Exhaustion

This is something that I honestly have never experienced before.

At least, not when I compare it to how I feel now.  Being a full-time+ working mom with a toddler and a house...it leads one to a level of exhaustion that I can't compare to anything else.  Add to it the fact that (yes), I'm still breastfeeding and my husband just put a nail through his hand (so he's out of the picture for helping)...well, it's just impossible.

I've often though about what I will tell my daughter for advice about when to have kids.

My family has always had kids early (early twenties).  And they're around now and get to do other things with their lives.  Well, I guess it's that they were non-retired, empty-nesters.  But looking at when I had my kids, I realize that I'll never fall into that bucket...unless I don't retire (which, let's face it, is a real possibility with the current state of economic affairs).  I got to do all of that "other stuff" when I wasn't tired all the time, or have the perpetual pains in my hips and legs....But then on the other hand, I didn't have the means to really do a lot in my youth, either.  But I also managed to get my graduate degree and have two other careers in there that I enjoyed getting to do- I could never have been a scientist and had a kid. The critical thinking just doesn't happen on a tired brain.

I don't know, it's an interesting dilemma:  when is the best time in your life to have kids?

I know that we'll be able to go on family adventures soon, but we're not going to be able to manage Munchen or Tokyo or Edinborough.  The price alone for such a family adventure is prohibitive.

I don' have an answer.

I just don't know that the modern world sets time aside for people to be parents.  They're expected to continue to slave away 5 to 7 days a week, 40 to 70 hours per week in order to stay out of poverty.

It really makes you angry when you realize the delusion that we've all been under for so many years.