Parenting and the Case of the Missing Time

I became a first time parent last year, and since then, there’s never enough time for anything. I’m lucky if I’m able to find more than 5 minutes to eat a meal at any given time. It’s this experience that has made me more empathetic to the plight of the modern parent.

As parents, it’s challenging to find any extra time in the day—let alone time to sit, process emotions, and reflect on the day. In a perfect world, all our basic needs would be met, leaving us plenty of time and energy by the evening to reflect, grow, and connect with others. Through we might experience these rare days, they’re few and far in between, so they feel like a rare treat when they happen.

I also hear this from my couples who have children. We’ll talk about ways to connect to increase intimacy, communication, and checking in with each other. And it’ll feel so motivating to plan out in theory and we leave the session and life hits. They may come back to the next session with “we wanted to practice what we talked about but then our kid caught a cold and we were all in survival mode for the last week!”

The struggle is so fucking real and I’m on the struggle bus with you. I’m the one in the back, sleeping probably.

With my clients, we may talk about what we can do to be flexible, expand, and how/where we can be intentional with our time. But maybe there’s no more room for that. That’s not the point of this post. The point is, whether you’re a client of mine or not: I want you to know that I know you’re doing what you can with what you got.

I know there are plenty of people who struggle to absorb others’ acknowledging they are doing the best they can. That’s okay; you can keep holding on to that if you’re not ready to let it go. But if you can give it to me to hold, just for 5 seconds while I tell you: I think you’re doing the best you can and in this moment that’s good enough.

So if any parents are reading this: I see you. I see you doing your best: working a job that you may or may not enjoy, coordinating weekly chores, keeping your kids alive, cleaning up the kitchen, dealing with your co-workers, and whatever other million tasks on your list. You’re not alone, and in reading this, I hope you feel a sense of “the village” you deserve.