6 Unlikely Perks of Motherhood

Motherhood comes with a ton of hardships like sleepless nights and diaper blow-outs. Fortunately, it also comes with some perks you might not have expected. Obviously, there’s the whole endless love part and hugs and cute baby onesies, but here are a few other benefits that are pretty sweet, too…

1. Tax refunds. Upon my first post-kid visit to TurboTax.com, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the universe (er, well, the government) wanted to monetarily acknowledge all the hard work I’d been doing in the baby maintenance department that year. I typed in my new addition and BAM- I just doubled my tax refund! Of course, it didn’t come close to covering L&D costs, diapers, or my many trips to the therapist (kidding, kind of), but I guess that’s a bone to pick with the insurance company. Yay for totally awesome tax refunds that make life with kids a wee bit more manageable!

2. Blaming your love handles on your last pregnancy. Even if you were pregnant like five years ago, you can totally still blame your undesirable parts on baby-making. Complain about them if you want- “babies ruined my body” or revel in them, but either way, the battle scars and tiger stripes are not your fault!

3. An excuse to get out of pretty much anything. Between nap schedules, lugging a bunch of crap everywhere you go, or dropping half your paycheck on a babysitter, trying to make plans as a parent sucks. Luckily, people with kids can relate. A simple “we don’t have a babysitter” or “Johnny threw up” should be all it takes to get you out of pretty much anything, ever. Your friends who don’t have kids will probably always think that you’re lying, and sometimes you might be, but usually, you just wish you were. Either way, you get to stay home with your wine and PJs because going out is so 2009 (or whenever you decided to have kids).

Related post: 28 Reasons Kids are Awesome

4. It’s almost acceptable that your house is a pig-sty. Unless you have a dear, old cleaning lady named “Urma” who lives in your guest room and is basically a human dust-buster, your house is probably a disaster. It’s okay, mine is too. I try to clean it up but the truth is, I’d have to spend my life nonstop cleaning in order to make my house even mildly resemble something “presentable” and I’m just not prepared to spend every waking moment like that. You shouldn’t either. Life is too short. I have kids and a messy house. Besides, does anyone really care besides my mother?

5. All of the really delicious kinds of chicken nuggets on the market. There used to be, like, one or two kinds of chicken nuggets in the world. As a kid, I thought they were awesome but they were probably just ground up guts dipped in bread and toxic oil. These days, nuggets are way more adult-friendly and some of them are pretty healthy, too. I just have to make sure I buy enough so I don’t accidentally eat half my kid’s dinner as my own appetizer.

6. Exploiting your kids for millions of dollars on the internet. I’ve yet to hit the million dollar mark, but there are tons of ways to exploit your kids for financial gain these days! Our generation has the ability to turn even the ugliest of moments into a blog post, a book or at least a Facebook status update worth a few “likes”. But there are tons of outlets for you or your kid to be the next sensation! Toddler having a tantrum? No prob. Just break out the iPhone and YouTube that shit.

See? So many reasons to be thankful for your kids!

Related post: Five Reasons to Have “One More Baby”