“Good Parenting” | 5 Tips To Becoming The Parent You Were Meant To Be

Is your parenting role feeling a little more like “Stay At Home Mom Con”?

So this is my first post, and the running theme here is really the spark behind me wanting to start this blog in the first place. In almost every way that I thought I was going to THRIVE as a Stay at Home Mom and be the epitome of “good parenting “, I felt like I had failed miserably. I truly felt like an absolute con-woman and frankly a failure for thinking I was put on this earth for this very purpose, only to realize I couldn’t hack it. 

It hurts my heart to even write this, but I know that there are so many women out there who feel exactly how I felt for years. And although I know that the only people who will likely read this are my mom, my best friend and my sister (who will probably have a stroke from my grammar alone), I just hope I can make one more mama out there realize that she doesn’t need to continue down this path of self-loathing. The fact that you care enough to search out advice, probably means that you are doing everything in your power to give your child the “good parent” they deserve. 

Below is a little summary of my story as a Mama Bear

Feel free to skip my life’s story and go down to my

5 Tips To Becoming The “Good Parent” You Were Meant To Be

   Let me start by saying that I really have only ever had two dreams for my life. One was to find the man of my dreams and marry him… check, and two was to be a stay at home mom… check. 

  You’d think I’d be happy as can be, right? Well, as I’m sure most women will tell you, marriage and motherhood are hard! Even when you think you are prepared and that you were built for this, you have no idea what is in store for you. 

I loved playing “Mommy” from the moment I could hold a baby doll. I started babysitting at the ripe ole’ age of 8 years old. Every boy I had a crush on- I would picture an entire life with them. Most women would probably admit to doodling their imaginary married name in a notebook at some point. Me? I would have the whole dang imaginary families’ names picked out. In the third grade I was convinced I was going to marry a kid, let’s say his name was Shameron Schmitchell 🤣, and obviously we’d have a daughter named Lillian and a son named after him… duh! I probably had middle names and pets names pick out too y’all. I was wild. Excuse me while I go crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment.

Well suffice to say I never became Mrs. Schmitchell, but instead I wound up marrying my true partner in life and someone I love so deeply. 

 So, why did this phase of life rock my world? 

 Before having kids, the only things my husband and I ever fought about was my never ending accumulation of laundry, and me wanting him to stop smoking. Having two incomes, all the privilege in the world and virtually no responsibilities- we really didn’t have much to complain about. We were so in love and excited about life and our future together.

I was an overworked, stressed out, structural engineer, and he loved his job in tech support. It only made sense that I would stay home once we had kids. After all, that was my dream. That is what I had sold him on for years. Saying “won’t it be great when I stay home and can do all the cleaning and cooking and we won’t have to kill ourselves after work and on the weekends”!? “I can pack you lunches”! I mean, I really sold him on this idea of me being this perfect Susie Homemaker- who was going to keep a tidy house, bring our kids to the playground everyday and do nothing but Montessori style parenting activities all day with the sun shining out my happy ass. 

Y’all nothing went to plan. I did NOTTTTTT deliver on this dream whatsoever. 

I plan on writing a post about my experiences with Postpartum Depression and being a NICU Mama, and will link them here. For now, I will just say, we had a rocky start to our parenting adventure. And our struggles only compounded with time. 

It took me a full three years of being unhappy and feeling like a crappy mom and partner to make the changes I needed to, to find balance and happiness in my life. 

So here are my 5 Tips To Becoming The “Good Parent” You Were Meant To Be

1. Get a Therapist

Bold first step, I KNOW I KNOW, but hear me out! Being a parent is a complete life transformation. You are suddenly needed endlessly by another human. You know all the cliché versions of what I’m about to say, but you need to take care of yourself first and foremost to be able to be the best version of yourself for your kids, and that starts with your mental health.

• I guess I always felt that therapy was one of those resources you used as a last resort. IT’S NOT! Therapists are trained professionals who are unbiased and can give you a wealth of advice, insight and resources to help you work on whatever it is you are struggling with. You may not even know where to start, but a therapist can help you navigate that.

• There are a variety of specialties and certifications that they may have, so do your research and set yourself up for a successful match. I read dozens of bios to find the right therapist for myself. Maybe you want someone who specializes in helping people with OCD or ADHD or people who struggle with anxiety, substance abuse, or postpartum depression. Maybe you want to work with someone who specializes in career placement, or to focus on marriage counseling.

• You can do all of this from your couch! I typically schedule my appointments for when my older child is at preschool and my youngest is napping. If that doesn’t work out, I set them both up with a mountain of snacks in front of the TV and pray that the mess and fighting is minimal.
• (P.S. this snack container that my sister got my toddler for Christmas is life changing, and every mom in the universe needs it). You gotta do what you gotta do to take care of yourself!

• Through this process I actually learned that many of my “flaws” that I just can’t seem to shake are actually the result of undiagnosed Adult ADHD. Now my therapist, psychologist and I are working together to find what tools I can use to successfully make the changes I want long term. Prior to this, I just beat myself up for being lazy, having no will power and not being able to stay on task. My world opened up when I started therapy and I hope yours does too.
• I have to acknowledge that I am fortunate enough to have good health insurance and that since Covid started, mental health is finally being covered the way it always should have been. For those who don’t have insurance there are some relatively cheap avenues to find a therapist. If this isn’t an option for you, you are not alone. Look into universities with counseling programs, local churches, community health centers. Where there is a will there is a way. I know, *aggressive eyeroll*. But if you aren’t happy, it 100% will come out in your parenting, I know first hand.

2. Make Room For Joy In Your Life.

It is so easy to lose yourself as a parent, but especially as a stay at home mom. If you’re anything like me, you spend a large portion of your day cleaning up a never ending tornado that manifests the second you turn your back. Therefore, leaving you feeling like you are never making progress on anything else. This is where I would get discouraged, where I would wallow and give up. This cycle continued for far too long. It was only when I took time for myself to do something that brought me joy that I could get the energy to keep busting my butt on that never ending to do list and not drown in it.

• I can already feel the dagger eyes on me, like “BITCH!? Where am I going to ‘find time for myself’, if I can’t even catch up on the house stuff”? Sure, you probably don’t have time to get out your sewing machine and all your supplies to start sewing a cute dress, (believe me, I know, I’ve had a brand new sewing machine in a box under my bed for over a year), but you could definitely hand embroider a few flowers on a shirt collar, or do an awesome needle point. Something small that you can pull out for 10-15 minutes at a time and shove back in to a bag when the ewoks start to get out of control.

• My simple pleasure is caring for my plants- it doesn’t matter if I’m outside landscaping or inside tending to my dramatic calatheas, I am obsessed with plants! In an ideal world- I would have the freedom to make a living wall in my house and construct a cottage garden in my yard. But the reality is that I watch youtube videos on how to care for specific plants while I do the dishes. While my kids are playing peacefully for approximately 2 whole minutes *GASP*, I check to see what needs watering or fertilizing. And if I’m really feeling wild, I propagate some cuttings after the girls go to sleep. Taking this time for myself to do something I love in those micro-moments, is what makes me feel refreshed enough to then go do something mundane like working through a mountain of laundry.
• BTW- I tried to find a stock photo of a messy laundry situations and they were all too pretty. Listen y’all I’m about being real. I hate doing laundry and this is my real life bedroom disaster. Sometimes I am kicking ass and taking names when it comes to laundry, and other times I’m getting my ass kicked and barely know my own name.  

3. Be Honest About What You Want

I personally think this is the most essential step, but it was also the most difficult for me. I can’t decide if that’s because I lost myself so much in this journey, or if it’s because I never really was able to find myself in the first place. As I said in the beginning of this post, I never really had any dreams outside of the fantasy of being a stay at home mom. So now that I am here and it’s nothing and I’m nothing like I thought I’d be… now what?

Do I go back to work doing something I’ll likely hate, because I have no idea who I am or what I want to do? Every job opening in the engineering field that I researched sounded worse than pulling teeth. I couldn’t think of anything traditional that would be flexible enough or pay enough to make it worth the daycare bills. Do I just keep perpetuating this nauseating cycle of self loathing and failure?

For years my husband would tell me that he could see I wasn’t happy with the arrangement, that I should just go back to work, that it was okay to admit that this wasn’t what I wanted. It literally took me trying to create dream jobs in my mind that didn’t exist (and didn’t totally make sense), to start to be honest about what I wanted. For me, I couldn’t happily fit in either of the two boxes of SAHM or Working mom. My ideal world would include ½ day preschool, 3-5 days a week and a side hustle that allowed me to feel like a separate human being from my family, instead of the walking boobs they saw me as.

• Sit down with a notebook, ( I find it’s helpful to have a pretty, hardcover notebook like this, that makes you feel excited to write in it) and just start writing down anything and everything that makes you HAPPY and go from there. How can you combine some of those things? How could you implement those things into a job, or a side hustle, or into your day to day life to bring you from con to happy, content, thriving mom?

4. Lean In To Your Strengths

I thought I’d be like this super mom. You know- organized out the wazoo, hot breakfasts every morning, thoughtful little notes in the lunches, going to yoga classes, a daily planner filled with playdates, dressing my girls up in the cutest outfits with french braided hair.

Y’all, I don’t even know how to french braid! I don’t know how I thought I was magically going to turn into this person with the power of motherhood, but nope, didn’t happen.

It turns out I’m more a combination of Lucy Ricardo mixed with Roseanne- silly, flighty, spazzy, a bit of a hot head, but I love hard. Over the last few years I have learned that trying to be this person I am not, had really pushed me HEAD FIRST down the rabbit hole of depression, and anyone who has experienced that knows how hard it is to pull yourself out. See step one 😉

So instead, I embraced my silliness, my playful side and my love for crafting, gardening and cooking and brought them to the forefront of my relationship with my kids. My three year old loves to help me in the kitchen- baking bread, peeling garlic and onions, chopping things, picking herbs. We experiment growing veggies from the seeds of our food and she absolutely loves to see the seedlings come up, and to water our garden beds. One summer she literally ate 1-2 whole green peppers every single day from our garden. I am certain that her love for greens comes from our experiences in the garden. I truly could not get basil to grow because she was eating it faster than the plants could keep up with.

• When she’s grown and asks me how to fold a fitted sheet… Lord help her, because I have watched so many tutorial videos and mine still come out like a hairball coughed up by the dog-dragon from Never Ending Story. Contrarily, if she asks me to teach her how to build a brick flower bed- I absolutely can, thanks to my father who taught me how to build one while I was 6 months pregnant.
• For the aspects of parenting that weren’t strengths of mine, I found blogs and books that coincided with the type of relationship I wanted to have with my kids. Types of parenting that I considered “good parenting” that I aspired to- gentle parenting, playful parenting, attachment parenting, respectful parenting, etc.. I watch youtube videos on mommy hacks to make my life easier. I’ve learned from my sister-in-laws, who all have the patience of monks. I’ve learned from my sister, who opens doors for her daughter to explore her interests- making her the brightest, most clever tween that I have ever met.

• Each one of my friends is walking a different path than I am, some working, some single, and they all have strengths that I lack and visa-versa, but we learn so much from one another. Lead with what you know and what you love, and then fill in the gaps.

5. Radical Acceptance

• This is something I learned from my therapist, that I find myself returning to whenever I get overwhelmed, and start throwing myself a pity party. The general idea is that if something is out of your control you need to accept that and move on to what you can control. You know that whole AA serenity prayer you hear on TV shows all the time? Yea, basically that. It is also immensely helpful in the parenting realm.

• For instance, we live in a small, narrow house with very little storage or space for furniture. The clutter and mess gives my husband anxiety, and I get easily overwhelmed by the limited space to put things. We both fixated on these feelings for far too long. Once we learned about this philosophy we practiced letting go of those hang-ups and started focusing on what our options were moving forward. We could move, put on an addition, or minimize our belongings. We have two small children, so even in our best efforts to keep toys, clothes and gadgets to an absolute minimum, it’s still a mad house around here.

• In the end we donated and sold a lot of our belongings and tried to limit what we brought into our home moving forward. We implemented some additional minimalist practices and smart storage for small spaces. Then we started renovating our house so that we could start the process of moving to a bigger home when the time is right. Like this organizer, which we used for crafts and another one for small toys to store in our daughter’s closet. Which by the way is a great way to keep them from getting all those tiny pieces everywhere all at once, since they can’t reach them and we also added this child proof door knob cover to keep them from gaining access to the crafts without us.

• We’d love to move in to a bigger house when the time is right, and until then we are doing what we CAN to make this house work for us.
• What are the hang-ups standing in your way of moving forward? Can you do anything about them? If not, move on to what is within your control and take ownership of it. 

I know these steps aren’t as easy as “take a shower”, or “get out of your pajamas”, but while I find those things helpful, they are small potatoes compared to the complete upheaval of parenting. Incorporating these actions in to my life has made me feel alive again- like my life has purpose beyond keeping two kids alive. My relationship with my kids has evolved- we laugh more, play more and enjoy one another so much more genuinely. I firmly believe that happy people become happy parents who make happy babies.

This post was all about how to lean in to the chaos of parenting and embrace your strengths to find joy. I hope this was helpful, as I know that there are so many parents out there who just feel like they are failing and don’t even recognize themselves anymore. If that’s you, just know you are capable of finding those simple joyful moments and bringing them to the forefront of your life and parenting relationship.

If you want to see some of the things that I find joy in, check out one of my posts on plants.