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15 articles found

Parenting

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to 'Perfect' Parents

The comparison feeling lands somewhere specific in the chest — a flicker of "they're doing it better, what's wrong with me." It is a near-universal ex...

6 min read

Parenting

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to "Perfect" Parents

The comparison loop runs a specific shape: you see another parent's well-edited moment, you feel inadequate, you spiral, you scroll for more. Telling...

5 min read

Parenting

Self-Support for Mothers Without Guilt

By 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, most mothers of young children have eaten the crusts off a peanut butter sandwich, peed with the door open, and answered the s...

6 min read

Parenting

How to Reduce Working Parent Guilt

Working parent guilt operates on a closed loop. You feel bad at work for not being with your kid. You feel bad at pickup for not being more focused at...

5 min read

Parenting

Why Perfect Parenting Doesn't Exist

The idea that perfect parenting is a thing you can fail at quietly does more harm than almost any actual parenting mistake. It produces guilt for ordi...

4 min read

Parenting

The Pressure to Be a Perfect Parent

Always patient. Always present. Always knowing what to do. Always with a snack in the bag. The list of things a "good" parent is supposed to be never...

4 min read

Parenting

Why Mistakes Are Part of the Parenting Process

There is a version of modern parenting culture that treats every mistake as evidence of damage being done. The yelling, the impatient sigh, the snack-...

8 min read

Parenting

Mindful Parenting as a Modern Parenting Style

"Mindful parenting" has become one of those terms that means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. The clinical version, developed by Susan Bögels an...

8 min read

Parenting

Maternal Affirmations Without Pressure or Toxic Positivity

The Instagram-grade maternal affirmation ("I am a goddess of nourishment, my body is a sacred temple, every moment with my child is divine") has done...

7 min read

Parenting

What to Do If You Lose Your Temper With Your Child

There is a very specific kind of shame that arrives the moment after you have shouted at a 3-year-old. The flush, the stomach drop, the urge to either...

7 min read

Parenting

Why It's Important to Allow Yourself to Be a 'Good Enough' Parent

"Good enough" sounds like settling, like you're not giving your child your best effort. But actually, the concept of the "good enough parent" is one o...

5 min read

Parenting

How to Change Your Parenting Style Without Guilt

Almost every parent reaches a point where they realize the way they're doing things isn't working — yelling more than they want to, giving in more tha...

7 min read

Parenting

Why It's Important to Allow Yourself to Be a 'Good Enough' Parent

"Good enough" sounds like a pep talk. It's actually a clinical term Donald Winnicott introduced in the 1950s to describe what kids actually need to th...

7 min read

Parenting

Why "Good Enough" Is the Optimal Standard, Not the Fallback

"Good enough" sounds like the answer you give when you have given up on the answer you wanted. In developmental psychology it is the opposite — the or...

10 min read

Emotions

How Parental Guilt Affects Mental Health

"Good parents feel guilty" is a piece of cultural advice that has done enormous harm. The implication is that guilt is a virtue, evidence of caring. T...

6 min read