I never understood frustration until I had kids

When our daughter was a few weeks old, Scott and I discovered the big deep dark secret that only other parents understand. It is that moment at 3 am when you’ve tried everything and the baby is still screaming and you’re more tired than you’ve ever been in your life and the screaming is like knives in your brain and you’re so frustrated and you have nothing left to give and all you want is for the moment to end. That’s when the revelation hits you. This is how people end up shaking babies. I would never shake my baby. Never. But I can kind of see how it happens. Plenty of things I can’t see. Plenty of awful things people do to their children. But that one's different. I can't pretend that a part of me doesn't feel empathy for them. I think that’s why the message Alec Baldwin left his daughter recently doesn’t offend me the way it does some people. Because all I heard was frustration. Why should child custody hearings drag on that long? Why should getting your child on the phone be that hard? Sure he was rude and wrong and inappropriate and all the other stuff. But parents say things they regret. Because they’re human. Every parent in America should summon up in their mind their worst parenting moments. The kind you tearfully admit to your spouse late at night and never mention to relatives. Then they should ask themselves how that moment would stand up to the scrutiny of others if it was on tape. Maybe your worst moment wasn’t as ugly as Alec's. Maybe yours was uglier. Either way you have one. Or you're lying. Parents should go easier on each other. It’s a hard enough job without other people telling you how much you suck.