Why Your Friends Without Children Look Younger Than You

I am a parent. This statement says a lot of things about me and about what my life looks like. Most of those things are really, really lovely things. Being a parent means I get to kiss foreheads of sweetly sleeping children at night and wonder what they might be when they grow up. It means I get hugs and snuggles from the sweetest little kindergartner you ever did see. It means there are super fun Christmas mornings and over-the-top excitement about birthdays and pancake breakfasts and family dance parties. There are SO many good things about parenting. Really.

But, today I feel the need to talk about the dark side of parenting that, if you are considering pro-creating, you might need to hear.

Prepare your hearts.

Being a parent means that you will age at an accelerated rate that I have calculated to be inversely proportional to the number of children you have, multiplied by the number of times they have unconsciously cheated death on the eighteen foot tall slide at the park you sometimes frequent.
(Note: I'm not good at math, so this word problem may not be accurate. But, you get it.)

Do you know how presidents in office age four times faster than the average person? Well, parenting is like that, only more so and for a longer period of time.

There is a slippery-slope of parenting-induced aging and it starts out with the lines around your eyes being visible long after you've stopped smiling. Unfortunately, it turns out smile lines only look good on George Clooney, which is egregiously unfair.

Lately, I've noticed unsettling changes in my skincare situation and I'd like to make a list here of parenting-related things I need to blame my wrinkles on. If I had a therapist, this feels like something he or she might recommend as healthy therapy:

Here we go:

-Requests for juice, snacks, extra meals, milk, treats, shows, information about robots, etc. are made of me every 24 seconds that I am in the same vicinity as my children, regardless of whether their other parent is also present and/or available.

-A small individual appears in my bed promptly at 1:30am every night and proceeds to elbow me in the eye with impressive accuracy and also frequency.

-People in my house aged 9 sing songs about our "majestic cat" at the top of their voice at most every waking hour of the day.

-People in my house aged 5 are packed full of enough emotions to fill a Superdome and also a nearby parking garage. All of these said emotions are unleashed at any and every provocation by the formerly mentioned 9 year old. Also, by soup, mismatched socks, and the difficulty of sharpening a pencil.

- So many Superdome sized, 5-year-old emotions in my house right now. So many.

- The small people I gave life to do not enjoy my cooking. Ever. Well, except for taco night. Often, there are protests and sit-ins.

- Every child I own wears 18 different outfits a day, or at least that's what it feels like when I do laundry. Which I am doing at all times.

- No one wants to go to bed. Ever. Except for me.

- Also, a toy/craft/shoe explosion goes off in my house every day from 3pm-8:30pm. Longer on the weekends.

If you or someone you love is considering giving birth at any point in the next 10 years, I would strongly suggest you/they begin a rigorous anti-aging skincare regimen now.

And now I have to go because there are 534 loads of laundry waiting for me.