Let’s not sugarcoat this: even the most well-bonded, healthiest, loved, supported children have meltdowns, hit growth spurts, have a tough night of sleep (or lack thereof), etc.
How do we know?
Because even the most well-bonded, healthiest, supported adults have meltdowns, hit growth spurts (ours just start to be more horizontal than vertical if we’re not paying attention!) + we have tough nights of sleep, too.
Prepared parenthood doesn’t mean that you’re exempt from the challenging parts of parenthood altogether because neither adult nor child are exempt from experiencing life.
What we think is a critical component of “parenting from preparedness” is to be prepared for the challenges knowing that life still happens + you can’t reasonably control every single detail.
So, what do you do knowing you can’t control every detail?
To start, you need to decide to let parenting be easy.
Today, we’re going to define what exactly that means + give you some examples of how letting parenting be easy can look like.
Let’s get into it!
One of the most important one-liners that we recite to ourselves is “let parenting be easy”.
This mantra is one that Courtney adopted from her years of babysitting for neighbors since she was 12-years-old, to being a teacher + charity coordinator, to being the concierge nanny for the Ritz, to now raising our own children.
You Can Choose to Let Parenting Be Easy
Behind every stressed-out parent is a self-assigned rule that this experience needs to be harder than it is, even if they (like most) are unaware of that self-assigned rule in the moment.
Working with so many growing entrepreneurial families gave Courtney the birds-eye view of parenthood.
What Courtney could often see is that the expectations we place on ourselves as the family leaders can be SO FAR BEYOND what the needs or expectations are of the child.
What would happen if we chose to catch ourselves in the moment + decide to not adopt those sneaky rules?
What would happen if we chose to see ourselves in the bubbling stress + say “I’m choosing to let parenting be easy”?
This isn’t a dismissal that parenting should be easy + that your emotions around parenting should only be positive. Absolutely not.
This is an acknowledgment that, often, we have a choice to release some air out of the pressure balloon we’re blowing up ourselves.
Who says you have to exclusively breastfeed, block all screens for the first 2 years of life, purchase only 100% organic cotton sustainably sourced + ethically produced?
Who says you have to make 3 square meals a day, make sure the kids are freshly bathed, brushed, sleeping independently through the night + making their beds after waking up?
Who says your children have to be honor roll students with an impressive list of well-rounded extracurriculars including (but not limited to) music, theater, sports + STEM, etc. every single day until they’re 18 years old?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg if we’re being honest.
So, What Does Letting Parenting Be Easy Look Like?
Letting parenting be easy can look like this:
- Pushing off a baby shower because the idea of planning an event or having the attention spotlight on you feels stressful to you
- Enrolling in a course that guides you through the pregnancy planning + decision-making process because guessing feels exhausting
- Sitting on the floor while the kids play + following their lead entirely without you being the creative director coming up with a million ideas first
- Cutting out the narrative that you’re a lazy mom or a tree-killer if you use paper plates for dinner
- Saying no to the extra commitments asked of you by others that you aren’t excited to do
- Saying yes to jumping in every single puddle on the way home from the park instead of dodging them for the sake of dry clothes, because that feels FUN!
Notice a theme?
“Letting parenting be easy invites us to do LESS.”
It reminds us that a lot of parenthood expectations are ones that are pushed by industry whose goal is to sell more products.
Lots of products on the market offer “solutions” to “problems” that only exist because those product-selling companies actually helped create the problem in the first place.
For example, consider this: The “OK-to-wake clock” was created based on the “problem” that a child doesn’t sleep through the night. But biologically, children aren’t supposed to sleep through the night. They’re supposed to wake up!
Children waking through the night is a built-in safety feature of nature. But the creators of the OK-to-wake clocks often support the conversations about sleep training, cry-it-out methods, etc. even when they aren’t biologically supported. They support those conversations because they have the product-solution available for purchase.
Stick With What’s Organic to You
Letting parenting be easy calls you to consider what the organic needs of you + your growing family are.
What’s natural to you? What feels good in your core?
Stick with that internal intuition + you’ll be a million times lighter!
Here’s the permission you don’t need: LET PARENTING BE EASY.
Now, there are a bunch of practical tools + mindset shifts to help you work through those parenting challenges when they do happen. Lucky for you, that’s our zone of genius + we’re happy to help here!
But for now, we’d love to know: how do you let parenting be easy?
Where can you intentionally take some pressure off of yourself as you grow your family?
Share your thoughts in the comments below + gain perspective from other like-minded parents who are talking about it, too.