It could be easier. Certainly life—and society—are not fair. Families like yours could be better supported. It would be nice if your family didn’t have this issue or that one, if this or that hadn’t happened…or had gone differently. In any case, we are awfully exhausted…and it can be hard, sometimes, to think about how good we have it.

But we do have it good. We really do.

There’s a beautiful scene in Claire Keegan’s short but powerful novel Small Things Like These (which you can grab at The Painted Porch) that’s worth pulling out here, for every parent who is burned out, resentful, or just in the middle of it.

“Sometimes Furlong seeing the girls going through the small things which needed to be done—genuflecting in the chapel or thanking a shopkeeper for the change—felt a deep, private joy that these children were his own.

‘Aren’t we the lucky ones?’ he remarked to Eileen in bed one night.

‘There’s many out there badly off.’

‘We are, surely.’

Think about how many parents would trade places with you in an instant. Think, perhaps, back to those painful IVF sessions and how desperately you hoped just to be able to have kids. Think of all the advantages you have over other people, all the breaks you’ve gotten in life. Try to notice those moments of kindness and sweetness that your kids are capable of. Try to revel in the garbage time, the ordinary moments together.

You are very lucky. We all are. There’s many badly off out there. We may, ourselves, be badly off in the future. So let’s appreciate what we have right now, while we have it. Because it is a gift. And none of it lasts forever.