Why Parents Should Matter As Much as Their Kids

If you struggle with “mom guilt” or trying to find time for yourself while also being a “good mother,” this episode may help. In it, Abigail talks about the importance of self-care, and why parents should matter as much as their kids do.

The following is an edited transcript of this podcast episode.

I received a beautiful note from a mother-to-be the other day.

She says, “I am a new mother in a few months, and I don’t have a mother in my own life that I can look to, to guide me. I know that I’m not supposed to make this baby my world in order to have a healthy relationship with them, but I have no idea how to do that. How can I take care of myself while I’m already feeling, even just midway through my pregnancy, like my baby is the only thing that matters to me? How can I let them know how much I care, and yet not make that too big of a deal that it becomes a burden on them?”

Oh, what a beautiful question! What a beautiful mother entering motherhood already with the awareness of certain places she might not want to go and the huge amount of feelings already building up in her even before this baby is born! So I wanted to touch on this because it’s so profound. How much are we to love our children? How much are we to make them matter? Let them matter? How much are we to matter in this relationship? Because parenting IS a relationship, and it’s not just a one-way sacrifice.

Where the Mom Guilt Comes From

Parenting is actually a relationship between two parties. Of course kids matter—they matter so much.
But parents deserve just as much love. Parents need to matter too! And it’s really, really hard to get that equation right. It’s a constant balancing act.

There are going to be days that it really does just feel like a sacrifice. And then there are going to be moments where you’re like, “I can’t do this anymore. I need to take care of myself.”

And then sometimes it feels like we’re sacrificing them at our expense. And that’s where the mom guilt pours in: “I can’t spend another night constantly awake. I can’t do this. I have to sleep. I’m going to send my partner in. Or, ‘I’m just going to let you cry.’ Or, ‘I’m just gonna cry in the room next to you while I don’t sleep.'”

Who Wins and Who Loses in Parenting?

As we talk about in this other post on the identity crisis of parenthood, this fight for the self—the constant grappling with who gets to win and at whose expense, begins early in our parenting journey. And I love that this mother is already starting to think about all these things, even though she doesn’t yet understand the particulars and the moments that are going to bring these questions to such a head.

I want to say this to all of you: You really do need to matter. This can be hard to believe if you grew up with someone who didn’t role model this—maybe THEY mattered too much, or maybe they only let YOU matter, and they never mattered enough for themselves. Either one of those is going to set you up for a slightly more challenging ride because you don’t have your own lived experience of what it looks like to be in a space that holds both of you.

The good news is it is absolutely possible to get to that place. The answer is something that I call “concurrent needs.”

Using Concurrent Needs to Banish the Mom Guilt

Parents have needs, and children have needs. And concurrent needs shows us that it is possible to be in a relationship that benefits BOTH parties, where both parents and children can win.

For many of us, becoming parents is what actually invites us to heal so many wounds from the past and to look forward and actually change the trajectory of our future. So, if this is you and you are either about to have a baby, you just had a baby, or you’ve got a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old and you’re still struggling with this, I want you to know that these questions are so normal!

Reset your Relationship so it Nourishes You and Your Child

Achieving concurrent needs and banishing the mom guilt really is doable. You just need to be able to see it, feel it, hold it, touch it, have it laid out for you, and then learn to WALK it. This is exactly what we help you do in our parenting resets: we help you build a relationship with your child that fills you BOTH in the exact right proportions.

Win-win.

Concurrent needs.

Each side feeding the other.

Together, caring for each other.

That is really when the family can thrive.