A few weeks ago, I was in the midst of parenting. Between 5pm and 8pm I was scrambling to feed my daughter, me, and the dogs. clean the house. Prepare for the next day. Free yourself from meeting customers all day long. Of course, my partner was also traveling this week. I calmly complied with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter’s every request, eventually pouring her a cup of chocolate milk and sitting down to rest for a while while she drank it. Instead, my daughter laughed a little while impulsively pouring it over my head. As the milk ran down my face, I took a breath, reminded myself of my toddler’s impulsive nature, considered the developmental need to test boundaries, and urged myself to remain regulated. Instead, I yelled, “Why did you do that?”
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The next morning, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a statement warning Americans about the parental mental health crisis. The report discusses increased parental stress, increased risk of anxiety and depression, economic instability, concerns about loneliness, and cultural pressures parents face (Roeloffs, 2024). As I sat listening to the news, I could still smell the chocolate milk in my hair and felt a sense of relief and validation.
Even before I had children of my own, I had the unique perspective of working as an educator and play therapist. After years of education, experience, and research, I have earned the title of “child specialist.” In my work with children and families, I often naively believe that if only parents knew X, or if only parents knew Y, perhaps parenting wouldn’t be so difficult for them. Ta.
Then, in December 2021, I was deeply humbled by the birth of my daughter. Everything I knew about children, development, and my own role as a parent was tested. The first year after my daughter was born was filled with emergency room visits, visits to a cardiologist, crying seven hours a day for no apparent reason, a deep belief that I would never be good enough, and many people just like me. Comparisons with other mothers in her life were included. Everything was the same. During those grueling months, I didn’t want to hear another lecture about solutions or things I hadn’t tried. This experience not only humbled me, but also made me rethink everything I had ever ignorantly said to parents in my role as a therapist.
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Parenting is a moving target. It’s personal and it’s difficult. It’s a wonderful gift that is incredibly rewarding, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Today’s parents are dealing with decision fatigue, financial pressures, fears for their children’s safety, and many personal challenges that experts can barely solve without first empathizing with the unique experiences each parent faces. I’m fighting. While there may be easy solutions to common parenting challenges, these approaches always address the underlying pain of feeling like a failure in the most personal job you’ve ever held. Not necessarily.
Today, parenting is more public than ever. With social media at our fingertips, we consume perfect family portraits, reminders of things to do for our kids, and experts’ 10 tips for self-improvement. They try to convince us that we are failing in order to sell them a step-by-step guide. . Within a few seconds, we can watch a video with creative ideas from “Elf on the Shelf”, reminding us that holiday plans are delayed and children can’t always be protected from dangers. It can be a frightening reminder of sex. It reminds us that we can never be good enough, organized enough, patient enough with our children, and at the same time we can never guarantee their safety. I’m flooded with messages. Recent warnings from surgeons in general are reminding parents that they are not alone in feeling overwhelmed and that others may be suffering as well. , everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Not only are we failing because we can’t keep up, but circumstances beyond our control are causing this collective crisis.
Highlighting the issue is validation, but with the pressures parents face today, what parents need more than ever is empathy. My clinical work focuses primarily on working with parents, and I find that the most effective conversations with caregivers are those that humanize the parenting experience and remove the need for it to be perfect. I feel it. A complete overhaul of discipline and my own (non-existent) success stories regarding bedtime are nullified and parents sink deeper into the belief that they will never achieve it.
Admitting that my daughter has thrown milk in my face and that I sometimes have to sleep in my daughter’s bed because I push my limits and deserve an extra hour is an admission of weakness and a lack of parenting. Remove shame from failure. If parents continue to do the wrong thing, their mental health crisis will only get worse. What parents need is an unconditional acceptance that they will make mistakes but are doing their best. There are no perfect parents. Because we don’t even have a reliable measure to assess parenting ability, our perspective is subjective and based on the belief that everyone is doing a better job than we are. Parenting is isolating enough, with criticism and shame over stories of failure only pushing parents further into silos.
Even as I write this article, I am thinking about how discussing my failures publicly can lead to criticism and impending shame. So tell me your kid also threw chocolate milk in your face.
