I love being a parent.  Nothing in the world — and I DO. MEAN. NOTHING. — can set one’s soul on fire and fill one’s heart with lovey juice as much as a child’s chubby legs or proclamations of adoration.

Nuh-thing.

But as much as I’m in love with motherhood, I’m only human — a mere mortal susceptible to icky feelings and thoughts of self-mutilation. As much as I’m in love with motherhood, I’m not afraid to say that sometimes, parenthood sucks.

And when it does, it sucks HARD, people.

Here are the top 10 reasons why, while parenthood is quite often fulfilling and beautiful and miraculous and divine, it can also drive one to rock in corners while fantasizing about all the ways she might self-surgically remove her own lymph nodes.

Everything’s sticky.

EVERYTHING.  Sticky tables, sticky walls, sticky toothpaste on sticky sinks.  Sticky refrigerators, sticky silverware, sticky banisters lining sticky stairs.  Sometimes — many times —  I’ve got sticky hair, clothes, and skin.  Where the hell all this stick comes from, I have no idea.  But it’s there.  And it doesn’t go away.  EVER.

You can’t go anywhere in public without everyone else rooting for you to leave.

Want to have a nice dinner out with the family?  Not without someone chucking silverware at the wait staff and jumping incessantly on the booth seat.  How about a routine trip to the grocery store?  As long as you’re prepared for an atomic-grade meltdown in the fruit cup aisle.  There is nothing normal about simple, everyday tasks.  In fact, I’d bet containing wild chimps in the produce section is easier than carting a toddler past the cookie crisps without serious personal injury.

It takes six years to prepare to go anywhere.

Tiny humans come with more shit than one might find in a hoarder’s house.  And everything you need to contain the little monsters requires an advanced degree in astrophysics to operate.  That’s why, if you’ve got to be somewhere by noon, it’s best to set the alarm for 5 a.m.

Shrieking and body flailing become part of one’s norm.

Ever tell a toddler he can’t have a cookie when he really, really wants one?  I don’t recommend it.  If a young child even thinks there’s a possibility you’ll say no, he’ll start screaming like a stabbing victim and beating his body against the floor before you’ve even had time to process the question.  I’ve heard they get worse as teenagers.  It’s OK, though.  I’m used to being called a bitch.

Sleep.  Remember that?

Somehow, little ankle biters always seem to be up.  LIKE, ALL THE FRICKIN’ TIME.  This is usually most obvious when you’re hungover, in desperate need of doing the laundry, trying to watch the season premiere of Law and Order, or attempting to get some ZZZZs.  It’s like they have little devil radars.  The second they sense your need to shower or relax, they pop up, crabbier and stickier than ever.

There’s shit.  Everywhere.

I can handle it in the diaper.  Hell, I’ve even gotten so used to it, I can change a diaper while paying bills and cooking dinner.  (Not really.  Hey, who’s interested in a supper date at my place?)  It’s when it comes out of the diaper that I have trouble.  It can be up the back or down the legs.  Smeared across the crib or skidded in the undies.  Clogged in the toilet or floating in the bathtub.  Life becomes shitastic, people, and that’s a promise.

There’s no such thing as privacy.

Want to read a book?  Too bad.  Need to take a crap?  Hope you like an audience.  There’s no such thing as alone time when you’re a parent.  Everything you do — EVERYTHING — is monitored by little spying eyes.  Don’t be surprised when the preschool teacher knows what color thong you wear on Saturdays.

You have to watch your language.  Even when you’re super-duper angry.

Nothing’s worse than dropping a glass dish on your foot and having to say, “Shit…ake mushrooms!  That’s what we’re having for dinner.”  Or getting cut off in traffic and blurting out, “Fu…nday Friday!  That’s this week, isn’t  it, kids?”  I’ve never wanted to yell obscenities so badly in my life.

It’s an immense responsibility.

If you want to be a good parent, you’d better bring your A game.  Nothing you say or do will roll off their backs completely.  If you’re not cultivating the Oedipus Complex in each of them, you’re bound to be adding enough baggage to ensure a lifetime of therapy bills.  Sometimes, it’s all you can do to hope your kid turns out to be just a step above the one who wipes boogers on little girls’ hair in homeroom and smears poo on all the public toilet seats.

You can’t fix everything.

If I could protect my kids from the aforementioned snot-nosed, poo-smearing nightmare child, I would.  I might even attend their job interviews just to make sure the employer is nice to them.  But I can’t.  Nor should I.  Kids need to learn about some of the bad and the good in the world on their own, and sometimes, the mere thought of that makes me want to build a bomb shelter and lock my family below ground until the apocalypse.

Parenting.  It sure does suck sometimes.  But I wouldn’t trade this role for the world.