I offer to new mothers and mothers struggling with finding time for themselves, a list of 5 reasons why it’s good for you to be Not Mom.

If you practice acceptance of yourself as a real (not ideal) parent, stop judging negative thoughts and feelings as indicators you are a “bad parent,” if you embrace your humanity as a parent, you are the “good enough” parent your children need. Now you just need to accept it.

We often tell ourselves and others “I’m such a bad Mom” or ask ourselves “am I a good Mom?” I do it all the time in a loop of automatic thinking that has been programmed in my brain, and I don’t even fully realize I’m doing it.

You may not have the (enormous) benefit of a therapist in your life right now, yet you are feeling the weight of a thousand stress pounds bearing down on your shoulders. If that is the case for you or someone you know, I am sharing a cliff notes version of my expertise-based analysis of the reasons why you’re so tired, and what to do about it.

Either I respond to my daughter’s emotional needs at the sacrifice of my emotional well-being, or I ignore her to take what I needed. And that’s how it feels – TAKING, which feels selfish, which is against every cultural ideal of how a mother should be.

What positive parenting is missing is that we need to change a whole bunch about our current external realities. Changing within only goes so far when so many demands and pressures push right against the actualization of our ideal parent selves.

A widely circulated New York Times article trumpeted that yelling at our children means we are weak. It shamed parents. It misused research. I’m here to talk back to it, and to all the other voices making our jobs as parents harder every day.

That's exactly why we need to tread carefully with how we read and respond to headlines about the effects of daycare. We don't need the already-present flames of guilt to be fanned by click-bait headlines preying on our fears.

I take on “attachment” parenting because these types of highly publicized, marketed, sometimes trendy approaches to parenting not only are largely theoretical, but can result in more guilt and stress for mothers feeling like they can’t do it “right.”

I know all the stuff so that I SHOULD know what to do, but none of this knowledge prepares me for managing the mystery that is a Toddler. 

Today’s “screen time” has become complicated by so many types of screens and media, potentially available at every minute, that most parents feel a constant pull of guilt versus convenience.