Babies are always more trouble than you thought — and more wonderful.

The line captures a common parental discovery: no amount of anticipation prepares you for the sheer labor of caring for an infant, yet the emotional reward can exceed expectations just as dramatically. Its balanced structure—“more trouble” paired with “more wonderful”—refuses sentimental idealization while still affirming the profound value people often find in parenthood. The quote’s appeal lies in its honesty: it validates exhaustion and disruption without framing them as failures, and it suggests that the “wonder” is not despite the difficulty but intertwined with it. In a single sentence, it compresses the paradox of caregiving into a memorable, consoling aphorism.