"It's so hard to raise a child." "You need to be so stable to have a child." "Raising a child is hard under the best of circumstances." "You need to have reached a stable point in your career to have children." etc. etc. etc.

Does this sound familiar? Is it the conventional wisdom where you live? Is it spoken as a caveat before anyone says anything positive about children? Is it the disclaimer necessary for people to feel comfortable talking about childrearing in your community?

It's part of the Great Lie. The truth is, raising a child isn't difficult under the best of cirumstances. In those cases, it's pretty darn easy. And in normal circumstances? It's pretty easy too.

Of course there are difficult situations, times with overwhelming feelings and confusion. Of course there are terrible pains. Financial woes are terrifying when you have children. And if your child is ill or developmentally different, that's a different universe.

But enough with the disclaimers. The disclaimers are keeping us from seeing the truth. Raising children is a joy. Raising children is an unmatched parallel in wonder. Raising children is so much fun that the nuisances and worries are simply not worth making into caveats. And when we speak with those disclaimers, we stop focusing on the joy, the love, the blessing that children are. We focus on worldliness, on logistical problems of the 21st century. We focus not on our families but on the trappings that keep us from connecting with our loved ones.

It's a lie. It's said to comfort ourselves in those times when we're having a hard time of our own making. It's said to make us feel better about how having our priorities out of whack has made child rearing difficult for us. It's said to make us feel better about our consumerism, our need for things, or our need for placating ourselves.

It's not hard to a raise a healthy child. It takes love, a little thoughtfulness, and even less money. With your priorities firmly on your children and spouse, the rest of the difficulties go away. Heck, the love part comes so easily once you spend time with your family.

What's hard is for us to let go of all the other crap that isn't raising our children.

We have trouble navigating parenthood because of our modern world, our modern fears, our modern preconceptions. But none of those things matters. None of those things is actually all that important.