I posted an innocent clip of my kids at daycare. The replies were wild

"Admittedly, it was a #humblebrag. Well, maybe not that humble. Maybe just an actual brag."

Earlier this week, I posted a video to my Instagram story.

It showed my two kids running down the hallway towards their daycare room.

“If two boys sprinting towards daycare with this much enthusiasm isn’t the best feeling on Earth,” I wrote in the caption, “I don’t know what is”.

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"Ok yes, it was an actual brag"

I’m willing to admit that it was a bit of a #humblebrag. Well, maybe not that humble. Maybe just an actual brag.

Among working parents, having kids who happily trot off into childcare is a genuine godsend. I’ve been on the other side, and I know just how disruptive a drop off which involves crying, screaming and clinging to your leg can be.

Well, I thought I knew just how disruptive it could be, until the response to my innocent Instagram story revealed otherwise.

Image: supplied

As it turns out, a few short months of “easy” drop offs has made me completely forget just how awful it is to drop a hysterical kid off at daycare.

But I was reminded, very quickly, as the DMs started flooding in.

“I want to be happy for you,” one friend wrote, “but I would literally kill for this to be me”.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you get this,” another wrote. “This is my dream”.

“My kid still clings to me and cries EVERY TIME”, said a friend with a son the same age as my youngest.

“Daycare drop off is the worst. I hate it and I feel so awful,” another mum of two confessed.

“Dropping off my daughter at childcare used to be absolutely heartbreaking,” a member of my mother’s group wrote.

“I was so worried I was a bad mum, that I’d done the wrong thing, so anxious and frazzled all the time. She’d be upset, I’d be upset, and for the rest of the day I was looking at the clock to see when I could pick her up again. I remember sneaking out of work early so I could go see her.”

Apparently, my cute little video had touched a nerve without even trying.

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"A bad daycare drop off can completely ruin a parent's day"

The response revealed what any parent of daycare-aged kids knows to be true (and what I had, with the momentary blindness of someone who doesn’t have that issue right this very second, forgotten): a bad daycare drop off can completely ruin a parent’s day.

Even when we know the educators.

Even when they assure us that our kids cheer up as soon as we leave.

Even when we pick them up at the end of the day and see they’ve been having the time of their lives.

Even then, walking away from a crying child goes against every parent’s better instincts.

I’m lucky enough to be in a place with my kids right now where drop offs aren’t a big deal. Watching them head into “school” together makes me happy. It’s one of life’s simplest pleasures, made so much more sweet by the absence of the terror I used to feel at drop off time.

Image: Supplied

But for those who aren’t in the same situation, your time will come around. The good news, and the bad news, is that no part of parenting is linear, and drop offs are no exception.

Life is long and varied, and the list of places I’ll have to drop my kids - to daycare, to preschool, to friends’ and grandparents’ houses, to big school, to high school, to parties, to the airport (ok, now I’m crying) - is long and varied too.

I hope they always run in with enthusiasm, but I’m smart enough to know that won’t always be the case. I’m enjoying this period of ease with daycare drop off while it lasts, knowing there are many, many drop off tears in our future too.

I’m secretly selfish enough to a little bit pleased by that. Because really, all our kids are saying when they cry at drop off is “you’re my safe place”.

It might be difficult to deal with in the moment, but really, it’s the best compliment I’ve ever received – and a privilege I will never, ever take for granted.

Originally published as I posted an innocent clip of my kids at daycare. The replies were wild