[acuozzo]

Father of three here as well: 11/9/6.

I love them and I spend a lot of time with them, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

My 11 year old has Level 2 Autism, ADHD, and crippling anxiety. The pediatric psychologist & psychiatrist team we've assembled between Johns Hopkins & Kennedy-Krieger have finally lowered his suicide risk status from high to low last week.

My 9 year old has such extreme ADHD that you would think he has Akathisia; compulsive running. He's constantly fighting with his younger sister because... why not? Dopamine is dopamine.

The best part is that we have the privilege of doing it all on our lonesome despite having retired parents and no siblings with children of their own. Perhaps babysitting costing us more than the date night itself is the satisfying part.

Oh, no, I've got it! The satisfying part is not having a real vacation in 11 years.

I wonder how satisfying it's going to be when we finally have to face the reality of never being able to have an empty nest.

[mothballed]

If you have easy kids everyone wants to help. If you have difficult kids no one else is going to want to help you, especially if they fight because that's liability they don't need (CPS will blame the caregiver if one of the child is beat up by their own sibling). Also if you have difficult kids not only will no one help, they will damn you for having been a terrible parent for circumstances outside your control, crushing your self esteem even though you're trying harder than perhaps most others. This is part of what makes difficult children exponentially harder. Sucks but that's the reality.

I noticed as soon as our child became better tempered things were 100x easier because suddenly people that were previously out of the picture were willing to look after the child. For every 1% better the child behaves life is 10% easier for everyone.