Last week, I was sitting on the kitchen floor with Milo after he’d dumped an entire box of crackers everywhere, and I completely lost it. Not my finest parenting moment. As I was cleaning up crushed goldfish and feeling like a failure, this thought hit me: my mom probably had a thousand moments exactly like this one. Except she was younger when she had me, and I’m 35 with years of parenting books, podcasts, and therapy under my belt.
That’s when it really sank in. My parents weren’t these all-knowing adults who chose to mess up. They were young people, fumbling through parenthood while desperately trying to look like they had their act together.
They were younger than I thought possible
When you’re little, your parents seem ancient. Even at 25, I still saw them as these fully-formed adults who’d always been that way. But doing the math now? My mom was young when she had me. She was younger than most of my friends are now, and none of them feel ready for kids.
I think about myself at that age. I was living on ramen, crying over relationships that didn’t work out, and calling my mom to ask how to get wine stains out of my carpet. The thought of raising an actual human at that age? Terrifying.
Yet there they were, two scared young people trying to keep a tiny person alive while everyone expected them to know exactly what they were doing. No Google. No parenting forums. Just them, a crying baby, and whatever advice their own parents threw at them.
The pretending must have been exhausting
You know what I’ve learned from five years of parenting? Admitting you don’t know something is oddly freeing. When Ellie asks why the sky is blue, I can say “Let’s look that up together.” When I mess up, I can apologize. When I’m overwhelmed, I can ask for help.
But my parents? They came from a generation where admitting uncertainty meant weakness. Where saying “I don’t know” meant you were failing as a parent. So they pretended. For decades, they pretended they had all the answers.
I see it now in the way my mom still won’t admit she was wrong about things. The way my dad still acts like every decision he made was carefully calculated, when I now know he was probably just winging it like the rest of us.
Can you imagine maintaining that facade for decades? Never being able to say “I’m scared” or “I have no idea what I’m doing” or “I think I messed up”? That weight must have been crushing.
Their mistakes make sense now
Remember those times your parents made decisions that seemed completely irrational? Mine once drove hours to a destination, realized they’d forgotten something important at home, and drove us all back instead of just working around it. I was furious as a kid. Now I get it. They were probably broke, too proud to admit it, and doing their best to save face.
Or the time my mom cried in the car after parent-teacher conferences and wouldn’t tell me why. I thought I’d done something terrible. Looking back, she was probably just overwhelmed. Maybe the teacher said something that made her feel like she was failing. Maybe she was comparing herself to other moms who seemed to have it all together.
Those weird rules that made no sense? The inconsistent punishments? The times they completely overreacted to small things? Picture a young parent trying to figure out how to discipline a kid while exhausted, stressed about money, and having no idea if they’re doing it right. Suddenly it all clicks.
We’re all just doing our best with what we have
Here’s what gets me: I have so many more resources than my parents did. I’ve got gentle parenting guides, child development research at my fingertips, and a whole community of parents online sharing their experiences. When my parents seem skeptical of my “hippie parenting” choices, I used to get defensive. Now I realize they’re probably thinking, “We didn’t have any of that, and you turned out okay.”
And you know what? They’re not wrong. Despite their youth, their mistakes, their pretending, they did raise a functioning adult. Sure, I’ve got my issues (don’t we all?), but I’m here, raising my own kids, trying to do better while probably making a whole new set of mistakes.
Progress not perfection, right? That’s what I tell myself during the hard moments. My parents couldn’t say that. They had to be perfect, or at least pretend to be.
Forgiveness feels different at 35
Do you find yourself still holding onto childhood resentments? I did. For years, I carried around this list of all the ways my parents had failed me. Every therapist appointment seemed to add to it. But something shifted when I hit my thirties and started seeing my parents as people instead of just parents.
They were young people having kids. They were trying to afford diapers and rent. They were young adults whose brains weren’t even fully developed, making life-altering decisions every single day.
This doesn’t excuse everything. Some mistakes cause real harm, and that pain is valid. But for me, understanding the context has made forgiveness feel less like letting them off the hook and more like setting myself free.
When I see my mom now, I don’t see the woman who made all those mistakes. I see a young woman who was probably terrified, doing her absolute best with almost no support, trying to raise children while everyone expected her to instinctively know how.
What this means for us now
Understanding all of this has changed how I parent. I’m more willing to admit when I don’t know something. More willing to apologize when I mess up. More willing to be vulnerable with my kids about the fact that I’m figuring this out as I go.
Maybe that’s the gift we can give the next generation. The permission to be human. The understanding that parents are people too, flawed and learning and doing their best. The knowledge that you don’t have to pretend to have all the answers.
Sometimes I wonder what my kids will realize about me when they’re 35. What will seem obvious to them that I can’t see now? What mistakes am I making that will make perfect sense to them once they understand the context of my life?
All I can do is what my parents did: love them fiercely, try my best, and hope it’s enough. The only difference is, I’m not pretending I know what I’m doing. And honestly? That feels like progress.
