Parenting is very rewarding (when you've made good decisions) and the ultimate in frustration, anger, and stress (when you screw up- you will). It is probably the most difficult task I've ever set for myself, but not everything worthwhile is easy or pleasant all the time.
For those of you who don't understand the stress level of raising kids, here's what I told an engineer I was working with a few years back.
He was very stressed out over some problems with this small powerplant we where building (missing dimensions in the prints, wrong parts sent, odd mix of metric and English measurements. Nothing unusual),
Anyway, he was even more stressed because I didn't seem to get as stressed about it as he did. He kept going on about how important this project was and how I didn’t appreciate what it would mean if we didn't get this thing working.
Meanwhile I kept on laughing joking and trying to have a good day while doing what I could with the situation at hand. (I take my work very seriously, and do what I can to assure a quality product, but it does nobody any good to worry until you have holes in your gut)
So one day when he was on a rant about how I didn’t seem to care (It does say APATHY on the hard hat, get a clue) I looked at him and said, "look, it doesn't matter. Whats the worst that could happen? This thing doesn’t work and a couple dozen mega-watts don't get made and some companies lose money. That isn't cause for stress. Hell, I come here to relax. When I'm not here I raise kids. You screw that up and they climb a clock tower with a clown suit and a high-powered rifle. That’s stress, so just chill out and lets fix this damn thing."
