I’m the Full-Time Parent, and I Feel Like I’m Failing at the Best and Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

To every parent who feels overworked, overwhelmed, & unappreciated: This one’s for you

I always miss my kids when they’re not home. I miss them even when I’m fed up and need a break. I miss them even when they’ve been driving me crazy. I miss them whether they’re gone for a week or a weekend. They’re my kids, and I love them like crazy and miss them the same way.

But it never fails. A few minutes after they get home from one of their two monthly weekend visits to their dad’s house, the comparisons start. Apparently, everything I do is wrong. Despite having been raised in my house with my rules, they come home pointing out everything that’s different — as if the part-time parent has somehow mastered parenting, and I’m still failing.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children. ~Brene Brown

He gave them a stepparent, a new baby, stepsiblings, and weekend visits. I give them roots, dreams, a sense of adventure, a home, a treehouse, pets, and so much love. Yet, they come home and point out everything I don’t do. I don’t do bedtimes the same way. I don’t cook the same breakfasts.

I try to explain that we have different households and different ways of doing things, but they don’t care. In their minds, there is a right way and a wrong way. Keep in mind, of course, that they’re hearing a litany of all the ways I don’t measure up. Yet, it’s particularly cruel to be the one who is the forever parent with daily responsibilities who is held to the standard of the part-time parent who isn’t handling the early morning school rush or the late nights at ballfields or the days cleaning up sickness and driving to appointments.

I’m treated to a refrain of real moms make breakfast. Apparently, they don’t expect their kids to get up and choose from one of the many options they are perfectly capable of making themselves. Never mind that I keep in stock their favorite breakfast items. After a visit to their dad’s home, “real moms” and “real parents” do certain things … with the full implication that I am failing at the things real caretakers are meant to do.

It hurts. It’s a gut punch to have to hear it. All of my excitement at seeing them fades to grief. The instinct is to think I am not enough, and I never will be. But then, I pause and think, I know exactly what real moms do.

Real moms do whatever the hell they do. It doesn’t take much to be a real mom, on a technicality. It mostly involves being in the role of Mother. But good moms don’t bad mouth the co-parent to curry favor from the children because good moms understand that parental alienation is wrong. Good moms might wake up and make a big breakfast, or they might teach their children to be a little self-sufficient, so that they are free to take care of the many other responsibilities they have in the day — including working from home to pay all the bills that hold up their fragile little worlds.

Good moms do a lot of trying and crying. When times are hard, we do a lot of scrimping and saving. We make the impossible possible. We show our children that there’s a better way to live than repeating the patterns of the past. We teach them better coping skills, stronger communication skills, and we say the word consent so much that they understand it and embrace it without question.

Every word, facial expression, gesture, or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self-worth. It is sad that so many parents don’t realize what messages they are sending. ~Virginia Satir

Good moms teach our children self-care and body acceptance. Good moms make mistakes, but we own up to them. Good parents are fierce advocates, and we never, ever stop trying to make their lives better.

According to research, working mothers have the equivalent of two and a half full-time jobs. On average, we’re “on the clock” for at least 14 hours a day — and this doesn’t count the nights when we’re up taking care of sick kids overnight. When you consider that at least 70% of us are holding down jobs other than just the role of Mother, we’re overworked and overwhelmed — and frankly, underappreciated.

The truth is that what makes a parent real and good isn’t some kind of performance review that can be held up as a measure to other parents. It matters that we’re trying to do our best. It matters that we love our children. It matters that we’re trying to help them grow into the adults they’ll one day be. It matters that we try, even when we fail.

And today … well, today, I felt like a failure. My son is telling me how I do bedtimes wrong, completely forgetting all the lovely routines and rituals we’ve had over the years. Of course, what he’s really saying is that divorce is hard even when it’s all they’ve known. What he’s really saying is that it’s weird to shuffle back and forth between two households and have to adjust each time.

I know he doesn’t mean to make me feel like a failure. He loves me. He’s a child who’s struggling to articulate a situation I can’t even fully understand. My parents are still married. I’m not a child from divorced parents, and I’ve never been a part of a blended family. We are all learning this as we go. Every day, I’m learning how to be a single parent of two growing children, and every day, they are learning how to navigate this family they’re in.

If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what ‘good’ parenting means. ~Fred Rogers

With a little perspective, I stopped feeling like a failure. I took a deep breath in and let it back out. I took a step back from the situation and looked at my parenting overall. I know the areas where I’m weak. I’m not the perfect Pinterest parent I thought I would be. I don’t volunteer for the PTA or shoot my hand up at the chance to be room parent. I sometimes forget dates, and there are days I’m so disorganized that I can’t find the paper I know I’m meant to have turned in.

So, yes, I’m flawed. It’s just more confirmation that I am, in fact, human. But I’m great at other things. My children have grown up with a sense of adventure, curiosity, and whimsy. In my house, I encourage imagination and ideas. We’ve traveled a little, and I’ve tried to teach my children to be kind, inclusive, and considerate little humans. I’m not trying to turn them into carbon copies or push my own agenda. I’m trying to give them more coping skills than I had. I’m breaking cycles every day, and I’m giving them the tools to do the same.

One day, my daughter wore leggings to school as pants. Technically, they were more like tights, but to be fair, they were the exact same pattern as a pair of actual pants she owns. It was a rushed morning, it was dark, and it was not a red-letter day for me as a parent. My son once wore two different shoes out the door before I had to march him back in to find another pair. He hadn’t overlooked the fact that they were different. He just didn’t see why it was a big deal that he had to have matching shoes.

So, we’re quirky and messy and don’t always do things perfectly, but my home is filled with love and laughter. We get things wrong, and we make them right. I fail at so many things, but this shouldn’t make the list. I’m a good parent even when, apparently, I don’t make breakfast every morning like some 1950s housewife.

Before I went to bed, I decided that I need to stop counting up all the things I get wrong. I’m sure there are plenty of them. I’m self-aware enough to see them. But life is hard, and we, as human beings, are endlessly hard on ourselves. I decide that I’m going to start focusing on all the things I get right.

It’s easy to default into feeling like a failure. It would be even easier to quit trying. But good parents don’t do that. We get up, brush off the tears, and we go back to doing our best.

And in case no one told you today, your best is actually good enough.