our kids.\n</p><h4><strong>7. Friends\n<p>When you have kids, it\u2019s hard to stay close to your childless friends. Sure, you try, but your kids come first. After a while, they stop inviting you places because you keep canceling last minute when Tommy gets the flu or Susie has a nightmare. You realize you\u2019re fine with that because you have nothing in common with them anymore.\n</p><p>Before you know it, your \u201cbest friend for life\u201d becomes just another person on your Christmas card list and your new social circle is made up entirely of the parents of Susie and Tommy\u2019s friends. It may not sound like a major sacrifice. Growing apart is part of growing up, after all, but it still hurts every now and then to realize that you\u2019ve lost touch with everyone you once knew.\n</p><h4><strong>8. Wants\n<p>When you\u2019re a parent, your wants come last, plain and simple. Forget the Maslow hierarchy of needs chart, you live by a whole new pyramid. It goes: your child\u2019s needs, your basic life-sustaining needs, your child\u2019s wants, your \u201cimportant but can still live without them\u201d needs, your wants.\n</p><p>Even when we do have a little extra cash to take care of our wants, we\u2019re more likely to spend it on something we know our kids would love instead. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re spoiling our kids or anything, we just have new priorities. We\u2019d rather see their little faces light up when we surprise them with the latest Squishee than buy a new pair of shoes that we don\u2019t even need.\n</p><h4><strong>9. Career aspirations\n<p>Times have changed just enough to make it possible to have both kids and a satisfying job, true. However, we parents (both mom and dad) tend to choose the \u201csafer\u201d career path rather than chase an unstable dream.\n</p><p>Maybe you\u2019d love nothing more to live a life of adventure as an archaeologist, but your kids need stability and a real place to call home. So, you choose the path that guarantees food on the table and a roof over your head, even if it\u2019s one you never wanted to take.\n</p><h4><strong>10. Comfort Zones\n<p>This one is harder to sum up in a short and snappy heading. When we have kids, the imaginary boundaries that outline our \u201ccomfort zones\u201d become blurred to the point of extinction. For example, you may be a highly anxious non-confrontational person, but when your child is wronged, they are relying on you to make it right.\n</p><p>You have no choice but to step way outside that comfort zone and stand up for them. It may not sound like a big deal to some, but to those with anxiety, it\u2019s perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all.\n</p><h4><strong>Your parents made all the same sacrifices, so stop taking them for granted\n<p>Here\u2019s the thing about all those things we parents secretly sacrifice for our kids- your parents made them, too. Just like we sometimes think our kids take us for granted, our parents often felt unappreciated. Yet, they kept on giving their all. They tried their best, every moment of every day because we were worth it.\n</p><p>If you\u2019re lucky enough to still have your parents in your life, take advantage of the time you have left with them. Call them up and thank them. Take them out to lunch. Plan a trip home to see them. In other words, don\u2019t wait until they\u2019re gone to realize just how much they mean to you. You\u2019ll regret it.\n</p><p>I\u2019ll leave you with another great quote that sums it up perfectly: \u201cLove your parents and treat them with loving care. For you will only know their value when you see their empty chair.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"</p><p>10 Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better Our parents give us so many things throughout our lifetime. From before our birth to our childhood and even into our adult years, they never stop giving\u2026even when it means giving up their own wants and needs. We never appreciate just how much they\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":111002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"10 Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better","_seopress_titles_desc":"10 Things Parents Secretly Sacrifice to Make Their Kids\u2019 Lives Better","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[657,642],"tags":[698,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-73194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-love-and-relationships","8":"category-moral-story","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-love"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/kid-wooden-house.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111003,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73194\/revisions\/111003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmetalking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}</p></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h4></strong></h2></strong></h2>