Parenting is a bit like being a CEO, except for 2 major differences: you get paid nothing, and you’re not really in control most of the time. You are expected to solve ALL of the problems, from running out of milk to stopping individuals with justified anger from beating each other up. The job is physical, mental, intellectual, artistic, mundane at times (seriously… How many times do I HAVE to ask them to put their shoes on? Every…#%*€?<£+ morning…), and frighteningly high paced at times too. It’s as varied and changeable as Melbourne weather, and requires so much talent and improvisation that even a comedy genius can be taken by surprise.

There is also no job description, no interview and sometimes it wasn’t even a planned role, but stuck in the middle of it, we find ourselves navigating the maze. Mothers ask themselves every day if they are doing this well. Realistically, no one will know until the children have undergone their entire life journey, so there’s really no way of measuring success until it’s too late anyway…

Because of all that, there’s quite a lack of direction available for how to raise each child, so each of us makes decisions daily, hourly even, and what happens happens. It’s often unpredictable, can be fun, frightening or completely fickle. However it flows, we are stuck in it, with no actual departure time or date, and we are embraced by it.

Some might ask why we do it then. The bits that warm my soul are the development of a wonderfully complex human being, the challenge of guiding and teaching, and the many rewards of this incredible hard work that only a parent can understand, like that smile, the look, the cuddle where they won’t let go, and the incredible things we can learn from someone who still has wonder in their eyes and a skip in their step.

What part of parenting warms your heart the most?