Your life is hard. You have work. You have your marriage. You have your health. You have all these responsibilities to manage…and so little time to manage them.

Plus there is the fact that the world is falling apart.

People suck. Life is challenging. You are tired.

Welcome to being a parent.

So where are we supposed to find joy in all this? Is there a way we can shrug some of the heaviness off and be happy?

Yes. Always. By looking at our children. “A lot of the joy of parenting is not the joy of parenting,” Ezra Klein recently explained. “It’s the joy of your child’s existence.” Not joy that your children exist—although that’s great—but joy in the joy they take in existence.

Their excitement over a treat. Their discovery of a new type of music. Their infatuation with a school crush. The way they run downstairs on Christmas morning. The way they cackle over a stupid joke. The ham handed mischief they think they’re getting away with. The deranged games and world they create.

Is this not all an escape from the awfulness of the world? Our kids remind us that even in a world of chaos and difficulty, there is still pure, unfiltered joy to be found. They show us this every day, teaching us to find delight in the smallest things. Let their wonder be your escape, their joy be your joy. As a parent—no, as a person—it’s the best joy you can get.