Quote: (04-16-2014 04:14 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:
Quote: (04-16-2014 01:49 AM)Suits Wrote:
My mother popped out, raised and homeschooled five kids.
My sister, who now has two younger children recently told my mother that "she doesn't know how hard it is."
Did your mom react by slapping some sense into her?
Of course not. Women operate in a plane free of logic. My mother has enough sense, however, to realize that there was no way to disabuse my sister of an emotional reality.
The thing about infants is that they often sleep a maximum of four hours at a time. My sister has an infant at this stage and a two year old who gets up at the crack of dawn. Given that her husband started paying all the bills after the second kid came into the picture, he can't be the one getting up all night, because he needs to go to work in the morning.
The end result, my sister rarely gets a full night of sleep.
I spend last summer working third shift, midnight to 8AM, and had to sleep during the day, every day. It was rough. What made is worse was how all the female employees with less tenure got all the best shifts.
Anyone who has done this knows that you get very low quality sleep if you always sleep during the day. You never end up properly rested.
It was tough, but probably not as tough as being a mom is for my sister.
I had supervisors, however, who have done the third shift for years. On top of that, for their days off, they had a weeks worth of responsibilities to catch up on at home.
What do you think the easier job is? Getting through a year with a child who never lets you sleep more than four hours at a time, with the help of a husband who pitches in on the weekend
or spending years working 3rd shift after finishing up another career because you don't have a pension and still have kids to put through college?
Given the choice, I'd take parenting for a year or two, followed by a regular sleep schedule for the rest of my life.