Making difficult parenting decisions is part of raising kids, but that doesn't make those choices any easier. From moving your family to deciding whether to sleep train, even decisions made with the best intentions can cause stress, sadness, and uncertainty. Sometimes, doing what's best for your family means accepting that parenting is hard.
When What's Best for Your Family Is Still Hard
I moved.
And it sucked.
—
It occurred to me after my third physio appointment for my hip tendinopathy: I may be driving a bit too much.
"When do you feel the pain most?" my physio asked.
"After driving, mostly," I answered.
"Ok, and what's the threshold for that? 15 minutes? 60 minutes?"
"About 30," I answered.
"Ok, and how often do you drive that a week?"
"8 to 10 times," I said.
“Oh,” he said.
We both looked at each other silently for a while. Me, not willing to take in the information that maybe I shouldn't drive that much. Him, looking at me, wondering why I was driving that much, and that being the obvious answer to the question about the pain I was experiencing.
Now listen, was my hip issue solely to blame on driving? No, it was not. But it was the first moment I really realised that maybe there were parts of our lives that just weren't working.
Earlier this year, I wrote about community and how it was hard for me to connect to my community. And although I made several attempts to connect, truthfully, my job had me driving in and out of Toronto regularly, working from home (not in a local office), and not really living in the community I was in. Add to that two kids whose activities, sports, and everything they did outside of school were not in our community either.
It seemed like, although I wanted to connect with this community so deeply, it was hard when we kept driving away from it. Like 8-10 times a week.
In the end, my husband and I made the difficult decision to move back to Toronto. Activities were closer, friends were nearby, and there were a lot of positives.
With those positives came some very real grief for the whole family. We love our home. We bought it during the pandemic, and it was on this gorgeous stretch of property, and we renovated it over the years exactly to our taste. We had made some friends in the community, and our kids love their friends and their school. It wasn't an easy decision, and it wasn't clear-cut. It still hurts.
Making Difficult Parenting Decisions
When we told our children, they were very sad and cried. I have to be honest that it was probably one of the hardest parenting experiences I've ever had. What made it hard is that I was responsible for the pain that they were experiencing. The choice that my husband and I made as parents, for the overall betterment of the family, was painful for our kids.
I haven't had a baby in a long time, but I've done this job every day of my life for the past 10 years, and it wasn't lost on me that the experience of doing something that was good for the family, while also holding that this experience was tough and stressful for my kids, was really difficult.
Much like the decision many parents face when they choose to sleep train. It's a minefield out there, with lots of advice, best practices, and this and that, and in the end, it all comes down to this: whether you choose to sleep train. Parenting is full of difficult decisions that may or may not cause your child pain.
Even decisions made with the best intentions for everyone in the family may be painful, hard, and stressful, and sometimes I feel like the narrative around parenting doesn't talk about this enough.
Every new hot parenting guide, method, practice, or this-or-that promises the answer to a pain-free parenting existence, but unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion, 12 years into this job, that parenting is hard.
It just is. I don't think it's meant to be easy. I think it's the biggest challenge that we will face in our lives. It's also the most rewarding. It's also the most exuberant I've ever felt in my life. It's also the source of the most tears I'll ever shed.
Parenting Is Hard. Parenting Is Showing Up.
Fighting with your 3-year-old about bedtime is hard. Arguing with your 15-year-old about phone use is hard. Making good decisions for your kids is hard, but I don't think that it being hard means you're doing it wrong.
I don't know that I have any wise words other than this: I'm learning that, in the end, parenting is knowing that you will have to make hard decisions (several of them), carefully and lovingly.
Parenting is knowing that you will cause some pain. And then, parenting is showing up on the other side with the same careful, loving attention and responsiveness you always have.
Parenting is hard. Parenting is showing up.
That's parenting.
And it's hard.
- Love, Amanda
Making Decisions About Your Baby's Sleep?
Deciding whether to sleep train can feel overwhelming, especially when you're trying to balance your baby's needs with what's best for your whole family. At Baby's Best Sleep, we're here to help you navigate those decisions with guidance, support, and a sleep plan that works for your family.
Get in touch to learn more about our baby sleep consulting services.