Psychologist explains why disliking some parts of parenting is totally 'okay' and 'normal'

There are several preconceived notions about parenting that many people stress about. People usually fail to realize that it holds its pros and cons and beat themselves up about not being able to give or do enough for their children. They assume that parenting has to be impressive. However, psychologist and parenting coach Dr. Becky Kennedy–who goes on Instagram as @drbeckyatgoodinside–revealed many parts of parenting do not look that great and are challenging. She shared her opinion that it's okay to dislike certain parts of parenting and that it doesn’t have to be all rosy and adorable always. As a mother herself, Dr. Becky has been stressing the realities of parenting and how to deal with the same efficiently in her podcasts.

In her recent video, she shared that it’s okay not to follow the narrative given by the world's presumptions. She connected this aspect to the mental health of parents. The psychologist said, “If we want to maintain the mental health of parents, we have to change what the parenting narrative is really like.” She then revealed several stages of parenting that get exhausting and mentioned that it’s okay not to like them, as it doesn’t make one a bad parent. “It’s okay if you don’t like the baby stage. It’s okay if you find that stage boring and monotonous,” expressed Dr. Becky. She further mentioned that it’s okay to find the toddler stage “exhausting and overstimulating.”

Getting to the more realistic part of things and revealing how parents often feel, the expert said, “It’s okay to not like to play with your kids sometimes. It’s okay to say that, ‘Oh, this day was nothing but hard.’” Elaborating and clarifying further, the mom herself explained that parenting undoubtedly has its magical and enjoyable moments. “There are moments of intense joy and connection,” she remarked. While connecting the whole idea to mental health, she added, “Here's the thing about mental health. Feelings don’t give us problems. The stories we tell ourselves about our feelings give us problems.” She then expressed, “When we’re set up to think that parenthood is all enjoyable when something is wrong, we think that we’re bad and it’s our fault.”

She pointed out that this play in one’s mind is what affects one’s mental health. “Let’s change that narrative. Let’s remind ourselves and everyone around us that parenthood involves a wide range of emotions and stages.” She concluded that being in the hard stage does not indicate something is wrong with us as parents. “It is not our fault, it is part of the parenthood journey.” With 749K views and over 24k likes, fellow parents were relieved to hear the expert’s opinion. Many even shared the parts of parenting that they don’t look forward to. @knit.for.brains said, “Potty training. It was the number one reason we weren’t going to have a second child.” @coeurdebrumecreations said, “Being awake at 4 every night because my son is afraid of black, but he’s got 3 little lights in his room and not in the black at all.” @jmoff84 added, “The noise and the number of times they say mom in a day!”