Tag: motherhood
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The Trial Inside My Head: Why I’m Finally Putting Down the Red Pen
If someone else spoke to me the way i speak to myself, I would call it emotional abuse. I would tell a friend to walk away from that relationship; I would recognize it as toxic and cruel. But because the voice lives inside my own skull, I call it “accountability.” I hold myself to standards…
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The War Between the “Big Picture” and the Dirty Dishes.
I know the checklist of gratitude by heart. I have the “shoulds” perfectly memorised: The sun is shining. My daughter is happy and healthy. I have a safe home. I have people who love me and listen to me vent. If I were a character in a book, this would be the point where I…
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How To Deal With Toddler Melt Downs (Most of the Time
Before becoming a parent, I thought tantrums happened because children were being difficult. Now I know better. Sometimes my child is tired. Sometimes she’s hungry. Sometimes she’s overwhelmed or overstimulated by big feelings she doesn’t know how to explain. And sometimes if I’m honest, I’m overwhelmed too. Toddler meltdowns can make even the most patient…
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8 Ways To Build Confidence (While Still Figuring Life Out)
For most of my life, I lived with a quiet, persistent suspicion: everyone else has a secret that i missed. I’ve spent years scrolling through social media, watching carefully curated lives unfold on a screen, and feeling the stinging ache of being “behind.” I compared my messy, unpolished reality to everyone else’s highlight reel and…
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The Default Parent and The Perfection Trap
There is a distinct kind of exhaustion that has less to do with physical labour and everything to do with carrying the invisible weight of a household. It’s the reality of being the “default parent.” To be the default parent means you are the Chief Operating Officer of everyday life. You are the one who…
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How to get your Toddler to Clean up (Without the Meltdowns)
Usually, those words are met with one of three responses: Immediate tears, and a dramatic loss of the use of their legs, or a tiny person running in the opposite direction. As a default parent, it is incredibly tempting to just wait until they go to sleep and clean it all up yourself. It’s faster,…
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