Yesterday, in the car, my kids were fighting. Questions were flying at me from every direction, and my brain was already full, already buzzing with everything I was carrying. I took a breath, and I said: “Mama needs the car ride to be quiet right now. Mama’s head is full of a lot of different things, and it feels really overwhelming. I just need some quiet so I can slowly take things out of my brain. Resting does that for me.”
They got quiet. And I thought: this is the work.
That night, at bedtime, one of my kids looked up at me and asked: “Mama, is your head better? Did you manage to take things out?” They had listened. They had held it. And in that small question, I saw exactly what I wanted to teach them.
My story is that of a mama, but this guilt, this inner work, I have seen it in the eyes of every parent I’ve supported, no matter who they are.
I grew up in a generation where kids were always meant to be doing something. Rest wasn’t productive. Sitting on the couch wasn’t allowed. Self-care wasn’t a concept that existed in our home, and I never once watched my parents take time for themselves, not with friends, not in solitude, not just being.
And so here I am, decades later, still feeling a flicker of guilt when I sit down while dishes remain in the sink. Still having to remind myself, gently and sometimes firmly, that I am allowed to stop.
That guilt didn’t come from nowhere. It was handed to me, quietly, without anyone meaning harm. It was modeled into me, the way so many things are through watching, absorbing, growing up inside a particular story about what it means to be a good person, a good parent, a good partner.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand, after years of walking alongside families as a doula, and after years of stumbling through my own parenthood: the modeling goes both ways. What we do, our children are learning to do too. Every time we rest without apology, every time we name a need out loud, every time we say I need a moment, we are writing a different story for them to grow up inside.
I’m not saying this to add something to your list. I’m saying it because it’s good news you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to try, imperfectly, sometimes. That is enough.
There’s a phrase I come back to again and again with the families I support: you can’t pour from an empty cup.
It sounds simple. It almost sounds like a cliché. But I’ve sat with enough exhausted, depleted, deeply loving parents to know how radical it actually is to believe it, really believe it, in your body, not just your head.
Because believing it means accepting that your wellbeing matters. Not because it makes you a better parent (though it does). Not because it optimizes your output or maximizes your capacity (this is not a productivity conversation). But because you matter. Full stop.
And here is what I want you to sit with: when you rest, when you take time for a friendship that fills you up, when you set a boundary and name what you need, you are not abandoning your children. You are showing them what a healthy, whole adult looks like. You are showing them that their own needs will one day deserve space too. You are teaching them, without a single lesson plan, that wellbeing is not selfish, it is something worth protecting.
Your children are not responsible for your happiness. That is not a burden they should carry. And every time you take care of yourself, you set them free from that weight.
What I said to my kids in the car wasn’t a perfect speech. It was imperfect and unrehearsed and a little rambling, the way real life is. But something happened in that quiet that followed. They understood. Not fully, not forever, but in that moment, they understood that their mama had a need, and that the need was real, and that naming it wasn’t weakness.
And then that night, at bedtime, they asked if my head was feeling better. If I had managed to take things out. If I was okay.
That is what I want for your children too.
I want them to grow up knowing that their wellbeing matters. That boundaries are not walls but acts of love. That friendships, real ones, nourishing ones, the kind that make you feel more like yourself — are worth protecting. That rest is not something you earn. That self-care is not selfish. That a healthy adult is not someone who never stops, but someone who knows when to.
And if you are at the beginning, with a newborn in your arms, your baby doesn’t understand the words yet. But this is exactly the right time to start practicing. Because by the time they grow, they will never have known anything different. They will have always seen you take care of yourself.
We didn’t all grow up with that modeled for us. Many of us are learning it now, imperfectly, in real time, while our kids watch.
And that, I think, is one of the most beautiful things about parenthood. It asks us to become who we always needed.
Kaëlla
