I remember the day I became a mom, my whole world changed. Parenting has changed me a lot in so many ways! It has made me a stronger person, it has helped me learn patience, it has helped me realize how awesome my parents were and it has helped me want to be a better person and example to my children. This is a great guest post by Christine Hill about 3 huge ways parenting will change you. 
3 Huge Ways Parenting Will Change You
By Christine Hill
Once you become a parent, everything changes. Suddenly, your priorities and desires have radically flipped, and you couldn’t be happier about it.
For those who are planning for a family, or for those who have already experienced the huge central shift, here are three major ways that I’ve noticed that parenting changes people:
Planning for the Future
How many of us think about whether or not a will is necessary? We often picture it as the domain of wealthy seniors. After all, who else has possessions and considerations that they treasure so much, they want to protect them with the law after they’ve departed from this life?
Answer: parents, of course. While none of us like to think about the terrible event of orphaning our own children, we suddenly find ourselves having to confront that awful idea in order to ensure that our loved ones will be taken care of if anything happens to us.
Another way that children change the way we plan for the future, that I’ve noticed, is in the way we take care of our own health. It’s one thing to be an intrepid daredevil when you have nothing to lose. However, when you have lives that depend on you, and when you’re part of a network of people who love and care about you, certain risks just stop being worth it. This is all for the best, considering that as we age, our bodies simply lose the ability to rebound in response to accidents, health risks, and disasters. I notice this especially with guys. Although they may have been heckled by a significant other to change their diet before kids, it’s only when kids come into the picture that a guy realizes how important his health and safety is.
Gender Roles
While some studies show that new fathers become significantly more conservative in their views of traditional gender roles in the home, other studies show that fathers of daughters have much more liberal views about women’s roles. I thought it was really interesting to see this study gauging men’s opinions on various gender issues. It showed that in most areas, men were much more likely to support legislation that empowers women to succeed in the same fields as men. It’s also interesting to me to see the difference between the traits that fathers most want to encourage and value in their daughters, versus those ones that they value in their wives. For example, men are more likely to value independence in their daughters and sweetness in their wives.
Additionally, parenthood can shift your perspective on who should be responsible for household chores and parenting duties. How does it change people? Well, I think it’s different for everyone. I’ve seen people who thought that they would be the primary caregivers crave an equal balance. And I’ve seen people who thought they’d embrace a liberal view on motherhood instead decide that they want the ability to spend the majority of their time and effort at home with the kids. In any case, kids will turn every expectation you have on its ear.
Your Habits and Patterns
We all want our children to become happy and successful. However, as we become parents, we also learn that the model our children will look to in order to learn these things is ourselves. Although we might try to establish new patterns for our children’s sake, the truth is that in times of stress (which is 24/7 with kids), we’ll revert back to patterns that we’ve long established in our single, unattached years, and things we’ve seen our parents do.
The biggest thing that I notice about the transition to becoming a parent is that we realize that we’re becoming more and more like our mom or dad. My theory about that is that with parenting, none of us really know what we’re doing. And because the power of the model in the home is so strong in our early years, we revert to what we’re used to seeing, rather than the skills that we learned from parenting books and thought-out theories. It’s not all bad, though. I’ve also noticed that as we become more and more like our parents, we also usually realize that that’s not such a bad thing.
On the other hand, there are often patterns in our family system that we definitely must break, for the wellbeing of our children and relationships. This includes cycles of abuse, addiction, and relationship to success in life. Sometimes it’s hard to break down exactly which behaviors of ours are perpetuation these problems, but that’s why you have a partner whose different background will give you a clearer view!
