Five Things I’ve Learned in Five Years of Parenting

I’m currently in the five-week stretch between my children’s birthdays, fresh off my daughter’s fifth-birthday Disney Cruise extravaganza and moving into my son’s far more subdued first-birthday celebration. (The second kid always gets the short end of the stick, ain’t that the truth.) That said, I feel like I’m finally hitting a stride in motherhood where the whole endeavor feels entirely like second nature, and where I’ve accumulated enough experience to offer a few real, time-honed reflections. Without further ado, here are some of them.

Don’t judge other moms.

This is the first piece of parenting advice I ever got from a wise friend, back when my daughter was still in utero, and I kind of waved it off. After all, I’d hardly judged the throuple I had met at a party, so why would I judge other parents? Years later, I realize that parental judgment is a trope that requires monastic levels of discipline to resist. For some reason, motherhood inspires a kind of moral absolutism that doesn’t show up in other areas of life, convincing otherwise sane, intellectually flexible adults that there’s only one way to feed, bathe, and diaper a baby—and said way happens to be theirs. However, experience shows that this is actually a crock of shit. Breastfed kids still get all the preschool viruses, babies on meticulous sleep schedules end up in their parents’ beds as toddlers, and the “no screens till three” spawn still grows up obsessed with iPads. There is a multitude of ways to parent, none of them are objectively correct, and each one of us deserves the luxury of picking our lane. Instead of judging, I highly recommend sharing and listening. To that point, a favorite recent read for me has been Marina Mofford’s take on co-sleeping, which gave me a new perspective on a practice I had always staunchly opposed.

P.S. I reserve one exception for parents who actively enable their kids to act like entitled little brats. You’re deluded, and I’m rightfully judging you.

Learn everything, but follow what you want (or don’t).

Back when my mother was raising me, there was only one parenting guru named Dr. Spock whom everybody followed—and who my mom still quotes at times. Today, parenting advice is a multi-billion-dollar industry that an entire cohort of podcasters, authors and behavioral therapists are trying to get a piece of. For every single piece of advice, you’re bound to inadvertently find a piece of counter advice: Sleep train, but also prioritize secure attachment! Stay away from sugar like it’s lead paint, but also don’t “label” foods! I’m the first one to gobble up the latest parenting podcast the minute it hits my Spotify feed (Raising Good Humans is a favorite). However, I’m finally starting to recognize that I’m not a Tesla factory-made robot and therefore can’t always act according to the most recent script shoved down my throat by a parenting pundit I’ve never met. Knowledge is power, and what you decide to do with it is your choice. There is something to be said for good old intuition, for trusting yourself to know what’s best for your child, and for being an actual human being who makes mistakes and messes up in front of their kids. And, when you do, you can go back to the scripts and practice “repair”!

Be patient. You’ll see the results later.

If you’re currently parenting a toddler, you may often find yourself repeating the exact same thing a dozen times in a row, to what feels much like dead air. You may also be feeling gaslit, unhinged, and ready to chuck the emotion puppets and just act as their silent servant until they’re ten years old. Rest assured, you’re doing God’s work, and it will one day pay off. In a couple of years, your tyrannical little caterpillar will metamorphose into a well-mannered butterfly, capable saying please and thank you on their own accord. Children take a long time to absorb certain things, which makes it all that more important to patiently reiterate some key behavioral principles to them into those most formative years. Be stoic, be firm, and keep a bottle of Sancerre on hand.

Also, kids absorb absolutely everything, so the best thing to do is practice what you preach / behave like an actual civilized human in front of them.

You will not be the same parent to each of your children.

As I’ve learned over the past year, the rumors are true, and it is impossible to provide the exact same experience to each of your children. With my daughter, I was a hands-on supermom who taught animal sounds, read at least three books every night, and breastfed her until 14 months old. With my son, I’m a guest star who pops in and out of the house all day, doesn’t always do bedtime, and has a trip scheduled every other month. However, the time I do spend with him feels like a reward rather than an obligation, and I genuinely look forward to weekends when I get to be hands-on. I also turn to mush every time I see him, and shower him with more hugs and kisses than what might be considered normal, which is an energy that might feed him more than me being there for every diaper change. All this being said, my kids might have a hard time cross-referencing notes on mommy in a decade or so, for mommy was vastly different for each one of them.

Parenting doesn’t need to equal martyrdom.

Esther Perel famously states that you can’t be a partner, lover, therapist, and best friend to one person all at the same time. I think the same principle applies to parenting. You can’t be the caretaker, disciplinarian, tutor, chauffeur, entertainment manager, and private chef to your child every day, so pick a few lanes and lean into what you actually enjoy. Maybe you hate cooking and regularly stock up in the Costco frozen food aisle. Maybe you, like me, can’t stand the sight of homework and delegate that weekly drudgery to a partner or grandparent. I know mothers who never attempt to breastfeed, parents who wouldn’t go near a Disney park if their life depended on it, and families who skip after school extracurriculars altogether because it doesn’t fit their rhythm. They’re all still great parents who simply work within their preferences and circumstances, and don’t believe parenting to be synonymous with martyrdom, which is what society had us thinking for many years. It’s okay to be a little selfish and take the parenting shortcut that fits you best, as long as your kids are safe and their basic needs are met.

Now, I would love to hear yours! What are some lessons you’ve learned on this wild ride? I’ve missed you—let’s chat!