Chapter 1

Let's be Kind to Ourselves

“If you’re completely exhausted and don’t know how you’re going to keep giving this much of yourself day after day, you’re probably a good parent.” – Bunmi Laditan

I handed my husband the baby, locked the door of the tiny bathroom, sat on a closed toilet seat, and bawled my eyes out. I felt overwhelmed and I had no hope that things would ever get better. “How was this my life? Where had things gone so wrong? Could I continue to live like this?” I didn’t know. I got myself together and went back out. “Are you okay?” he asked me. “No, not really.” I didn’t care if he knew, in fact I needed him to know. I needed help from him and from anyone and everyone who would give it to me. I was a new parent after all.

I had high expectations of myself as a mother. I was a Child Development Professor with an M.A. and a Ph.D. and I had worked with children. I had all of this education and experience, but as I sat on that toilet seat, I felt like a failure. 

Myth #1: Being a Parent is Easy - (Each Chapter will have a parenting myth that is dispelled.)

Having a new baby with very little support is hard. Add in all of the sleep deprivation, life and hormone changes, and no wonder new parents are exhausted and overwhelmed. There are moments when we want to scream, cry, or both, like when our baby spits up on our last clean shirt. Ah! There are also moments when our child takes her or his first steps, says “mama” or “dada” for the first time, and gives us a big bear hug or a flower for no reason. There are high highs and low lows. Parenting is hard, but like Glennon Doyle says, “We can do hard things.” 

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash

I was finally helped by letting go of the idea that I could be a perfect mom; the one who hand-makes all of her own organic baby foods, who cooks wonderful, from-scratch family meals, who works outside of the home, keeps a beautifully clean house, and has company over. Ha! I do cook sometimes. I have worked outside of the home. I have had company over. And my house has been clean. But not all at the same time. Are you kidding me? 

When I first got pregnant I went to the bookstore and picked up some pregnancy books. I had to stop reading these books because they were freaking me out. They went into detail about all of the possible things that could go wrong. I wanted to stay calm and relaxed. Other parenting books I found were long, scientific, and tough to read. My goal is to give you a short, easy to read book on parenting that has tips you can go back to whenever you want. As parents we will all make mistakes from time to time, but let’s learn from them and get ideas on how to improve in the future.  I want to help make parenting easier and bring parents more support and compassion.

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

In this book I will offer tips on how to communicate with your kids and discipline them. You will learn parenting tricks, like picking and choosing your battles, offering choices, and how to take a parent time-out. You will get valuable information on asking for help, giving yourself self-care, how to deal with kids and electronics, and a bonus chapter filled with activities, games, toys, books, TV shows, movies, video games, and websites.