Parenting young children often feels like an endless cycle of chaos, exhaustion, and mess. You might find yourself asking, Is it meant to be this hard? The answer is yes. And no—you’re not supposed to feel loving or patient all the time. It’s okay to feel fed up, overwhelmed, and even resentful. You’re human.

Why it can be extra difficult 

Raising young children is not easy. It might be extra difficult for a myriad of reasons: yours and / or your children’s neurodivergence, parenting as a single parent, have a limited if no village to support you, managing your own self care and relationships at the same time, and parenting with your own childhood trauma.

Feeling like you’re not good enough 

Often with parenting can come feelings of failure, feeling like you’re not good enough or like you are missing the mark. You may feel pain as you witness the ‘perfect family’ as portrayed on social media. 

Attending to everyone else’s needs 

It is also common to have feelings of resentment. Juggling the mental load, being a working parent, or stay at home parent, or having a partner that works away, can be lonely and exhausting. It common to attend to everyone else’s needs, leaving yourself feeling worn out and neglected. 

And then comes feelings of guilt, and negative self talk, as your own unmet needs come out as rage and irritability towards your family. 

This is why self-care and talking kindly to yourself are both important when being a parent.

We are good enough 

But the truth is, parenting has changed over the years and we have very limited resources and yet are expected to break generational cycles and parent our children even better than before. Instead of aiming for perfection (which is impossible), aiming for good enough can take a huge weight from our shoulders. I recommend looking into Donald Winnicott’s good enough parent, which is a theory that we only need to meet our children’s need 30% of the time to be good enough.

Rupture and repair 

Understanding the benefit of rupture and repair with your family, can also bring us relief. Being able to apologise after a moment of disconnection, teaches our kids that it’s okay to make mistakes and we don’t have to be perfect.

Compassion for ourselves 

With this, take this as a sign that you are a good enough parent, trying your best in the hardest of times with what you have. And yes, it is meant to be this messy, this tiresome, and chaotic . You are allowed to have all the feelings, from love and joy to desperately wanting time alone. You are human AND a parent, so give yourself compassion for these difficult times. 

As a counsellor and parent, I understand these challenges and would love to support you.

Contact me here.