Permission to be Human: A Message for Parents and Caregivers
4:30 am. Jolted awake. Shoot, swim lesson signup closes tomorrow. We should have gotten on that by now. He should probably be swimming at his age. I really should have done that six months ago, but I think the QR code is in the stack of papers that I moved yesterday. The house is a mess. Gosh, why was yesterday so hard? Aren’t tantrums supposed to fade by now? I can’t believe that I yelled at him. Why did I lose it over them making that mess? Why did I freak out when I lost control? I can’t believe I said that thing my mom used to say to me. Are they going to remember that forever? This doesn’t seem to be so hard for other parents. What if I’m failing them? I’m a terrible mom.
Sound familiar? When you’re parenting or caring for a child, the mental load can be staggering. We have more access to information about parenting and childhood development than any generation before us, which also leads to more comparison and self-doubt. Many of us have an idea of successful parenthood as putting our children first always, emptying ourselves of our own needs and hoping desperately to achieve some sort of zen state where we can always respond to them calmly and lovingly, where we savor all of the messes and sleep deprivation and boundary pushing because, “It goes so fast. You’ll miss this when they’re older!” Sometimes we don’t have a model for the parent we want to be at all – we just know what we don’t want to pass down, the cycles we need to break, so our children don’t have to go through what we did.
As a therapist, I often see parents who are eager to support their children, to make sure that they have what they need to work through the hard things in life, who show up for them no matter how tired they are. What I rarely see are parents who feel like they are deserving of the same support that they want for their children, especially when their children are struggling. What we know as therapists is that the single most important factor in a child being able to overcome challenges is connection with a safe, loving adult. When adults have their own needs met, their emotional regulation skills, self-acceptance, and ability to model healthy relationships pass the most important kind of generational wealth onto their children- which ripples to generations beyond. It’s not selfish to care for yourself. It’s not wrong to put your oxygen mask on first. Getting support yourself models to your child that it’s okay to ask for help and allows you to show up as the parent you most want to be. And, for the record, if you’re questioning whether you’re doing a good enough job, you probably are.
