Can a Parent With Young Kids Have Hobbies?

No sleep, diapers, playing, cleaning, and plenty of other parental responsibilities will fill your days for many years after you have kids. Before having a child, you may have great intentions to continue doing the things that you love doing. Unfortunately, once you’ve not got a full night’s sleep for over a year, you may finally realize that things are definitely not going back to the way they were before kids.

Kids take an enormous amount of time and effort (and money). You wake up to them in the morning, and you go to sleep with them at night. You spend the entire day with them before they are old enough to start school (and then if you do homeschooling you’ll still be with them all day). You basically live and breathe your child all day long until they start becoming old enough to be a bit more independent.

If you let them, kids will be the only thing that you think about outside of other responsibilities that you may have. If you don’t make time to do the things that you want to (outside of taking care of your child), then you’re not going to have the time. Making time to do things that you want to is the only way that it will happen. If you don’t make the effort, then don’t expect to have time for yourself.

Are there things that you want to be doing? Do you like to play an instrument? Do you want to find time to read? Do you want to workout? Is there some other hobby that you want to do? If so, you’re going to have to make the time to include them in your life - and we highly recommend that you do find something that interests you that you can do. Make and find time to enjoy some alone time.

As a parent with two young kids, this is something that I understand very well. I spend weekends with my kids playing whatever they want to and keeping active with them. Is it the most fun thing to do? Not really, but I truly do enjoy spending time with my kids, and so even though there are other things I’d rather be doing, I do my best to be a good parent to them and spending quality time with them.

To make time for myself though, I have cut out basically all forms of media from my life besides reading. I don’t watch TV, I don’t watch movies, and I avoid social media. These items are a huge time suck, and it’s really easy to lose track of how much time you spend doing them. They’re also generally pointless activities - they don’t bring much joy or additional benefit into your life.

With young kids, you have to cut out the things that aren’t beneficial to you in order to make time for your hobbies. Want to enjoy a game of golf? Make sure you’re spending time with the kids so that your partner has time to themselves. You don’t get 4 hours of free time and your partner gets none - you have to put in the time to get the time for yourself. Enjoy a hobby when you can, and then get back to being a parent.

Having hobbies with young kids is possible, but you have to make sure you’re optimizing your time. Don’t waste it on activities that aren’t beneficial to you.