On more than one occasion my children have asked me what would be the first thing we would have to do if there were a zombie apocalypse, something that has come to worry the little one that is not yet clear if zombies can come into existence.
I always tell them that we can play what could happen, but that in reality it will never happen because the walking dead do not exist. However, there are people who walk a little similar and at first glance they could cheat a little. Come on, that in a way the 'Walking Dead' do exist: they are fathers and mothers.
What matters most to parents: the dream
As we read in Babycenter, which has conducted a survey with Dr. Harvey Karp, parents give more importance to sleep than to leisure time, money or sex. And is that as a basic need that is sleeping, in the absence of rest the rest goes to the background.
When asked what they missed most of their life without children, 34% said it was sleeping, 25% said it was time for themselves, 17% said it was romantic time with the couple, 12% would like to recover their body before, 4% time with friends and 9% It was a "nothing" or "other things".
And asking them to say what was costing them the most as new parents, 62% mentioned the issue of sleep, 48% of couples talked about the lack of free time, 34% said that money was also a problem and 26% said that sex.
That is, several parents talked about more than one thing, and the one that was most disrupting their lives was the theme of the dream.
An average of 5.7 hours of daily sleep
And the figures reveal that the parents are getting an average of 5.7 hours of nighttime sleep, which is clearly little about what we would need to sleep, with an aggravating factor: it is not something of one night, which you can then recover the next night; it's something that happens night after night, so that the lack is timed in such a way that it ends up affecting day to day, and all because, as I have commented on more than one occasion, couples we are having children at a time when society no longer expects them.
I explain myself: of course "normal" nowadays is having children, that if you don't have them they can label you as selfish or even worse. I mean that the social functioning, the capitalist gear, at least in our country, does not provide any kind of protection or valid help to couples for having children (we have maternal and paternal leave, too short; and a reduction of taxes on year of the baby's birth, totally insufficient), so that fathers and mothers have to continue to meet their schedule the next day. whether or not they are dead of sleep and tiredness.
This makes it necessary to choose between having food on the plate or taking care of your child (because with a single average salary you will tell me how you will live), and that it is almost impossible for parents to adapt to the rhythms of the baby.
Thus, magical methods and solutions appear so that it is the child who adapts to our schedules, letting them cry at night or ensuring that, when they wake up, they do not look for us. It's not that they don't need us, it's all about teaching them not to call us.
Not knowing what it is to sleep 8 hours in a row in months
Another consequence is this, that parents reach spend months without knowing what it is to sleep eight hours in a row one night. And in many cases we talk about years. I who have three have spent several years without knowing it, by bringing together the upbringing of the three, who were overlapping each other. And she, my partner, I do not even tell you, that many nights I plugged the tit and I did not even notice some awakenings.
So I think you will be many who agree with this statement, which the parents are the new zombies, in view of how bad many people get to sleep.
Bad nights that cause bad days. Days of anxiety, days of stress, of tiredness, of realizing that you cannot give everything you have, of discussing with your partner to see which of the two is more tired to decide which one you have to make dinner, iron or pick up the dishes, to realize that your life is slowly disappearing in that of being a mother and being a father, and that although you know that at some point you will be you again, You didn't expect it to be so absorbent.
But at the end of the day, or so at least I have lived, very tired days that you end up being good in exchange for their laughter, to see them enjoy, play, sleep and breathe, so perfect and wonderful, to see them grow and learn, walk and interact with other people, with other children, ...
See them day by day feeling the most immense love you can feel for someone, despite the hard nights and lack of sleep.
That is why we are many who, despite everything, repeat. For something it will be, right?
