Maybe Our Kids Don’t Need a Perfect Childhood

by Maria Williams

I love my boys more than anything in this world, but I do not think loving them requires me to make every moment magical.

I’m just going to say it. I hate gentle parenting.

There. I said it. And before anyone comes for me, I do not hate being gentle with children. I believe in listening to them. I believe in apologizing when we get it wrong. I believe children deserve to feel safe, loved, and heard. What I hate is the version of gentle parenting that has somehow convinced mothers that if we are not calm, available, and emotionally perfect at all times, we are damaging our children.

Because that is a lot of pressure to carry while also making dinner, finding the missing shoe, answering an email from school, and listening to a nine-minute story about something that happened in a video game.

I know that pressure because I have felt it. Make every holiday magical. Pack the right lunches. Attend everything. Create traditions. Limit screens. Plan enriching activities. Make memories. Take pictures of the memories. And whatever you do, do not lose your patience while doing all of it.

Meanwhile, Mom is hiding in the pantry eating a handful of Goldfish because she cannot handle one more person asking her for something. Pull up a chair, friend. I have got the family-size bag.

I have questioned myself plenty

I love being a mother. It is the greatest thing I have ever done. It is also the thing that has made me question myself more than anything else in my life. Was I patient enough? Did I make things special enough? Did I listen when they needed me? Will my boys remember all the love, or will they somehow only remember the Tuesday when I completely lost it over a wet towel on the floor?

Motherhood gives us enough real things to worry about. We do not need the internet handing us a new list before breakfast.

The older my boys get, the less I believe that a good childhood has to look magical from the outside. A good childhood can have store-bought cupcakes and cereal for dinner. It can have boring Saturdays and too much screen time on a rainy day. It can include a mother who gets frustrated, says the wrong thing, and comes back later to say, “I’m sorry. I should have handled that differently.”

That is not a ruined childhood. That is a real family.

Nineteen years in a classroom taught me something, too

I was a teacher for 19 years, so I have seen what happens when children begin to believe that every uncomfortable feeling is a problem an adult must immediately fix.

School is full of uncomfortable feelings. You have to wait your turn. Someone else gets picked first. You get an answer wrong. A teacher corrects you. An assignment is hard. Sometimes the answer is simply no. None of those things feels particularly good, but learning how to move through them matters.

By the end of my teaching career, it felt like teachers were being asked to make every difficult feeling disappear. A correction was treated as unkind. A consequence was treated as harmful. And teachers were trying to manage those reactions while also teaching a room full of other children who needed them.

Listening to children matters. But sometimes a child is upset because a boundary was set, they were corrected, or they did not get what they wanted. That does not automatically mean an adult was unkind or the situation was unfair. It means they are having a hard feeling, and hard feelings are part of being human.

I do not say that as a parenting expert. I say it as a mother who has second-guessed herself and a former teacher who spent nearly two decades with children. Being gentle is beautiful. Teaching resilience is also loving. Our kids need both.

Maybe good enough really is good enough

I am not interested in any parenting philosophy that requires a mother to disappear inside it. I want my boys to know they are deeply loved. I also want them to know I am a person. I have limits. I get tired. I do not always want to play. Sometimes I need five quiet minutes before I can answer one more question, and sometimes the answer after those five minutes is still no.

Our children need to see that love can survive frustration. They need to know a relationship can hold a mistake, an apology, a disappointment, and a boundary. They need a mother who is present, not a mother who is performing perfection while quietly falling apart.

So buy the cupcakes. Miss an event when you need to. Hand them the screen and drink your coffee while it is still hot. Let the holiday be lovely without turning it into a production. You are not taking something away from your children when you leave a little room for yourself in their childhood.

The Pretty Truth is, your children don’t need a childhood worthy of Pinterest. They need a mother who actually gets to enjoy some of it.

Want More Pretty Truth in Your Life?

If you are tired of performing your life instead of living it, The Pretty Truth is an honest invitation to let go of impossible expectations and come back to yourself.

Xo, Maria

Buy The Pretty Truth