When the Reality of Parenting Doesn’t Match Your Expectations

When the Reality of Parenting Doesn't Match Your Expectations. (Photo: Upholstered chair with a quilt with jungle animals on it)

This story was supposed to have a sweet and happy ending.

At midnight a few nights ago, just as I was about to go to bed, I heard my younger son (who is almost two) wailing. I rushed from the kitchen to his room. He was standing up in his crib, nothing visibly wrong. “Up up,” he demanded, hands raised.

So I picked him up. I walked over to his rocking chair, nestling him in my lap. I cradled him like a baby, one arm under his head, the other across his chest. My arm anchored him to me. His body sunk into mine.

“This might be the last time I do this,” I thought. “Take it in.” “Enjoy the moment.” “It passes so fast, you know.”

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Wrestling with My Son’s Inconvenient Imagination

Wrestling with My Son's Inconvenient Imagination. (Photo: Young white boy leaning against a statue of a dinosaur hatching from an egg)

When I hear parents say, “I don’t like playing pretend with my kids,” I think, “Oh, I love it!” But then I stop right there. I’ve realized that like all things in parenting, there’s an exception. A big exception.

That’s because I love playing pretend with my older son (nicknamed Sprout) when it’s time to actually play. Just not all of the time. He frequently doesn’t distinguish – or refuses to distinguish – when it’s time to play versus time to get stuff done. If he’s supposed to be getting ready for bed, he’d rather pretend to play drums or zoom around a roller coaster. Taking toys away is no use – the really good stuff is in his head. He can sit on the stuffed chair in his room and weave elaborate worlds out of whole cloth.

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A Letter to My Kids on the Anniversary of the Trump Presidency

It’s been a full year since Donald Trump became president. A full year since he stood on the National Mall and swore to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” just as Barack Obama had done eight years before. Attending President Obama’s inauguration was one of the most patriotic moments of my life. Instead of attending Trump’s inauguration, I joined with half a million other women in the next day to raise our voices in protest.

Photo of a white woman in a red and gold Wonder Woman shirt and black sweatshirt looking at the camera in a selfie.

Needless to say, I entered Trump’s administration ready to fight. In my Instagram photo from that day, I’m wearing my Wonder Woman shirt, my smirk and stance challenging the camera.

But despite my attitude, I was worried. In fact, I had been worried since I blearily read the results the morning after the election. I was worried for you and even moreso for the many families less privileged than ours. As we’ve seen since then, my worries about the treatment of immigrants, LGBT folks, black people, and poor families were justified. Everything has been as bad as we expected. In some cases, it’s been worse.

And yet.

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How to Reduce Your Mom Guilt and Still Love Your Kids

Do you suffer from mom guilt, even when you spend as much time as possible with your kids? Try out these three tactics so you can be a less stressed, more content mom. 

How to Reduce Your Mom Guilt and Still Love Your Kids. (Photo: White woman and baby sitting on a furry beanbag.)

The last time my husband and I had a date night, my eighteen-month-old (nicknamed Little Bird) roamed his grandparents’ house, looking for us in every room. He called out “Mama. Mama” in this tiny little voice.

Thanks for the stab through the heart, kid.

Mom guilt is so real. Sometimes it’s deserved, sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it doesn’t matter because your kids love you so much that they’re distraught if you leave for a split second, much less the entire evening. Yet we’re told to “take time for ourselves” and make sure you have “me time.” Good luck being able to minimize the mom guilt and still carry out self-care.

On top of the self-care piece, mom guilt actually hurts rather than helps our parenting. If we’re constantly paralyzed by feeling inadequate, then we can’t fully appreciate the times we are present.

As the Queen of Guilt – mom and all other types – perhaps it’s ridiculous of me to write this article. But because of my tendency to run right into Guilt City, no stops ahead, I’ve had to deal with it straight-on for the sake of my mental and emotional health. Taking these steps has helped me reduce my anxiety significantly. Hopefully, they’ll help you too.

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Love, Lullabies, and Watching Your Baby Grow Up

Love, Lullabies, and Watching Your Baby Grow Up (Photo: Small child in a thick jacket and hat walking on a sidewalk next to snow)

Opening my mouth, I started to sing the lullaby I had sung to my two-year-old every night for the past year. “Christopher Robin and I walked along, through branches lit up by the moon,” I warbled off-key. Locking eyes with his big blue ones, I saw him shake his head.

I stopped singing.

“You don’t want me to sing?” My voice went up a half-octave. Another head shake and a finger pointing to his crib.

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Finding Space for Beauty Over and Over Again

Photo of a sunrise with silhouetted trees. On top of it, a screenshotted message from a cell phone saying "Storage Almost Full"

Finding space for beautiful things in our lives can feel impossible. After all, they’re so full. How can we fit in any more?

My phone has persistently reminded me of this fact over the last few months. It’s given me the “almost out of space warning” at least 30 times. I’ve deleted old videos, apps I’ve used twice, and music I haven’t listened to in years.

When a radiant sunrise caught my attention the other day, I picked up my phone to take a photo. Of course, I got that “out of space” warning. In response, I cleared out even more “stuff” so I could capture that moment. That shining, beautiful moment.

Because that’s what we do as moms – we find space, however we can.

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Struggling with My Past to Empower My Son’s Future

Struggling with My Past to Empower My Son's Future (Photo: White boy throwing his head back in front of a plate of food.)

“I talked to the teacher today,” my husband said while he was making dinner. While his statement was neutral, his strangled tone of voice revealed something was wrong. “The teacher” is our four-year-old’s preschool teacher.

After we put the kids to bed, he said, “She said he’s having trouble makingfriends.”

Ah. That’s what it was.

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How Moms Can Reduce the Mental Load that Leaves Us Sick and Tired

How Moms Can Reduce the Mental Load and Emotional Labor that Leaves Us Sick and Tired. (Photo: White woman holding her head with one hand and a crying baby with the other.)

When I faced going back to work after my maternity leave, my husband and I faced a very real and common challenge – how to balance household management and the mental load between the two of us.

I’m a “doer” at heart while my husband, Chris, is much more laid-back. So taking everything over was a legitimate risk for me. The mental burden of being a mom is very real, whether you embrace the role of being a “keeper” of everything or find it smothering.

Our situation had an additional twist on it. That’s because Chris was going to be taking on a role that 29% of moms hold, but only 7% of dads do – stay-at-home parent. Because I would be working outside the home and he wouldn’t, I could not be the de facto household manager. It wouldn’t be fair or practical.

So we had to find a balance of duties, both in terms of physical chores and management. Since then, we’ve learned to reduce my emotional labor and mental load as a mom. (Unfortunately, most of these don’t apply if you’re a single parent.)

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What I Learned About Self Love From The Flu

What I Learned About Self-Love from the Flu. (Photo: White woman lying in bed on a pillow, sleeping.)

Lying in bed with my eyes closed, I wondered if I was the victim of a cosmic joke. A few days earlier, I had celebrated a few moments of silence, but four days of looking at nothing but the inside of my eyelids was starting to feel like a bit too much.

The Sunday before, our entire church was silent just before the sermon. Everyone was reading the white text on the black screen in front of us. Among other thoughts of discomfort, the text said, “It’s too quiet” and “For the love of God, this is anguish.”

After a few minutes, our pastor asked, “How did that feel to everyone? Did that feel like forever? Because it was just three minutes.”

While various murmurs reverberated through the congregation, my hand shot up. “It was nice not being asked for anything!” I volunteered. Chuckles ensued. Our fellow churchgoers are well-aware of my husband’s and my weekly Keystone Cops routine, chasing our young kids around to ensure they stay in the sanctuary.

But a few days later, I was starting to regret my enthusiasm for silence. I had a case of the flu so brutal that even visual sensory input overwhelmed me. But as awful as it was, I realized that my experience as a mom helped prepare me for it. While that sounds like a joke – the flu as a vacation! – what I’ve learned as a parent has actually made silence far more tolerable than I ever expected it to be.

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What I Learned About Perspective from a Bruise

What I Learned About Perspective from a Bruise. (Photo: Young white boy's head with a bruise in the middle of his forehead)

“What’s this? Is it a bruise?” my mother-in-law asked, looking at my eighteen-month-old’s forehead. She rubbed it with her hand, to get it off in case it was dirt. It wasn’t. It was in fact, a gray-yellow, very distinctive, bruise.

At first, it was hidden under his ragamuffin blond hair. But a haircut a few days later made it much more prominent. Like Ash Wednesday ashes that won’t wipe off.

“What will people think?” I worried. “Will they think we neglect him? Will they think I’m a bad mom? It’s right in the middle of his forehead!”

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