I wrote a piece for Motherwell about the qualified happiness of parenting and the impossibility of ever feeling truly carefree. As I say in the piece: “There should be a word or expression for feeling generally happy with your life while all-consumed with an endless cycle of cares about so many daily issues. Because that would describe me, basically all of the time. Perhaps happy, with an asterisk? As in, I think I feel happy* today (*but there are loads of wash looming at home and crap I forgot to buy those Beyblades for my son and how can I begin to process the latest horrible news from Washington?)”
I think that feeling happy* is all that we parents can truly hope for.
