As the stay-at-home parent, every single decision for my son (and the rest of the family and house running) pretty much falls on me. Of course, I talk to my husband about the bigger decisions that might affect our routine or dynamics. But mostly, I do all the research, choose from the large range of options, and then present the shortlist to him.
Car seats, cots, breastfeeding aids, clothes, stair gates, child-proofing, baby and toddler classes, weaning process. Strollers, screen time, potty training, sleep training, age-appropriate toys, stimulating toys. Bedtime routines, morning rituals, days out, days in, playdates — even lockdown activities became a thing.
This makes the everyday kind of decision-making quite overwhelming sometimes, and it’s no surprise parents feel burnout from it all without even knowing it.
Not only that — the exaggerating presence of consumerism and capitalism means that the options are endless and we are spoilt for choice. Who knew there was a con to abundance?!
And this is just the beginning. These are your little everyday aspects to parenting. Then, there’s the psychological development of a child, and how we as parents can encourage and enable our child’s potential to grow up well-rounded, healthy, and emotionally mature. How basically, we don’t want to screw up our kids.
The Overthinking Parent
Are you one of these? I know I am.
I often wondered whether the decision to sleep-train our son altered his growth and personality for the worse.
I questioned whether my anxious nature would be passed on, even if I tried my hardest not to act nervous around him.
I struggled with containing my anger in some situations and then panicked that I was teaching my son not to express his anger healthily. God forbid I cried in front of him too, even if now I’m OK with it.
I have tailored my parenting around him, and considered every.single.little.thing that directly affects him, no matter how seemingly unimportant or small the thing is. A little OCD, perhaps, but hey, that’s what happens when you’re an overthinker.
My latest “big” decision was to take my son to daycare. It has been well over a month since he started, and although he enjoys being there in the moment, he hates the mornings beforehand and is very nervous to go. I wonder if I made the decision to send him too quickly, and that I didn’t transition him at his own pace. I wonder whether we chose the right daycare centre because there are so many to choose from. And I wonder whether it’s too late to move him in case it unsettles him once again and it stirs even more anxiety in him.
Feeling guilty is exhausting.
Alleviating Pressure
My best friend shared these lines with me as she described a conversation she had with her husband recently. It wasn’t about anything particularly important, but I remember taking those lines in so profoundly I almost cried. “Of course!” I thought to myself.
“This is the decision I have made, but I cannot guarantee that I will stick to it and I’m entitled to change my mind.”
How many of us are held with a knife to our throats whenever we make a decision to ensure we follow through with it? Even if we are the ones holding the knife?
We can make promises and compromises, and we absolutely do this when we become parents, about the smallest of things. But how guilty do we feel if we internally change our minds, and feel a pang of regret for the bigger choices we make? And how often do we actually do something about those feelings?
What’s more important? Ensuring loyalty, commitment, and sticking to promises? Or our own happiness and wellbeing? Or is there a grey area and a million loopholes?
For example, when we had our son, I had made the decision to breastfeed until he turned one. That did not happen.
In fact, my son took the last milk feed to the boob on June 6, 2021, at the age of nearly 28 months. I would’ve carried on if my son had insisted, too, but he just stopped asking for it.
And of course, no matter what decision you make — whether to breastfeed or not or to breastfeed till the kids are 2, there is always a know-it-all right round the corner advising you to keep going or to give up. Thank goodness my husband was fully on board with my impromptu plan to keep going, and thank goodness for my fellow mom friends who were also still breastfeeding their kids at the time — or I might have caved into the pressures to stop.
Even after I fell pregnant and my boobs were sensitive to the touch, my husband would see me wince in pain as my son latched on and gently rub my arm or say something like “you’ve got this darling”.
And actually, in hindsight, I’m relieved I did it that way now. I slowly weaned him off, baby step after baby step, a small tweak to the morning routine after another, and guided him towards making the decisions himself not to breastfeed but to take some yummy (sometimes chocolate tasting) cow’s milk instead.
What I had to remember, throughout the whole process, was that I was entitled to change my mind. I had the right to decide I no longer wanted to breastfeed and implement a process in order to stop, as quickly or as slowly as I wanted to. I decided I was OK with letting my son lead with a few nudges from me, but if I had thought otherwise, that would have been OK too.
Never cave to outside pressures, they don’t have your best interests at heart, and only you know what you really want.
Planning To Plan
Anticipating decision-making has really helped me to make choices for my son and the family more efficiently and confidently.
For example, I take care of the mundane by having go-to meals and prepping them in advance, especially on days I know we will be pushed for time. I have ready-made shopping lists and do online grocery orders when I can to avoid being spoilt for choice at the supermarkets. We also order takeaways sometimes, because, come on, we deserve not to cook now and then.
Inspired by my husband, we have a document showing all the meal options and the time it takes to make along with a difficulty level. This way, if I’m feeling uninspired, I make a shortlist and have my son pick one of those.
I have a timetable to keep us in routine throughout the year. Activities and appointments are on the online Google calendar so I don’t have to mentally remember schedules.
The point is to make the mundane life easy and less energy-consuming so that I can then take on the more intense and harder tasks of decision-making.
For example, sending our son to daycare took months of planning. I used the lockdowns that Covid brought on as a way to give myself and our son the time to mentally prepare for the change that was coming.
Falling pregnant definitely sped things up, though, since I wanted him to start before the baby arrived. I wanted to ensure there was no connection between daycare and having a new family member to look after — this needed to be about him and about him only.
I’ve applied the same process for a tonne of other decisions, such as moving my son into a bed and out of his cot, again, before the baby arrives, so that it’s about him and not the baby. It just so happened that we went away for the weekend the other day where he had to sleep in a bed as the cot provided was too small, and we saw how excited he was and how well he settled. Now, we can happily make the transition without panicking about how he will react, sooner rather than later.
Anticipating decision making can help to “spread” the mental load over a course of time so you don’t feel rushed into anything or overwhelmed. Additionally, time brings about perspective and gives you a fuller picture of what you want for you and your family. It also helps if you know of a future expense in advance so you can financially save up for it and not cut into your monthly budget.
Cutting Ourselves Some Slack Is Beneficial To Our Kids Too
I noticed that sometimes, I apply a firmer kind of parenting technique and it doesn’t make me feel guilty or ashamed. Rather, I push my son to adapt. A small example — I often have to drag our son to places he doesn’t want to go, and he has no choice on the matter. He protests and tantrums, yet, I’m unphased and just deal with it, using distractions as my best friends and snacks as my partners in crime.
Yes, some decisions have a bigger impact on our son than others, of course. But I realized that it’s how we feel about those decisions that actually drive us into a state of confusion and overthinking panic. If we felt differently about those decisions, we would react differently, too.
I wonder whether it is my state of anxiety that focuses on finding the same signs in my son. And when I’m not feeling negative around a decision, I spend more time objectifying the issue at hand and finding solutions instead.
So, rather than feel guilty or ashamed every time I’ve made a decision for him, I am learning to simply cut myself some slack. I remember:
- Why I made the decision I did.
- The solutions to potential issues that may arise.
- Flexibility is important, and it’s ok to change my mind.
Most importantly, if you feel good, your kids are likely to learn to feel good too.
Final Thoughts
The pressure to be the best parent is undeniably present in society, and it can be detrimental to our confidence.
We must remember that everyone is different. Our circumstances are different, we are different as individuals. There is no one size fits all to parenting and children, and we cannot compare ourselves to anyone else.
Ultimately, most parents have their kids’ best interests in mind. I see overthinking as a sign of great parenting. I’d much rather be like this than nonchalant. But it’s about finding a healthy middle ground that considers our wellbeing as parents, too.
We already have thousands of choices to make every day. Adding pressure, shame, and anxiety is only going to make matters worse. We owe it to our kids to learn how to live guilt-free by cutting ourselves a little slack and giving ourselves a vote of confidence in our parenting journey (and in the rest of our lives).
What pressures have you felt as a parent? Let me know in the comments.
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This post was previously published on A Parent Is Born.
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