when does parenting get easier

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when does parenting get easier

Have you ever wondered when does parenting get easier? Here are my answer and a truth that I wish I’d known sooner.

When my son was a little baby and I was struggling with adjusting to my new role as a mom, I heard my friends and family telling me over and over again to just hold on because it gets easier in time.

I hung on to this idea during all those sleepless nights that were so difficult to handle! During all those moments when my baby was crying in my arms and I had no idea how to comfort him.

Even during all those meal times when his food got more on the floor than in his stomach.

when does parenting get easierphoto credit: Evgeny Atamanenko / shutterstock.com

After a while, I adjusted pretty well to my new life and I started to think that what they said is true.

Then I returned to work and we struggled to make this change easy for him. Then the first tantrums appeared. And then he went through an aggressive phase and we needed to find positive ways to help him deal with his strong feelings.

Every single time I held on and I hoped that things will get easier!

And they did… only until the next challenge appeared.

I realized that motherhood is not about waiting for things to get easier. It’s about finding the strength to deal with every difficult moment and enjoying the good parts of motherhood that are so easy to miss when we feel frustrated or overwhelmed!

In the last months, things changed in a surprising way. My biggest struggles were not about holding on but more about letting go.

I imagined that things get a lot easier when children grow because they are no longer so dependent on us and they are better equipped to handle the challenges in their lives.

But this independence comes with its own challenges.

I have less control over the things that happen in my child’s life and less power to protect him.

Sometimes I need to take a step back and let him face a challenging moment on his own.

Or I need to let him make his own mistakes because I know that this is how he learns to make better choices.

Or I need to let him deal with a disappointment or a rejection from another child without being able to make things better for him.

Some days ago I talked about this with a friend who has two grown-up kids. And she told me something that really resonated with me: that the hardest thing about being a mom is not holding on but letting go.

We have these years of their childhood when we can give them all of our love and support. We have this time when we can offer them all those tools that will help them deal with challenges. And when we can build in them that certainty that we will always be there for them when they need us.

Maybe things don’t really get easier in time.

Maybe the right question to ask ourselves is not “When will things get easier?” but “What can we do better right now?”

when does parenting get easierphoto credit: Syda Productions / shutterstock.com

Every stage of our kids’ lives comes with challenges, with difficult moments, with struggles and doubts. We cannot change this.

What we can change is our approach to them.

We can spend less time worrying about them and more time focusing on what we can do to help our kids go through each of these challenges.

We can spend less time waiting for things to get better and more time enjoying the wonderful things that kids already bring in our lives.

And we can spend less time with power struggles and meaningless fights and more time hugging our kids and offering them all our love.

Because time goes by so fast and we will never have these moments again!


More from Playful Notes

Does parenting really get easier? Here is a truth that I wish I'd known sooner. #MomLife #Parenting Tips

Does parenting really get easier? Here is a truth that I wish I'd known sooner. #MomLife #Parenting Tips

photo credit preview photo: Evgeny Atamanenko / shutterstock.com

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