I recommend a book called "Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan. It's a short read, and very interesting. The basic argument is that we've turned

I recommend a book called "Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan. It's a short read, and very interesting. The basic argument is that we've turned modern parenting into a stressful chore, much as you describe. But by looking at separated twin studies, he argues that what we do as parents has much less impact on how our kids turn out than we would probably like to believe. Essentially, if your parenting is within decent normal parameters (i.e. there isn't an abusive situation or anything like that) your kids will probably turn out ok, and if they don't, it will probably not be because of anything you did. This argument really goes against accepted wisdom, especially if you tend to the theory that your kids are malleable clay for you to shape as you wish. But intuitively, it makes a lot of sense. My brother and I were essentially raised in the same environment, and we could not be more different. So, which of us did my parents' input produce, and why didn't it work for the other one? It seems counterintuitive, but embracing the idea that what you do doesn't make as much difference as you'd expect is very liberating. Like all parenting books, I'm sure some of the data is cherry picked to make a point so I take it with a grain of salt, but I've definitely changed my attitude as a result and it's made parenting much more pleasant. I'm not totally checked out, I'm still doing the best I can, but I'm not as anxious about how what I'm doing affects my daughter. Basically, it's much easier to enjoy the ride if you're not constantly stressing about what you're doing wrong, and counterintuitively (or not, perhaps) that has made me a better father.