Parenting is a job where expectations are massive, heck, pregnancy is even called “To be expecting”... and then, once that child is there, most of those expectations go out the window. I believe there are some things we fail to realize before we have kids. Number one is an obvious one when you think about it; that your child is their own person (lightning flash of realization!!) and that they have their own needs, wants and desires. Sometimes your child is so far from what you expected them to be that their arrival displaces you to another planet. Not necessarily a bad planet, but one you hadn’t planned on traveling to. The second thing we don’t realize is how parenthood changes us. It changes us both physically (men more than women apparently) and emotionally and, for most, it changes our priorities. Some things we thought were going to be hard aren’t hard at all, and some things we thought were going to be easy are a struggle. All this can bring on a sense of guilt.