The Allure of Gentle Parenting

In this episode of the Chill Like a Mother podcast, Kayla Huszar discusses the complexities of gentle parenting, particularly in the context of social media pressures. She emphasizes the importance of connection over perfectionism and the need for parents to balance their own needs with those of their children. Kayla shares insights from her therapy practice, highlighting the emotional burdens many mothers carry and the necessity of setting boundaries. The conversation encourages mothers to embrace their imperfections and reconnect with themselves beyond their roles as parents.

Takeaways

• Gentle parenting offers a connection-focused approach to parenting.
• Many parents struggle with the pressure of social media.
• Over-correcting in parenting can lead to exhaustion and resentment.
• Setting boundaries is essential for both parents and children.
• Gentle parenting is not about self-sacrifice but about family-focused connection.
• It's okay to be imperfect; you only need to get it right 30% of the time.
• Social media often distorts the true essence of gentle parenting.
• Moms often feel responsible for everyone's emotional needs.
• Reconnecting with oneself is crucial for effective parenting.
• The motherload community supports mothers in rediscovering themselves.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Chill Like a Mother podcast. I'm Kayla, and today I just have to get something off my chest. Gentle parenting really sounds like a dream come true, doesn't it? I mean it's focused on connection and empathy and raising emotionally intelligent children. It feels like the exact right antidote to the parent-centered, authoritarian style of parenting that many of us grew up with. And if you were raised in a home where because I said so, ruled, gentle parenting can feel like a really great way to break that cycle, because it promises so much, so much of what many of us craved as kids Understanding, softness, spaced-afterly feel and all of the moms that I work with can attest to the fact that they are determined not to repeat those patterns that they grew up with. And so gentle parenting seems like so seductive, right, but here's the thing that many of my clients come up against, myself included. In an effort to be gentle, many moms overcorrect and end up replacing one set of impossible standards with another. And end up replacing one set of impossible standards with another.

Speaker 1: 1:27

Today, we're going to talk about how to navigate the gentle parenting pressure, especially when it is fueled by social media, so that you might be able to find some balance between what you're consuming on the internet, how you'd like to break the pattern and what's actually realistic. First, I want to start with why gentle parenting lures you in. So those of us again raised where parents' needs came first, gentle parenting can feel revolutionary Because it tells us, when you create a safe, emotionally attuned environment, you help your kids feel seen and heard, something that many of us did not feel growing up. And in doing gentle parenting, you're doing the work to break that generational soul. These goals are great and they're worth pursuing, but social media doesn't always tell you this part.

Speaker 1: 2:26

In your desire to rewrite this way of parenting, it's easy to swing too far in the other direction, overcorrecting to the point where you disappear entirely. If you grew up in a home where boundaries felt rigid or connection felt conditional, it's natural to want to give your children everything that you didn't have. But that desire comes with its own challenges and things that we might not even realize that we're doing. Here's what I see in my therapy practice Moms getting stuck in emotional overwhelm. They are determined to break cycles. They take excessive emotional and personal responsibility for their kids, their partner and for themselves. And in this desire to get it right in parenting leads them to carrying everyone's feelings, everyone's needs, everyone's emotions in this invisible headspace. Now this is unconscious and unintentional, where we overcorrect from being parented in this really parent-centered way to swinging to child-centered, which, by the way, is not actually gentle parenting.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Gentle parenting is rooted in connection, but I'm not going to get into that. If you want to get more information on this, olivia Scooby and I did a podcast specifically about the trap of gentle parenting. So many moms have done this. Myself unconsciously and unintentionally overcorrect by suppressing our own needs to be constantly, consistently, endlessly, foreverly, emotionally available to our children. Saying yes to every request because no might feel like rejection or no might feel like I'm traumatizing my child, or no might feel like I'm damaging them in the way that I was damaged and I cannot stomach them. And unintentionally avoiding boundaries because they seem too similar to authoritarian style parenting and it's like we can't find the middle ground. And I felt like this in the beginning of my parenting, where this new parenting information was really only available online. I couldn't find books written on it, mostly because those books didn't have the keywords gentle in them. Right, it was conscious parenting or the whole brain, child, or like keywords like that. It wasn't phrased as gentle parenting.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Gentle parenting is really taken off in the Instagram way that we consume parenting information, parenting information. So while gentle parenting feels like proof that you are breaking the cycle, this overcorrection leads to exhaustion, resentment and a very serious neglect of your own needs. The painful irony of all of this when burnout hits, it becomes even harder to show up for your children in ways you hope to, which is often the moment that people reach out for therapy and or join my mother load group because they're taking on too much. They have told me things like they believe that it's their responsibility to ensure that their children are always happy. They struggle to set boundaries because they worry that their children will feel rejected, traumatized, distressed, and they agree to things beyond their capacity because they think that that's what good moms do. And none of this is your fault If you're thinking right now oh, my God, kayla, you are in my head. I had no idea that I was doing this. Trust me. Trust me, you are not the only person going through this right now, and I am saying this because I've lived it. I continue to live it. I stay up way too late Googling or scrolling or looking for all of the ways that I can be a good and right parent. But here is the very uncomfortable truth that I have had to reconcile with the gentle parenting is not about prioritizing my children's needs over my own.

Speaker 1: 6:56

At the core, gentle parenting is about connection, not self-sacrifice, and not self-abandonment and not self-abandonment. It is about being family-focused, which means all of the members of the family's needs, wants, desires and emotions matter, not only the child's. But Instagram doesn't give us that full picture. It doesn't give us the nuance of all of that. Social media often distorts gentle parenting to feel like pressure, like a child-centered approach where setting boundaries or saying no or being firm or having a household rule or a family rule can feel authoritarian.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So experts like Daniel Siegel and Olivia Scooby tell a different story in their respective books. In Daniel Siegel's book the no Drama, discipline and the Whole Brain Child, he and the other co-authors talk about how parenting is not about being endlessly accommodating. It is about showing up, setting limits and repairing after a conflict. It does not assume that you are perfect. It assumes that you're going to be imperfect. You're going to mess it up, you're going to fuck it up, you're going to yell. You're going to come on too fast, too harsh, too, whatever, and the magic is actually in the repair. It is okay and necessary even they both talk about these in their books for parents to hold boundaries and meet their own needs.

Speaker 1: 8:33

And this, this is my favorite, my absolute favorite. You only need to get it right 30% of the time. That means 70% of the time you're messing it up, you're doing it imperfectly, you're doing it messy, you're, you're conflicted, you're in self-doubt, you're unsure. Instagram tells you that you need to be the strong leader all of the time and that all of your children's behaviors are your fault, which is a product of the patriarchy. By the way, and I won't get into that right now, the mother-blaming narrative is a product of the patriarchy. Olivia and I talk about this, and we have now done four podcasts together and specifically we talk about this in Impossible Parenting four ways to find your chill and stop feeling like a failure. If you wanted another listen.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So one of my clients, a mom of two, shared this with me. I didn't realize how stress was making me exhausted. I was just channeling all of my nervous, anxiety, energy into finding solutions, organizing and planning, because it felt like something I could control, but it didn't actually help me at all. The stress was still there. It was just redirected into something else. It wasn't until I joined the mother load and meditated and journaled with you that I noticed how much I was carrying in my backpack, that invisible backpack that I talked about, where the mom feels responsible to hold everyone's needs, desires, wants, food, life, clothing, preferences. It's all there. It's just like weighing you down, like an invisible bag. If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone, and I want you to check out the blog for some journal prompts for you to be able to reclaim your energy. And here's what happened for this one mom who did this exercise. She made a list of the things that were actually helpful. She made a list of the things that were not harmful but also not helpful, and a few things that actually made things worse. Inside of that, limelessly scrolling social media was on the list.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Remember, as you're listening to this, that what works for one mom might not work for another, and the key is finding what truly helps you and that allows you to recharge and reconnect with yourself, because at the root of all of this, gentle, parenting is about connection, not perfectionism. Breaking cycles and rewriting the script of parenting is hard. It's beautiful and messy work and I commend all of you for doing it. Gentle parenting is not about losing yourself in the process. In fact, you're not doing gentle parenting if you're losing yourself in the process, because it's about connection, and that connection is outward, but it's also inward, because you cannot give other people what you do not give yourself. It's about showing up imperfect, an evolving human who teaches your kids the power of boundaries repair, as in fucking it up and coming back and owning it and taking responsibility for it and all the things involved in that and connection. So the next time you feel the pull of Instagram and the gentle parenting pressure, remind yourself your children don't need you to be perfect, they need you to be real. They need you to be real messy and shimmy.

Speaker 1: 11:54

If any of this resonated with you today, the motherlode doors are opening in February and in order to get in on the motherlode, you got to join the mail list, the waitlist. Okay, instagram has been really glitchy lately and I've had DMs go out. I've had like tons of bots trying to follow me and I'm afraid my account might get flagged. So I am doing this podcast not only to shed light on the gentle parenting myths and the way that it is perceived and the way that we receive it on social media, but also to let you know that there are other ways to engage with me. There are other ways to stay connected. My email list is one of those ways.

Speaker 1: 12:36

The Motherload is another. The Motherload is designed to help you reconnect with yourself beyond the title of mom, and let me tell you, this is not just another mom. It is a space to drop the mental load, to get creative and rediscover yourself without guilt, without perfectionism or in recovery of perfectionism. We create a community where moms can feel authentic and supported. It's not about what kind of mom you are, what stage of motherhood you're at. It is just about mothers being able to put down the invisible work and the emotional labor where your needs can finally be at the forefront just for an hour. I created this membership to help you release perfectionism, rediscover who you are in and outside of motherhood and share in the real journey of motherhood with other moms who get it. They might not parent like you, they might not be in the same life experience as you, but they get it. It is a space for growth and creativity and voice.

Speaker 1: 13:47

If you want any of the details on any of that, please check out the show notes. Please email me, message me, text me. I'm here to answer any questions that you might have about this or gentle parenting or pressure or perfectionism or people pleasing. I'm here for all of it. I'm here to answer any questions that you might have about this or gentle parenting or pressure or perfectionism or people-pleasing. I'm here for all of it. I'm here to hold it. I'm here to receive it. Now, the legal bit about this podcast is that this information is for educational purposes only. I cannot provide personalized advice or recommendations on your unique situation or circumstance. Advice or recommendations on your unique situation or circumstance. Nothing on this podcast page or website should replace therapeutic recommendations or the therapy relationship itself. Thank you for being here and I'll see you next week.