Parenting Myth #4: I Love Everything About Parenting
JK. It doesn’t have to feel magical to matter.
Summer is full of contradictions.
Sunlight and overstimulation. Contentment and drudgery. Laughter and laundry.
We might be making memories, but we’re also making another lunch, refereeing another argument, wiping up another mess.
We cherish our kids. We’d do anything for them.
But that doesn’t mean we love every part of this.
And that doesn’t mean we’re broken.
It means the expectations are.
This post is part four of a five-part summer series on the quiet myths that make parenting harder than it needs to be. And this one might be the most quietly cruel.
Am I the only one who feels guilty for not loving this more?
The pressure isn’t just to do it all—it’s to enjoy doing it. And to wonder what’s wrong with us when we don’t. The myth isn’t just about staying grateful or “cherishing the moments.” It runs deeper.
It tells us that emotional satisfaction is the reward for good parenting.
That if we’re doing it well, the work will fulfill us.
The patience will feel natural.
The moments will string together into a meaningful whole.
And if they don’t? The assumption is that something must be broken—either in our parenting or in us.
What we’re rarely told is that a lot of parenting isn’t emotionally rewarding—because it’s not designed to be.
It’s logistical. Repetitive. Sensory-heavy. Time-bound. Often invisible.
It’s a job role filled with micro-tasks that would be mind-numbing in any other context, but we’re told they should feel sacred simply because they involve our kids.
It’s like telling a nurse that charting vitals at the end of a double shift should make her feel purposefully alive, because it’s part of saving lives. Or telling a teacher that grading papers well into the night should feel rewarding, because he’s shaping young minds.
We don’t expect constant emotional payoff from other forms of care.
We understand that even the most meaningful work is often dull, challenging, and unglamorous in the moment.
But somehow, we tell parents that love should make the labor feel lighter.
That myth isn’t just unrealistic. It’s manipulative.
And the more we buy it, the more invisible the work becomes.
What if the guilt isn’t coming from the parenting but from the story we’ve been sold about it?
Because we’re constantly being told how meaningful this is. How fleeting. How sacred.
And often it is.
Some moments catch us off guard and take our breath away.
A quiet “I love you” in the dark. A sticky hand slipping into ours. A belly laugh from the backseat.
Those moments are real. And they matter.
But they don’t erase the other ones.
The ones that feel thankless, tedious, or invisibly hard.
And when those two realities collide, we don’t question the narrative—we question ourselves.
The myth makes us feel like the absence of fulfillment is a personal defect—like we’re ungrateful or emotionally broken. If we were more evolved, more maternal (or paternal), more present, we’d be smiling instead of gritting our teeth at 9:47 p.m. when no one will go to bed, and the house still smells like chicken nuggets.
When the joy is unpredictable, we start to believe we are, too.
But feeling fed up—or overwhelmed, or exhausted—is sometimes the clearest sign of how much we’ve stayed in it.
Frustration isn’t failure. It’s emotional stamina.
Proof that we’ve chosen to love—day in and day out, without applause, inside a routine that often feels like it’s dissolving us.
We can feel deeply invested in our kids and still feel worn down by the work.
That doesn’t mean we’re falling short.
It means we’re human—moving through something vast, messy, and meaningful without a script.
So what if letting go of this expectation is what frees us to show up fully?
Not because we’ve cracked the code but because we’ve stopped chasing a feeling that was never the point.
We stop looking for pleasure as proof we’re doing it right.
We stop confusing satisfaction with success.
And in that space, something softer settles in:
Room to be present without performing.
To be honest without apologizing.
To love our kids, even when the work doesn’t love us back.
Delight isn’t the proof of good parenting. It’s a bonus. We can stop chasing it to prove we’re enough. We can stop faking it to feel like we belong.
Parenting isn’t a vibe. It’s a relationship.
And like any relationship, it will stretch us, test us, and sometimes feel impossibly hard.
But that doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong.
It simply means we’re fully committed.
That’s not inadequate parenting.
That’s engaged, enduring parenting.
This is part four of a five-part summer series: The Myths Making Parenting Harder Than It Has to Be.
Next up: What if disappearing into parenthood isn’t noble but costly? When we go quiet long enough, we forget how to hear ourselves.
Other Parenting Myths:
This piece really delves into the profound disconnect between the idealized narrative of parenting and its gritty, unglam glamorous reality. We're bombarded with images and stories that suggest parenthood is a continuous highlight reel, a journey of pure, unadulterated bliss, and anything less means parents are somehow failing. But as you brilliantly highlight, "a lot of parenting isn’t emotionally rewarding—because it’s not designed to be. It’s logistical. Repetitive. Sensory-heavy. Time-bound. Often invisible."
This truth, when truly absorbed, is a game-changer, even for those of us without children. It shifts the burden of proof from a parent's personal emotional state to the flawed societal expectations themselves. From an outside perspective, it makes me wonder: what if the most radical act of love in parenting isn't about feeling a certain way, but about showing up consistently and imperfectly, acknowledging the struggle, and finding peace in the commitment rather than the fleeting joy? It's a powerful reminder that we all grapple with idealized narratives versus reality in various aspects of life, and this insight into the parenting experience offers a valuable broader perspective.
I can’t wait to talk to you about how much parenting sucks most of the time… haha
My favorite of this series yet.
Something I need to remind myself of quite often in which you’ve now given me plenty of powerful quotes and content to help.
A lot like the 80/20 principle, some days feel like 80% of the effort is challenging and unproductive (not true as it’s often an investment for the future) but that 20% is more gratifying than anything else in my life. Those subtle connections are everything. Like you said, it doesn’t erase the hard but wisdom like you just put out can help reframe it for what it is without tying in unnecessary guilt or rumination which I’m definitely prone to do