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The internet, unsurprisingly, had a lot of thoughts on Grede’s comments about being a three-hour max mom. (Note: the interview where she initially made these comments was in the Wall Street Journal, but it’s unfortunately behind a paywall. Fortunately, the internet has a lot of reporting about the interview.)

When asked about the backlash on the Today Show, Grede said she wasn’t surprised—and then said something that I know every mom feels in her soul: this would never happen to a man.

She’s right.

We don’t question how much time dads spend with their kids, because despite decades of progress, society still treats so much of parenting as primarily a mother’s job. It’s why schools call mom first when a kid gets sick. It’s the unspoken assumption that she will drop everything—and that she should want to. And don’t get me wrong: at this season in my family’s life, I am the one taking on that role. But that shouldn’t be the automatic assumption forever.

Here’s an example that my husband and I have laughed about: when he’s taken the kids to the grocery store alone, he’s been stopped by people commenting on how lucky the kids are to be out solo with dad. They are lucky—my husband is awesome! But also, I spend so much time with just my kids solo, and literally nobody has ever stopped me to say something nice about my parenting or my kids being lucky to have me. What I’m more likely to get is a look of disapproval when one of my kids is melting down and I’m not handling it with enough visible patience and grace.

The standard is impossible. As a mom, you are judged by how present you are, but also that you’re not too overbearing in your presence. You’re judged if you work and if you don’t. You’re judged if you show up to drop off still wearing your pajamas but also judged if you spend too much time on personal care. You’re judged if you formula feed or if your baby won’t latch, but also if you dare breastfeed in public. As someone who is deeply critical of myself, it can be so exhausting to feel like you’re not living up to anyone’s expectations even when your wheels are constantly turning. It reminds me of America Ferrera’s iconic Barbie monologue on being a woman.

I’m about to have my third baby. A few weeks ago, I got a haircut a little earlier than I needed to, and I told my stylist exactly why: I knew I wouldn’t take even that much time for myself for a good long while after this baby arrives. I’m not saying that’s the right call. I’m just saying I know myself, and I know that taking an hour for a haircut will feel like something I have to justify to the most judgmental audience of all, which is me. Over the past nine months, I’ve found it nearly impossible to work out, to show up for friends the way I want to, to do the things that make me feel like a full person–because being a mom, a pregnant person, and an entrepreneur just trying to keep the lights on has taken everything I have. And I still feel like I’m coming up short. The standard we’re held to by society and then, by extension, ourselves, is impossible to measure up to.

In my work life, I’ve been telling people that things are going mostly on hold for a few months while I take care of this baby. I believe that. I mean it. And I would have said the same thing at any other point in my career. But I also feel a particular, specific guilt about having ambition—about the quiet frustration of not being able to pursue new projects and opportunities right now, about feeling like wanting that makes me a worse mother somehow, even though I know it doesn’t.

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So if Emma Grede is a three-hour max mom, good for her. I get it. It’s not the same for me—nothing about our situations is the same—but I’m not going to judge her choices as a mother and a professional, just as I hope people won’t judge mine. Because here’s what I know for certain after (almost) three kids: there is no version of motherhood that everyone approves of. There is no amount of time, no set of choices, no level of sacrifice that closes the case. The goalpost moves. The judgment finds you anyway.

The only way through, as far as I can tell, is to decide that your approval is the one that counts.

Look, I still really think this is important, but I firmly don’t believe talking in soft tones to kids who aren’t listening is an effective parenting tactic in every situation (though truly, the most power to you if that is what works for your family). And I think the large majority of parenting content on social media is performative, especially when it features the kids themselves in situations that will one day be embarrassing to them.

I’m not here to bury gentle parenting or any specific parenting tactic. I’m not even totally here to question parenting advice on social media—there are a lot of people I respect and listen to that have very active social media accounts. Dr. Becky Kennedy, Big Little Feelings, among others. I believe kids deserve to be heard, and there’s a lot I don’t know about how to best connect with them, hear them, and teach them. Social media can be such a valuable tool for finding ways to learn or at least get a basis of understanding so you know where to dig in when you want to independently research and learn more. Ultimately, I believe the way we talk to our kids when they’re at their worst matters—probably more than we want to admit. And I believe that apologizing and reiterating our love for our kids when we’ve let our emotions take over is perhaps the most important thing of all.

But if we bring this back to gentle parenting, my thoughts are this: somewhere along the way, a philosophy that I think was ultimately meant to be rooted in respect for our kids got repackaged as an aesthetic. Frankly, if you have time to pull out a camera to record yourself parenting when your kids are tantruming, then I don’t know if the priorities are in line anyways. But to each their own. The implication that if your kid is still melting down, you’re doing it wrong—or that if you’re melting down, you were never really doing it at all—is a form of shame, not support. And the research backs this up: studies have found that parents who seek information from social media are more likely to compare their own children and experience feelings of inadequacy about their parenting abilities. If the platform where we’re learning tactics for parenting is really just a tool to shame us for not doing it right, then I don’t think that’s where we should be getting our info.

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My algorithm has now moved on to show me videos of parents who are perfectly organized, and honestly, power to those people: I try really hard to be organized and tidy, but I have found that perfection is really hard to accomplish when your kids just want you to play with them after school.

Here’s the thing about that pressure to perform: it turns out about 28% of mothers on social media say they feel pressure to only post things that make them look like a good parent—and that number climbs among college-educated parents and younger moms. Which means a meaningful chunk of us are curating a version of parenthood that isn’t real, and the rest of us are watching it and feeling worse about ourselves. That’s a strange loop.

What I’ve landed on—and I suspect a lot of parents are landing here too—is something messier. It’s trying to stay regulated when you’re not. It’s repairing when you lose it. It’s caring about the relationship enough to keep showing up, even imperfectly. It’s putting down your phone to engage with your kids fully. It’s finding ways to answer hard questions. It’s setting boundaries and standing by them, even when it makes your kids really mad at you (candidly, this is the hardest for me). It’s teaching independence, and it’s showing love and encouragement through every moment.

Real parenting is not the opposite of gentle parenting or whatever parenting philosophy is currently the trend. It’s about showing your kids kindness and compassion and love, but also making sure they are ready for the world and know that it’s not ok to walk all over people—including their own parents.

I think we’re in a moment of collective exhaustion with the performance of good parenting—and I’m glad for it. I think I’m not alone in questioning parenting advice on the internet and how it makes us feel. We’re all just trying to make it work, and if we feel stressed about it in one way or another, it just means we really care (or at least that’s what I tell myself).

If you’re like me and you care a lot about how to best show up for your kids, I feel you, I appreciate you, and know that you’re doing a good job.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what actually constitutes a “normal” week, and frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even a real thing. As a mom and a business owner, I can count on one hand the weeks that have looked exactly how I planned them in recent months.

The Friction of the “Must-Dos”

There is a constant tug-of-war between the work we want to do and the work we have to do. I want to be in the “creative” zone—ideating, media, promotion, and building this community. But the reality is that “keeping the trains moving” often looks like the slow, heavy lifting: managing finances, auditing inventory, and the grit of cold outreach. These tasks always take twice as long as anticipated, especially when they’re interrupted by a kid who just wants you to play with them (or if it’s my son, just needs me to take his lego creation apart).

The Efficiency Trap

My social feeds are a relentless parade of “systems.” Systems to improve efficiency, systems to keep the housework clinical, systems to scale your business quickly. I’ve shared some of those here, and many are helpful—but we often ignore the most simple truth of efficiency: it is impossible to maintain 100% of the time.

Parenting is complicated. It takes time to do it well. Business is complicated. It takes time to do it well. We don’t fit into perfect, pre-packaged systems because human beings aren’t algorithms.

This is what I do know: if you are someone who does better when they wake up at 7 AM, but is trying to replicate someone else’s system for waking up at 5 AM to be productive, then that’s akin to borrowing shoes from someone who is two sizes larger than you. It might work in the very short term, but it’s not a long-term solution. It’s not a personal failure if your feet are smaller than that other person’s—we’re all just built differently.

The Cost of Invisibility

I think every mom knows the feeling of invisibility incredibly acutely. We’ve made the appointments and got the kids there on the correct schedule. We’ve made sure the right forms are filled out and sent to school when they need to be. We keep food in the refrigerator, clean sheets on the bed, and our toilets clean—among many other things. And largely, this type of work goes unnoticed unless it’s not happening. (Pardon my generalizations: this can happen with any parent, but is well-documented in motherhood communities, particularly around mental health. But I will say for myself, I know there’s a ton of stuff my husband does to keep our family’s trains moving that I don’t always see of know about, too.)

I feel this in business, too. There are days that I spend hours doing essential admin work. If asked what I did that day, it feels like I don’t have a tangible thing to share. But I can’t run a business solo without those days.

Finding the Win

Perhaps the “normal” week we’re all searching for—the one where the systems work and the creative work flows effortlessly—is a myth. If we spent our lives waiting for that perfect alignment, we’d never actually start. I always say that the best thing I did for my business was just start it, and this is the exact reason: there was no perfect moment coming when it would 100% make sense or I would be 100% ready.

The invisible work isn’t a distraction from your life or your business—it is the work. Keeping the refrigerator stocked and the spreadsheets balanced might not make for a viral social post, but it’s the quiet foundation that allows everything else to exist. So, if your week feels like a series of pivots and “invisible” tasks, don’t mistake that for a lack of progress. And if you do, don’t be too hard on yourself—I will almost certainly give myself a hard time a thousand more times before I remember that I made progress.

As a mother, I find this campaign deeply beautiful. I wish I could drop every quote from it into this piece. In the absence of that, I’ll just encourage you to read a few of them here—they capture, so precisely, the transformation—the good and the very hard—of becoming a mother.

Matrescence is a term first coined in the 1970s by anthropologist Dr. Dana Raphael, in an effort to name the intense developmental transition to motherhood. And for anyone who has ever made this transition—whether through birth, surrogacy, adoption, or another path—you know how profound it is, and how often it goes unnamed and unseen.

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In the words of Dr. Aurelie Athan, a modern scholar on this topic:

The exact length of matrescence is individual, recurs with each child, and may arguably last a lifetime! The scope of the changes encompasses multiple domains—biological, emotional, social, political, spiritual—and can be likened to the developmental push of adolescence. These transformations unfold in both “brain and mind”: the maternal brain undergoes measurable morphological and functional reorganization, while the mother’s inner world undergoes profound psychological and ideological restructuring—reshaping her identity, beliefs, values, priorities, and sense of meaning or purpose.

As I’ve shared widely here, I am pregnant with my third baby, due later this spring. While this isn’t my first baby, I don’t expect it to be any less transformational than my first two.

First, there are the physical realities of the transition—ones you begin to feel starkly during pregnancy. Your body changes and grows, and you can’t always do what you’ve always done. (For me, even though I know it’s because I’m growing a baby, it’s still a hit to my ego every time I get winded going up the stairs or trying to jump around with my little ones.) I can’t exercise the same way, or for as long as I typically would. And once the baby is born, that shifts again—even when we make the effort to care for our bodies as part of our daily routines.

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Then there’s the identity shift. You are a mom now, and so much begins to revolve around your littles in ways you don’t always anticipate and don’t intend to change. You’re responsible for feeding, soothing, and a thousand invisible decisions—and as the baby grows, those responsibilities shift and expand, too.

And while that time can be breathtakingly beautiful, it can also be lonely: your identity is changing as the world around you keeps moving. With both of my kids, well-meaning people in my community told me I needed to do more to care for myself in that period. And while that’s certainly true, it can still feel like a sucker punch—like you’re doing something wrong that everyone else is somehow getting right. I’m taking care of a deeply vulnerable little one, but in that season, I’m deeply vulnerable, too.

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I’m feeling this identity shift especially sharply right now. I care deeply about my career, my work, and making an impact in the world. But I’m also in my third trimester, and I know that whatever gains I’m making in business may screech to a halt—hopefully temporarily—once the baby arrives. That’s okay. But I’m not going to pretend it isn’t hard to feel, at times, like your only purpose is to keep a tiny human alive and that I’m doing it wrong by not having it all figured out.

And while society has changed a lot even since I was born in the late 1980s, we still have a long way to go in truly understanding—and valuing—what mothers do and what they carry, literally and figuratively. We’re often managing our kids and a household while also trying to work, create, and maintain our own identity. And if we can’t hold all of it at once, it can feel, acutely, like failure.

So do I feel like matrescence should be in the dictionary? Unequivocally, hell yes. I’m a different person than I was before my first was born—and different again after my second. This isn’t a phase you “bounce back” from. It’s a full-body, full-life transition. We deserve language for it—not to romanticize it, but to validate it. To stop acting like mothers are supposed to absorb the transformation quietly. It’s time to GAF about mothers.

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Not because I don’t care—because most of what I save is aspirational, and I’m a real person trying to make it through a real day.

I’m all for enriching my kids when they’re home. I play with them, do something small, talk with them, stay present—even when I’m exhausted—because it matters to me. But it’s impossible to show up in the exact way we want to every single day. Especially now that I’m six months pregnant, in what has somehow already felt like the longest pregnancy ever.

Before I became a parent, I thought I’d allow only a few minutes of screen time a day. I’d never lose my cool. I’d teach them everything they needed to know. I’d join every mom group and do it all “right.”

Surprise: I didn’t.

I do limit screen time—just not perfectly. I do lose my cool sometimes—and I always repair. I teach them what I can, and I’m deeply grateful for school. And I’m lucky to have moms in my life who see me through motherhood.

I’m not the parent I imagined. But I am good enough.

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And I think that’s where social media gets tricky for moms like me. There’s a lot of talk about how it affects kids, but not nearly enough about how it affects mothers. However, one study found that idealized Instagram motherhood posts increased envy and anxiety. Like every millennial mom who came of age in the early aughts, I know a thing or two about not being—or feeling—good enough. We were taught we should be thinner and prettier and smarter…but not too smart. Effortless, but also exceptional.

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Social media is the updated version of the same message we absorbed from magazines and movies, and in my experience it’s terrible for our collective mental health. It isn’t just the parade of perfect homes and perfect parenting and perfect meals. It’s the constant suggestion that the gap between who you are and who you should be is a personal failure—rather than a predictable result of being human.

And then there’s the added layer: the reminders that the world isn’t safe for our kids in the way it should be. School shootings, and leaders who refuse to pass policy that could change the odds. Children—babies—being sent to detention centers or deported, while government officials cheer it on. Terrifying statistics about what online life is doing to teenagers’ brains, bodies, and sense of self.

So we’re hit from both sides: endless examples of how we could be better, and endless evidence of how the world could be better for our kids.

And here’s the part I can’t stop thinking about: the pressure on mothers to be perfect has never been higher—while the standard we accept from our systems and leaders is painfully low.

We don’t just need moms to be “good enough.” We need the world—our schools, our policies, our government—to step up and be good enough for our kids, too.

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Guys, I’m tired and sad and burnt out.

There’s bad news every day. And I’m blessed to be someone who can watch from afar, rather than fear my own family being ripped apart.

I think almost constantly about Liam Ramos, the five-year-old boy from Minneapolis who was detained by ICE with his father and sent to a facility in Texas with reportedly horrific conditions. He’s thankfully been released now, but that trauma will stay with him forever—and there are countless other children and families in similar boats.

He’s the same age as my daughter, who doesn’t like uncertainty—who wants to know exactly where I am at any given moment. No matter where you stand politically, a scared child should punch you in the gut. If it doesn’t, shame on you.

As a pregnant mom, I worry constantly about how to protect my newborn in a world where people are choosing to forgo important vaccines—now with government guidance muddying waters that used to feel clear. I’m grateful for organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics that continue to recommend the full, evidence-based vaccine schedule, but I still fear issues of access—and the basic reality of trying to keep little ones safe in a world where you can’t assume everyone will follow long-understood science.

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As a pregnant woman who previously had a traumatic miscarriage that left me hemorrhaging in the hospital, I’ve said often that I’m thankful to live in a state that provided me the care I needed. While traveling, I fear something could happen somewhere that won’t protect me or my baby. It’s hard to fully relax.

All this to say: I’m tired, and I suspect you are too.

I have no wisdom beyond solidarity today. And as someone who’s trying to be honest about how I show up here (because I truly don’t see the point of writing if I can’t at least do that), I’m hoping it helps even a little to be reminded that you’re not alone in how you’re feeling.

And, in case you want something to do with all of this: I’m sharing a few resources below—places to help, and places to find some steadiness.

Resources

If you want to help immigrant children and families

• RAICES (Texas) — legal and social services for people and families navigating detention/deportation.

• National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) — provides legal services and advocacy, including support related to detention.

• National Immigration Law Center (NILC) — policy + legal advocacy for low-income immigrants; ways to give and support their work.

If you’re trying to make sense of vaccines right now

• AAP’s 2026 immunization guidance — the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommended schedule and explanation.

If you’re worried about pregnancy loss care or traveling while pregnant

• Repro Legal Helpline (If/When/How) — free, confidential legal help related to pregnancy loss, abortion, and medical care.

• Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline — clinicians available by call/text (U.S.) for support and medical questions.

If you need emotional support today (no shame, no minimizing)

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call/text/chat for free, confidential support 24/7.

• Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 (U.S.) for free, 24/7 support.

• Postpartum Support International (PSI) — support and resources for mental health during pregnancy and postpartum (not a crisis line).

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Programing note: I’m going out of town for a few days, so will likely not be publishing on Friday. Enjoy the rest of your week and please take care of yourselves.

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If you’re parenting, working, building something—or all three—there are stretches where the goal isn’t thriving. The goal is: steady enough that future-you has something to work with.

With that in mind, I’ve been laying out my Minimum Viable Week plan: a simple template I use when life is busy, unpredictable, or just…a lot.

This is not about hustle or maximization. In my experience, those goals only accelerate burnout. This is about stability and maintenance—the kind that keeps you in the game.

And there’s good reason to prioritize this: Nearly half of parents—48%—say that on most days their stress feels completely overwhelming (vs 26% of other adults).

If you’ve ever bullet journaled (or aspired to…hi, it’s me—I never fully succeeded), this is for you. Lay it out wherever you’ll actually use it: a notebook, a planner, a notes app. I’m most consistent with Reminders + Notes on my phone, but I know others thrive with paper. Either works.

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Step 1: Choose your week type

Pick one. (No guilt.)

• Green Week: I have capacity. I can push a little.

• Yellow Week: I’m managing. I need simplicity.

• Red Week: Survival week. Minimums only.

If you’re reading this because you’re overwhelmed, assume Yellow by default. This week, I’m firmly Yellow.

Step 2: Set your non-negotiables (pick 3–5)

These are the anchors. Not the whole to-do list.

Minimum Viable Week Non-Negotiables (examples)

• Health: 2 workouts, daily meds, bedtime by 10:30

• Home: dishes daily, laundry twice, 10-minute reset

• Work: one priority task, two outreach messages, invoice/reconcile once

• Family: one 1:1 kid moment, dinners planned, school stuff handled

• Life admin: one “scary” task—appointment, school form, email

Rule: If it doesn’t fit on one sticky note, it’s not “minimum.”

Step 3: Pick your “One Thing” for the week

This is the one thing that—if you do it—you feel like a person again.

Write it as a sentence:

My One Thing this week is: ______________________

Examples:

• “Finish the draft of the post and hit publish.”

• “Book the appointment and handle the paperwork.”

• “Send five outreach emails and do two follow-ups.

For me, my One Thing this week is: map out my kids’ summer camp schedule and register for what’s available so far (side note: power to every parent who does this every year. It’s hard!)

Step 4: Create your minimum viable daily rhythm

This is the part that saves me the most. Time is the pinch point: adults living with a child under 6 spend 2.5 hours a day on primary childcare on average (doing things like physical care, bathing, reading a book). And even when childcare isn’t your main activity, it’s still there: adults in households with a child under 13 provide more than 5 hours/day of secondary childcare (kids in your care while you’re doing other things).

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After a several-week hiatus, I’m back—and really happy to return to a rhythm that makes space for me, my work, and whatever this next evolution is becoming. My kids start at a new school today after roughly six weeks at home with me. I love them more than anything, but my rope is frayed, and I might be the most excited person in our household about this transition, though am admittedly nervous about all of the stress a school change can bring.

We’re also in a major season of change. We moved about an hour from our old home, so we’re deep in the “new life” logistics: new doctors, new vets, new stores—oh my. I truly couldn’t be more thrilled about our new home and location. As much as I loved living near the Bay, it also meant we were a hike from friends, the city, and work—and it took a minimum of thirty minutes to get anywhere. Now I have access to public transportation and four grocery stores within five minutes, which is genuinely thrilling. (Does this age me? I don’t care.)

Second—and I’ve buried the lede here—we’re expecting one more baby girl this spring! We told the kids in November, and they’re thrilled and would prefer the baby arrive immediately. We’re also reminding them daily that she won’t come out ready to play. She’ll come out like a very adorable potato.

I’m beyond grateful to be welcoming our third. After a scary loss a year ago, I didn’t really think this was in the cards for us. The world can surprise you with what you need, right when you need it. And I’m also reckoning with what this will mean: the sleepless nights, sure (and those are fleeting), but also the bigger stuff—especially my career.

This past year brought a lot of change and a lot of honest questioning about who I am professionally. This year, I’m looking ahead to expanding my business and stabilizing my income. Adding a newborn complicates that picture, but I don’t think it makes it impossible. I just need to practice giving myself grace as I figure it out. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

This is a bit more rambling than my usual Substack, so I’ll pause and share what you can expect as I return to a three-times-a-week publishing rhythm:

Mondays: Field Notes — real stories from the messy intersection of motherhood, advocacy, and entrepreneurship.

Wednesdays: The Workbench — practical tools (some for business, some for life) to stay grounded and move things forward.

Fridays: Bold Action — quick actions you can take before the world wakes up, plus honest reflection on what’s happening now.

I’m also eyeing collaborations with other Substackers I admire, and I’m hoping to add more video and interviews into the mix. I want this space to be genuinely useful—so please feel free to share ideas, tips, and what you like (and don’t like). I’ll also be adding more perks for my paid subscribers—private chats, exclusive tools and content, discounts on coffee products, etc. If you haven’t upgraded to paid, please consider doing so to support the work I do here. It’s just $5 a month.

As always, thanks for being here. I look forward to kickstarting 2026 with you.

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Plus, we’re just trying to get through the day and create holiday magic, whatever that means in these crazy times. I’m also trying to run a business during the holidays, though I admittedly find myself fantasizing about what I’d be doing better if I just had more time.

There are still odds and ends around the house that need to be put away, and we’ve done little to no decorating. That will come, I know. In the meantime, Christmas is galloping toward us. We’re going to be on vacation over Christmas, so we’re trying to manage expectations on what Santa will be able to deliver to our cruise ship. But I digress.

This all seems like small potatoes, but they’re the potatoes I’m currently peeling. The point I’m trying to make is: there is always more I could do, and never enough of me to do it.

So lately, instead of trying to “do it all,” I’ve been asking a different question:

What actually needs my energy this week?

I’m thinking about four big buckets, in no particular order:

• Our new house

• Care for myself

• The kids / my family

• Christmas presents / holiday prep

(You’ll notice my business is not on here this week. That’s because it’s priority number five, and I’m frankly just trying to get orders out the door. Now is unfortunately not the realistic time for business development.)

Instead of trying to give 100% to all of these priorities at once (which is code for giving 10% to each and resenting everyone), I’m letting myself prioritize.

Step 1: Admit that energy is not infinite

I used to plan my week like I had endless energy and zero interruptions.

Then I remembered: I am a human, living with other humans, including small ones who will just not put their clothes on and get in the car.

So now I start my week by assuming:

• There will be interrupted nights.

• Someone will need something the moment I sit down.

• My energy will dip in the afternoons.

Instead of fighting that, I plan with it.

I ask:

“If I only have the energy for three real things outside of basic life maintenance this week, what should they be?”

Not 30 things. Three things.

This week, those three things look like:

• Making the new house feel a tiny bit more like home (fixing up my bedroom and unpacking those pesky duffel bags full of things that seemingly have no place).

• Taking care of my actual body, not just my to-do list (as in: I have not exercised in two weeks and desperately need to).

• Doing the parts of Christmas that matter most to our kids.

Everything else is bonus.

Bucket 1: The new house (but in bite-sized pieces)

In my fantasy life, I would unpack the whole house in a weekend, hang art, organize closets, and have a fully decorated “after” photo ready by Monday.

In my real life, I get an uninterrupted hour and a half on a good day.

So instead of “finish the house,” this week’s energy goes toward one room, one step:

• Actually start decorating the primary bedroom by correctly laying out the furniture (I can thank my husband for actually doing this one).

• Clear the floor of the kids’ room.

• Empty the duffels that have taken up a home in the office.

• Put one cozy thing in the living room (a lamp, a basket for blankets, etc.).

That’s it.

The house will not be “done” this week. But if bedtime is less chaotic and the living room has a little glow at night, that’s a win.

Bucket 2: Caring for myself like a person who also lives here

This is the part I’m most tempted to skip.

It’s so easy to say, “When the house is done, when the kids are settled, when Christmas is handled—then I’ll take care of myself.”

Except future me is built out of what present me does. Also, I am pregnant, and I am tired.

So this week, I pick one simple, non-negotiable way to care for myself and treat it like I would a commitment for my kids.

It’s not a full wellness overhaul. It’s things like:

• Go to bed by 10 p.m. three nights this week.

• Work out for at least 20 minutes alone—no podcast, no kids joining me.

• Make myself an actual breakfast and actually eat it.

None of these look impressive from the outside. But they’re the quiet investments that mean I have something to give to everyone else.

If I don’t protect that small amount of energy for myself, everything else on the list gets a more exhausted version of me. And I’m finally starting to believe that I deserve better than that.

Bucket 3: The kids (anchoring to what they’ll remember)

When I get overwhelmed, I start making elaborate plans: gingerbread houses! Matching pajamas! Holiday outings! (Also, we made a gingerbread house, and my son could just not compute that we don’t eat it. Poor buddy.)

And then I remember: my kids will not remember how many activities we checked off. They will remember how it felt to be with us.

So this week, I ask:

“What is one simple thing that will make the kids feel anchored and loved in this new house, in this busy season?”

That might look like:

• A little holiday movie afternoon on the floor with popcorn.

• Reading the same Christmas book every night this week.

• Letting them help with one small job to “set up” the house so they feel part of it.

These things don’t require a craft store run or a perfect house. They just require my attention—my actual presence, even if the kitchen is a mess behind us.

Bucket 4: Christmas presents (goodbye, perfectionism)

I love giving good gifts. I also do not have the time or bandwidth to become a one-woman Santa’s Workshop.

So this week, instead of trying to “finish Christmas,” I narrow my energy down to:

• Deciding on a simple gift theme (something to wear / read / play with, or some other easy framework).

• Ordering or buying the few anchor gifts that matter most for the kids.

• Choosing one small, thoughtful thing for my husband.

I’m letting go of:

• Handmaking everything.

• Finding “the perfect” gift for every adult in our life and finding those things in person.

• Telling myself that a thoughtful but simple gift is somehow less loving.

The filter I’m using is:

“Will this gift add to our joy or just add to my stress?”

If it’s mostly stress, it’s a no.

The actual filter I’m using

Underneath all the lists and buckets, here are the questions I keep coming back to:

• Does this make daily life gentler for future me?
  (If yes, it usually goes higher on the list.)

• Does this help my kids feel safe, loved, or seen in this season?
  (If yes, it’s worth serious consideration.)

• Does this support my actual health—sleep, sanity, basic needs?
  (If yes, it’s not selfish; it’s necessary.)

• Is this my expectation, or someone else’s?
  (If it’s mainly about looking like I have it together, I try to let it go. Try is the keyword.)

• Will I care about this a month from now?
  (If not, it probably doesn’t deserve my limited energy this week.)

Anything that passes at least two or three of these filters gets my focus. Everything else might be nice, but it’s not now.

For paid subscribers: you can find my weekly workbench, which this week is a roadmap for figuring out what deserves your energy right now.

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We moved just over a week ago, and it’s admittedly a bit hard to see the forest through the very messy trees. There are boxes everywhere, the kids’ toys are scattered between the basement and their bedroom, and I still can’t reliably find all of my kitchen gear. But for me, the biggest change is the fact that my kids are out of school for the month.

When we decided to move, we weren’t exactly sure when that would be, so we made the call to have them start at a new school near our new house in January. When it came time to actually move, that still felt like the right call because we have a long vacation at the end of December, and it felt like having them start just to take a break again would be too disruptive. So now, they are in “Mommy School,” which is chaotic and mostly fun and really makes me feel like teachers are saints we don’t deserve.

What is Mommy School? It’s really just “a little structure so we don’t all fall apart before January.”

It’s not perfect, but it’s just enough rhythm to keep us from feeling like we’re floating. I am not a teacher, and I’m not going to pretend I have the skills to teach like a professional just because I’ve done it for a few days.

And quite honestly, this is hard: my to-do list is longer than it’s ever been, and I’m trying to show up in my work and, most importantly, with my family, without letting myself fall through the cracks. But there are only so many hours in the day.

Why I Needed Something (Anything) That Looked Like a Plan

Since the move, the days have started blending together. New house, new neighborhood, no familiar school routine to anchor anyone. Not to mention Thanksgiving. The kids were bouncing off the walls. I was trying to answer emails and unpack boxes in ten-second bursts and tripping over toys in every room.

I knew in advance that if we didn’t put some kind of frame around the day, the default would become:

• all-day grazing

• endless “what are we doing now?” questions

• and a lot more screen time than I’m comfortable with (no judgment, just…more than I want)

So Mommy School is my compromise:

• The kids get something predictable.

• They get a chance to keep up the skills they’ve learned at their amazing previous school.

• I get a loose outline to fall back on.

• Nobody expects it to look like an actual classroom (although my kids—read: my daughter—are holding me to a very high standard).

What Mommy School Actually Looks Like

Here’s the very fancy system:

• One “learning-ish” thing in the morning

• Some kind of movement or outside time mid-day

• Something cozy or creative in the afternoon

That’s it. If we hit those three things, I call it a win. Not every day will be a win.

Right now, because everything is new, our “themes” are very on-the-nose:

New House Explorers

We’re using the house and neighborhood as our classroom.

• Counting how many windows are in the house

• Practicing our new address

• Going on walks to “find three circles” or “find something red”

Is it a formal lesson? No. Do they think it’s a game? Hopefully. Is it also some variety for me? Yes, thankfully.

Holiday-ish Things, But Low Key

I want the kids to feel like it’s still a special season, even though we moved.

• Singing Christmas songs and naming the rhymes

• Holiday-themed coloring pages and writing practice

• Letting them help decide where decorations might go

• Stirring cookie dough or adding sprinkles, then eating the crooked cookies anyway

Cozy Afternoon Stuff

By the afternoon, no one has the energy for anything complicated. So here’s what I’m going for:

• Stacks of books on the couch (or maybe a show), extra cuddles because everyone is a little off

• Giving them a cardboard box and some markers and calling it a “project”

• “Writing letters” (scribbles and stickers) to Santa or grandparents and friends from the old place

• Baking. Everyone feels cozier with a baked good.

Some days we do a lot. Some days we do one thing and watch a movie. I’m (trying) not to keep score.

What I’m Not Doing (On Purpose)

Just so we’re clear:

• I’m not following a specific curriculum.

• I’m not tracking what they “should” know by January.

• I’m not pretending this replaces school.

This is just how we’re getting through a weird month: a little routine, a little intention, and a lot of grace for all of us.

The real goals are pretty simple:

• Give the day a shape

• Help the kids feel secure in a place that still feels new

• Help me feel like I’m not reinventing the wheel every morning

If you’re also in an in-between season—moving, waiting for a new school to start, between jobs, between routines—you’re allowed to keep it this simple.

A loose plan. A couple of anchors. A little bit of “Mommy School,” whatever that looks like at your house.

That counts.

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P.S. No workbench toolkit for paid subscribers today, but I promise to be back with something special later this week!

There was no dramatic montage. No cinematic “clean break” moment. Just life continuing on with a very critical piece of my day-to-day suddenly gone.

And while I packed lunches and made breakfast and got people out the door, I also obsessively wondered what to do with a life and a career that suddenly didn’t have a neat label anymore.

What nobody really tells you is that a career pivot with kids is not a before-and-after story. It’s not a tidy leap. It’s a long, messy rollercoaster that you live inside every day, while also showing up at preschool events, managing one sick kid and then the other, remembering what spirit day it is, and what they’re supposed to bring to celebrate the theme of the week at school.

I’ve been transparent here that this transition hasn’t been the easiest for me. I have tried really hard to make changes that are exciting and satisfy the “what if” part of my brain. But I also mourn what I had before—the career, the stable income, the team. Right now, I’m in the process of moving and my pivot has taken a back seat to that, which is also very hard to reckon with at times. I see myself working, but sometimes it makes sense for me to carry the load of running my house first.

On the days when it feels extra hard, I remind myself that change takes time, and the fact that I’m trying stands for something. But there are things I wish someone had said out loud to me sooner, so I’m going to say them here for you.

1. The pivot doesn’t pause the parenting

When you’re single and child-free, a big career change can look like a sabbatical or a “year of figuring it out.”

When you have kids, there is no sabbatical.

You don’t get to say, “I’m going to take six months to decide who I am now.” Your kids still need you, and there’s a high likelihood that while you’re figuring it out, you’re going to take on a lot of the responsibilities you were previously outsourcing. There is no “off season.”

The pivot happens in the in-between moments—yes, while the kids are at school, but also in the early hours before the house wakes up, while you pack lunches, or while you’re soothing a sick kid.

It’s not wrong. It’s just reality. And it means “figuring it out” looks less like big, dramatic moves and more like a series of tiny, shaky experiments squeezed into the margins of your day.

2. Your risk tolerance is suddenly a group project

Before kids, taking a risk felt… romantic. I remember daydreaming about quitting an old job years ago and telling a friend, “Oh, I’ll just freelance for a while.” It felt doable (though, to be clear, I didn’t do it).

Once you have kids, every decision echoes.

It’s not just “Can I handle this?” It’s:

• Can our family handle this?

• What does this mean for childcare?

• Will this blow up the evening routine everyone is just barely hanging onto?

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the risk. It means you take it differently.

You get scrappier about the numbers. You look for ways to cut costs while you’re figuring things out. You treat that consulting gig or little business experiment as both a lifeline and a proof of concept.

It’s not the Instagram version of a pivot, but it’s a very grown-up, very brave one.

3. There’s grief, even if you chose this

One of the strangest parts of pivoting with kids is that your emotional landscape doesn’t match your calendar.

You might:

• Miss your old team and the feeling of being great at your job

• Feel guilty for not bringing in the stable salary you once did

• Also feel guilty for not doing enough on your new thing, because “I should be further along by now”

I didn’t choose the timing of my pivot, but my story isn’t everyone’s story. You can be relieved you left or relieved you tried, devastated that you had to, proud of what you’re building, and terrified it won’t work—all in the same day. Sometimes in the same hour.

And you’re feeling all of that while you’re helping someone find the stuffed animal they have to bring to school today.

No one warns you about how disorienting that is. How your brain whiplashes between “Did I ruin everything?” and “Actually, this might be the best thing I’ve ever done.”

It’s okay if you don’t have a clean story yet. You’re in the middle of the chapter, not the epilogue.

4. Your kids are watching, but not the way you think

I admittedly stress a lot about making my kids proud once they know what that means, so I have a tendency to focus on big, polished outcomes:

• The new title

• The “big announcement”

• The successful launch

In reality, they notice much smaller things:

They notice that I don’t go into an office, but I’m almost always there to drop them off and pick them up from school. That there are brown boxes filled with coffee all over the place. That Mom has a coffee business and works on some other things too (they are little, and coffee is tangible), but she is present.

What they’re absorbing isn’t the résumé. It’s the pattern, even if they don’t have the words for it yet:

When something ended, my mom didn’t just crumble or cling to it forever. She grieved, she pivoted, and she kept going.

That’s the story I hope they tuck away for later.

5. You don’t need a five-year plan. You need a next right step.

The career advice industrial complex loves a five-year plan.

But in reality, a five-year plan can feel like a pipe dream, especially with kids. School schedules change, childcare changes, interests shift, economies wobble. Trying to map out the next decade with precision is almost comical.

What has been more helpful for me is a much smaller question:

“What is the next right step that future-me (and future-us) will be glad I took?”

Not the perfect step. Not the final step. Just the next right one.

• Sending the email.

• Booking the discovery call.

• Saying no to the thing that will drain you or drain the business.

• Saying yes to the weird opportunity that feels like it could be a door.

• Sitting down with a notebook and being honest about what you actually want now.

You’re allowed to build this chapter one quiet, imperfect step at a time.

If you are in the middle of a pivot with kids—whether you chose it or it came crashing down on you—I just want to say:

You’re not behind. You’re just doing two incredibly demanding things at once.

You’re raising humans and reinventing your work life in a world that was not built with either of those things in mind.

That’s not failure. That’s courage.
💛

Now, if you’re reading this thinking, “Okay, but my brain still feels like scrambled eggs,” I put a little something in the paid section to give your thoughts some structure.

It’s a short, 20-minute check-in I wish someone had handed me when everything changed—specifically written for people pivoting with kids in the mix.

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The book frames a simple choice we face daily: take care of right-now me or future-me. Some nights I’m all systems go—lunches made, water bottles filled, backpacks by the door, coffee set. I’m taking care of tomorrow-morning me. Other nights I blink at the sink, decide everything can wait, and go lie in bed. I’m taking care of right-now me.

Both choices serve me. One serves now (rest, relief). The other serves later (calmer morning, fewer decisions). The trick is noticing which version of me actually needs care—and choosing on purpose. I’ll be honest: this is hard for me. I’m not always great at seeing when rest will serve me and when it’s best to keep going.

Over the last year, I keep returning to this lens. Sometimes I just have to say no. Sometimes I actually do need to sleep until the kids wake me, even though my day starts easier when I’m up before them.

The rule I’m practicing:

• If it takes < 5 minutes and tomorrow will be tight → do it now.

• If I’m wiped out and waiting won’t wreck the morning → serve right-now me and go lie down.

• When in doubt → pick one future-me anchor and call it good.

Future-me anchors are tiny setups with outsized payoff. A few that consistently save me:

Serve Now (Evening Wins)

• Chop any fruit/veg for school so it’s grab-and-go for lunches.

• Set the coffee so I only have to press start.

• Lay out outfits (including socks/hair ties).

• Load the car with non-perishables (nap mats for school, etc.).

• Reset the kitchen so I’m not waking up to a mess (this is a non-negotiable for me).

Serve Later (Morning Wins)

• Assemble lunches before the kids wake up.

• Keep an easy breakfast pre-made so we’re not debating (my son is obsessed with this banana bread).

• Quick kitchen reset while breakfast cooks (load dishwasher, wipe table).

• Brief “weather + feelings” check so we dress for the temperature and the mood.

• Quick toy tidy before we leave.

How I decide in real life: I ask, “Is this a 90-second task that will save 10 chaotic minutes tomorrow?” If yes, I do it.

A note on kids: inviting them in turns this from “mom’s mental load” into “our family rhythm.” My two love choosing a snack (perhaps too much) and racing to feed the dog. Is it slower at first? Yep. Is it worth it? Also yep. My daughter even says chores are her favorite activity—which I know won’t last forever.

Tell me in the comments: Which anchor buys you the most peace right now? And if you’re in a season where serving right-now you is the only option, I’m cheering for that choice too. Rest isn’t procrastination; it’s maintenance.

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I’ve written this a little differently today, but here are my notes for my sweet kids on what I hope for them (yes, this is cheesy, but this is where I am today):

A Note To My Kids

You are the most special people in the world, and you are perfect just as you are. It’s hard to know what you’ll learn from me in this life, but I hope at least some of it is this:

I want you to err on the side of kindness.
Not the performative kind that only feels real if it’s posted to Instagram, but the steady, ordinary kind. The kind that refills someone’s water, lets the other kid go first, notices who’s on the edge of the group and makes space. You’re human. You’ll get mad. You’ll get sharp. That’s okay. Just come back to kindness.

I want you to look for the quiet corners.
Pay attention to the person who seems like they might need someone to be nice to them. Count on yourselves to be that someone. This is not about being the hero. It’s about choosing to be a person who notices and shows up.

I want you to understand your privilege without letting it script you.
You do not owe the world a performance of goodness. I hope you help people because it’s who you are, not because you’re trying to pay a bill. Learn how the world works. Listen. Share. Stand up. But let your action come from a rooted place, not guilt.

I want you to believe in yourselves—and know I believe in you, always.
If you forget, borrow my belief. I’m on your team. That’s not conditional. It doesn’t depend on the grade, the goal, or the mood of the day. If a hard thing happens, your first thought can be, “I can tell Mom.” Because you can. I’m here. We figure it out together.

I want you to fail.
You will, no matter what I want. I never thought it was ok to fail as a kid, but failure is part of a full life. I have spent too much time beating myself up for the big misses and the tiny ones. I hope you can try, fall, learn what the fall had to teach, and keep going. Make a plan for the next step. Take it. We can talk about what went wrong without making it who you are.

I want you to be good friends—and be good to each other.
Be the friend who shows up, and also the friend who expects to be shown up for. You can hold people (including each other) accountable while still being kind. “I love you” and “That didn’t feel okay” can live in the same sentence. Practice both.

I want you to use your voice.
For yourself, and for people with less power in the room. Speak up when something isn’t right, even when it’s scary. Ask the extra question. Say the true thing. Your voice is meant to be used—inside our family and outside of it.

I want you to know that feelings are not problems to solve.
They’re signals. You can be angry without being cruel, sad without being broken, excited without needing to tone it down. Let feelings move through.

I want you to remember that home is safe.
This is the place you don’t have to audition. You can tell the story here—the mistake, the fear, the weird thing you’re not sure how to name. We will listen. We will make a plan. We will laugh when laughter is right and sit with you when it’s not.

I want you to know what love looks like.
I hope you see it in how your parents love each other—respect in the small moments, compassion in hard ones, and apologies that come with repair. I hope you feel it in how we love you: consistent, sturdy, proud of who you are already and excited for who you’re becoming. Love sets boundaries, tells the truth, and makes room for joy. It isn’t perfect here, but it is real, and it will meet you where you are.

And finally, I want you to watch me try.
You’ll see me get it wrong—a lot. You’ll see me apologize. You’ll see me fight my habits of self-doubt and perfection and try to choose a kinder way. I hope you learn from my mistakes as much as anything I do well. If I’m working on loosening my grip, maybe you won’t pick it up.

If all of this boils down to a single sentence, it’s this: You are loved, you are capable, and you are not alone. The rest we’ll practice—together.

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So I explained that they were protesting. When she asked what protesting is, I said, “In our country, we have the right to peacefully stand up for our beliefs when we disagree with things people in leadership are doing. I’m honking because I also disagree with our leadership, and I support what these people are doing by being out here.”

She nodded and started pointing out other groups of protestors.

It’s hard to know what’s right when talking to little kids about the world. The world feels heavy right now, and I spend a lot of time anxious and sad and mad about the stripping away of rights and critical programs and the purposeful decimation of families. I struggle with how much of that to share with my little ones, and I’ve erred on the side of sharing very little until they have more context. Anyone with little ones can attest: they internalize and repeat everything. What we say—and how we say it—matters.

In our house, rather than dive into specifics, we focus on why kindness matters and why it’s important to help people—concepts little ones can grasp. As parents, we walk a daily tightrope: how to talk about hard things without passing on our fear; how to share feelings without overcomplicating the “why.” How to tell the truth and make space for understanding.

When the election happened, for example, I was really sad—and my kids could tell. I told them I wasn’t happy with how the election turned out and left it there for the moment. By the midterms, I may share a bit more about why I’m feeling the way I am and why I’m taking certain actions. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Whether it’s conflict, protests, elections, or just the hum of the news in the background, our kids are absorbing more than we realize. They can’t understand all the complexities, but they do understand tone, safety, and love. That’s where we can begin.

As always, I am not a parenting expert—just a parent trying to navigate tricky times and tricky conversations in ways my kids can understand.

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1) Start with Safety, Not the Story

Before we explain what’s happening, anchor in what’s safe.

When your child asks a big question, start with reassurance:

• “I will always work to keep you safe.”

• “We’re together and we’re okay.”

Kids need to know that even when things feel uncertain, their world is steady. We also share that other people may not have what we have, so it’s important that we show kindness and compassion to everyone.

Keep your tone calm and curious. Ask what they’ve heard or what made them wonder. Often they’ve overheard a phrase or seen an image they can’t place—and a simple explanation settles their minds. (Side note: little kids hear a lot of random things at school. My evidence? Mine know all the words to some top-40 songs we’ve never listened to together. Take note of what they’re saying.)

2) Tell the Truth, Simply

My husband and I have a rule: we always tell the truth—even about little things like why we’re not going to the park. And we drill this into anyone who is caretaking for us. Honesty builds trust. Simplicity keeps it manageable.

• “Some people are marching because they want things to be fair for everyone.”

• “There are leaders in different countries who don’t agree, and that’s causing fighting. It’s okay to feel sad about that.”

• “Our job is to help, care, and keep learning.”

When you stay anchored in values like kindness, fairness, and helping others, you give kids language for empathy—before they understand the systems behind it. And you don’t need every answer. “I don’t know. I need to think about that one,” is okay.

3) Channel the Feelings

Little bodies need a place for big emotion, as anyone with a toddler knows acutely. Kids process through play and imagination—give it room.

• Draw something that makes them happy (my daughter is in a phase of drawing our family and favorite activities).

• Play—simple, ordinary play is usually exactly what they need.

• Go for a walk.

• Read stories that teach empathy. (Books help me, too.)

4) Model Calm and Compassion

Our response teaches them how to respond.

Narrate empathy out loud—“That makes me sad, but I’m glad people are trying to help.” Act when you can—donating, sharing, caring. Kids love to be involved and help; at donation drives, ours will happily put items into bags to help.

And make time for connection. Even in uncertainty, love is the constant.

The world will always be big. So is their capacity for goodness—and ours for guiding it. We don’t need perfect answers; we just need to keep showing up with gentleness, honesty, and light. Because someday, they’ll be the ones helping others find it.

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Mothers are made to feel guilty about literally everything: about working, about not working, about what we feed our kids, about screen time, about not getting enough rest during pregnancy, about not getting enough exercise during pregnancy or too much. And now, the president of the United States—who has no medical background—is telling moms it’s their fault if their child is autistic.

Here are the facts:

1. Tylenol is safe to take during pregnancy. Every major medical group says so. What is harmful to babies is untreated maternal fever. So treat your fevers, moms. (And relatedly, vaccines keep your kids—and all of us—safe.)

2. There is nothing wrong with autistic children. They are beautiful, lovable children who happen to be built a little differently. Autism is a spectrum. The reason rates are higher now is largely because we know more about that spectrum than we did decades ago. It has nothing to do with Tylenol or vaccines or whatever else is blamed next.

As parents, advice is everywhere–mostly because people want to help, even when what they are saying is preposterous. Like “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Am I supposed to never cook or shower, and just live in squalor so we can be on the same nap schedule? Get real.

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Most of the time, advice comes from a good place. When I get something that feels off-the-wall, I (usually) smile, nod, and move on. But the problem is when advice gets dangerous.

We live in a world where people are often more likely to trust advice on TikTok than in a medical journal. Attention spans are short. Soundbites spread faster than science. And people confuse what shows up on their phone with what’s true. I don’t have the perfect solution for that. But I do know this: as a parent, it helps to know where to turn for credible, grounded information.

Here are some resources I trust when I’m struggling with how to proceed:

• Emily Oster – research-based insights, especially on panic headlines.

• Big Little Feelings – practical trainings and strategies for working through tough toddler parenting moments.

• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) – gold-standard guidance on child health and safety.

• ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) – reliable, up-to-date information on pregnancy health.

• HealthyChildren.org (run by the AAP) – parent-friendly articles on everything from newborn care to teen mental health.

Because advice will always be out there. What matters is having filters you can trust.

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One thing didn’t change in the hard moments: my kids needed me. At two and four, they didn’t know exactly what was wrong—only that something was different. There are things we haven’t discussed yet. They were with me at the hospital on the worst day of my miscarriage, but they don’t know exactly what that means. What they know is that Mommy was sick and then she got better. They remember that lots of family came to visit, and that part felt fun. We’ll talk about the rest one day, when it’s right for them. Now isn’t that time.

Losing my job was different. For a while, when my daughter asked whether I was working from home or going to the office, I told her I was working from home—which was true as I slowly began building my business. Over time we started talking about “Mommy’s business” and “Mommy’s coffee.” Then, one night at dinner, she asked why I don’t go to the office anymore. I told her that my agency shut down and I lost my job, and that I’m doing my best to keep going by starting something of my own. What she heard—the part that stuck—was that I have my own business now. And that’s cool and exciting.

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I’m telling this from my perspective, but I can’t overstate the variable that made it all more manageable: a supportive partner. My husband is steady in a crisis. When I’ve needed him, he steps in, explains what’s happening, and hypes me up. When I say, “It’s just this little business,” he says, “Mommy runs her own business! How cool is that!” That steadiness has been a lifeline.

Here are a few takeaways I’ve learned from experience:

Parenting Through Crisis: Key Takeaways

1. Tell the truth simply. Answer the question your child asks in age-appropriate language; save the adult details for later. But always lead with truth.

2. Hold routines sacred. Bedtime stories, pancakes, evening walks—small anchors make a big difference when everything else shifts.

3. Name feelings, not catastrophes. “I’m sad and also okay” models regulation without transferring your fear.

4. Let joy coexist with grief. Celebrate tiny wins, always.

5. Enlist your village. A steady partner, friends, grandparents, neighbors, teachers—let them support and translate stability.

6. Model recovery in public. Let kids see you rest, call a friend, or take a deep breath. It teaches them what coping looks like.

7. Reframe the story. “Something ended; we’re building something new.” Kids borrow our narrative to make sense of change.

I hope when they look back, my kids remember resilience–but also that my love for them is much more deep and enduring than anything going on outside of the walls of our home.

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The second we walked in the door, it was as if the house exhaled directly onto us: groceries to restock, lunches to prep, laundry to flip, and two little people who missed us so much they practically climbed into our pockets. I’ve been trying to live by (keyword is “try”) the Dr. Becky idea that our kids don’t need constant entertainment—in fact, they thrive when they learn to be bored. But when they’ve been missing you? The instinct to entertain them, to make up for lost time, is strong. So that’s exactly what I did when I got home, which felt good for all of us.

And still, being the mom I want to be includes showing up for myself. Sometimes that means letting the kids entertain themselves for a bit so I can do the small thing that keeps me human, especially when I’m in the thick of it with work. It also creates the most special moments between the two of them. When I stepped away yesterday, they started playing doctor, switching back and forth on who was hurt and who was the doctor. They need those moments to foster imagination.

One disclaimer before I jump in to the rest of this: I’ve always hated when parenting advice assumes what works for one family works for all. It doesn’t. Anything I write here only works some of the time. They’re kids—sometimes they’re not having it. And I’m a flawed adult—sometimes I’ll forget the “perfect” way and get frustrated. And sometimes, the best thing I can do is turn on the tv. I’m doing my best, and I know you are too. I see you, and you’re doing great.

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The Tension

I want to be present, playful, and loving.
I also want (need) ten minutes to breathe, reset the house, do a quick workout, write a paragraph—to be more than a task rabbit.
Both can be true.

The Reframe

Trying something new doesn’t require a free afternoon, a sitter, or a perfect plan. It can be a ten-minute micro-experiment inside a messy day. “New” is anything that nudges you toward the future you want: a different choice, a first rep, a small risk. Sometimes it’s doing the workout knowing your kids will wander in and want to join. Let them.

A 10-Minute “New Thing” That Works in Real Life

Step 1: Name it.
“I’m going to try something new for ten minutes: [outline a pitch, stretch, pour-over practice, text a friend to set a walk date, sketch a trailer tweak, try a new recipe].” When the kids want to play, I get super detailed about my next steps before I can devote myself to playing.

Step 2: Set the boundary out loud.
Script: “I’m glad we’re all home! I’m going to do my ten-minute thing while you do yours. When the timer rings, I’m all yours.” My kids are little and don’t totally understand the passage of time yet, so timers are gold in our house.

Step 3: Offer two simple choices.
“Magnet tiles or coloring?”
“Scooter practice or swings?”
Yesterday, my daughter wanted to be pushed on the swings, so I asked my son to give her a push. It brought both of them joy, and I got dinner started.

Step 4: Use a visible timer.
We have a wind-up timer that visibly ticks down. Kids can see it, and you can honor it.

Step 5: Close the loop.
When it dings, reconnect: “Thanks for doing your thing while I did mine. Want to show me what you made?”
Caveat: When kids are happily playing independently, I try not to interrupt—those moments are rare and precious.

Share

What Counts as “New” for Me

• Send one pitch email I’ve been avoiding.

• Try a different brew method or recipe and jot tasting notes.

• Read three pages of the parenting book on my nightstand (lol, my TBR stack is enormous. This one is aspirational, but it’s still on my list).

• Write 100 words (yes, just 100) toward the essay/book/post.

• Do a 10-minute mobility video or run the stairs (yes, I do this. Yes, it works).

• Declutter one hot spot (the dreaded drop zone).

• Sketch a layout/change for the trailer; label one shelf.

• Schedule one thing that supports future me (dentist, dinner reservations, friend date, market application).

Pick one. Circle it. That’s your new thing for today.

Language for Your Kids (and Yourself)

• “I love being with you. I’m also a person who needs a little time to do my thing.”

• “Your job: choose coloring or blocks. My job: set a timer and come back when it rings.”

• “Missing each other is real. I’ll be ready to play when the timer goes off.”

A Gentle Reminder

You’re not failing if you can’t find an hour. Ten minutes counts. Reps count. Choosing yourself in the middle of family life (not outside of it) is the muscle we’re building.

When this feels hard, I remind myself: I want my kids to remember a mom who took really good care of them—and tried really hard for herself. Our kids model what they see. I want them to see that care matters.

Try-This-Today

• Write your ten-minute “new thing” on a sticky note.

• Read the script out loud.

• Set the timer.

• Do it imperfectly.

• Celebrate the rep.

If you try this, hit reply and tell me what your ten minutes looked like. I may share a few (anonymously) in Friday’s notes for ideas + momentum.

If mornings are your window, my Morning Wins Planner pairs perfectly with ten-minute reps. And if you want a cozy companion, First Light’s Ethiopia Yirgacheffe is on the counter doing its floral-citrus thing.

—A

Content note: This piece discusses school shootings and preparation. If it’s better for your mental health to skip, please do.

Earlier this week, a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis killed two elementary school children and injured others. Heartbreaking doesn’t begin to cover it. We are alone among wealthy nations in the frequency of school shootings—and far too often, very young children are among the victims.

We need meaningful gun reform. “Thoughts and prayers” aren’t policy, and more than a decade after Sandy Hook, the lack of action is indefensible. I’m angry—at the hypocrisy, at the politics, at the refusal to put children first.

I’ll keep pushing for policy change and I hope you will, too. But because our kids are in school now, this post focuses on what parents can do today: trainings worth taking, questions to ask your school about safety and reunification, and steps to protect our families while we continue the fight for laws that actually keep children safe.

Parents and concerned citizens alike: I’m thinking of you during this heavy week. May we all keep pushing for a safer future.

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1) Get trained (and bring a friend)

The fastest way to turn fear into capability is skill.

• Stop the Bleed (bleeding control). Learn tourniquets, wound packing, and pressure—skills proven to save lives before EMS arrives. Classes are widely available and often free/low-cost. Ask your PTA to host one. While at USAID, I took an emergency field medicine course that included these skills, and have held onto my training materials over the years. These skills are critical and you don’t quickly forget the basics.

• “Until Help Arrives.” The Red Cross’ bystander-aid course teaches simple, safe actions in any emergency; many communities offer short in-person versions.

• CRASE / Avoid-Deny-Defend. Many police departments offer Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) sessions that explain modern “options-based” safety for adults. Ask your city/county police department about CRASE.

• CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). If you want a deeper bench of skills (first aid, light search & rescue, ICS basics), CERT is a great on-ramp—there’s even Teen CERT for high-schoolers.

Pro move: ask your school or PTA to co-host Stop the Bleed + parent CRASE back-to-back on one evening.

2) Ask your school about plans you can actually use

When schools use common, evidence-based frameworks, everyone (including parents) knows what to do.

• Which protocol do you use? Look for the Standard Response Protocol (SRP)—Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter—and the Standard Reunification Method (SRM) for post-incident family pickup. Ask for the parent handouts.

• How will reunification work? Where is the off-site location? What ID do I bring? How will you communicate? (Text, robocall, email?) SRM lays out an accountable, orderly process—parents need this before a crisis.

• What’s the guidance for parents during a lockdown? SRP parent materials explain why not rushing to campus matters and how/when students may text home. (Short answer: let responders work; students should keep phones silent until told otherwise.)

• Are drills trauma-informed and age-appropriate? National groups and new consensus guidance urge avoiding hyper-realistic simulations; focus on staff-led practice, clear language, and protections for students with disabilities.

• How do students and parents report concerns? Anonymous, 24/7 tip lines (e.g., “Say Something”) work best when paired with training and adult follow-up.

Copy-paste email to your principal / safety lead

Subject: Parent questions on safety, reunification & drills

Hi [Name],
As we all process this week’s news, I’d love to better understand our school’s safety approach:

1. Which emergency protocol do we use (e.g., SRP)? Can you share the SRP Parent Handout?

2. What is our reunification plan (location, ID requirements, communication method)?

3. How are lockdown/secure drills conducted to be age-appropriate and trauma-informed (esp. for students with disabilities)?

4. Do we have a behavioral threat-assessment team? How can families report concerns (tip line, app, hotline)?

5. Would the school/PTA consider hosting a Stop the Bleed and parent CRASE evening this fall?
   Thank you for everything you do to keep students and staff safe.
   —[Your Name], [Student/Class]

3) What to tell your child (age-tuned, simple, honest)

My kids are really little and having to talk to them about these difficult topics in a way that they understand and can apply is tricky to say the very least. But it’s critical that they know what to do in the event of an emergency.

• Name the helpers, keep it brief, answer questions. Experts stress calm, age-appropriate language, and limiting graphic news exposure.

• Reinforce the school’s plan. “If your teacher says Lockdown, we get quiet, move out of sight, and listen.” Consistency beats improvisation.

• After drills or scary news, check in. Watch for sleep changes, clinginess, headaches/stomachaches, or avoidance; loop in your pediatrician or school counselor early.

4) If something happens at your child’s school

• Don’t drive to campus unless instructed. Follow district alerts; reunification may be off-site.

• Keep phones clear. Students are usually told to silence devices; many schools discourage texting until it’s safe.

• Bring ID to reunification. Expect a check-in card/ID verification and a queue; it’s designed to be slow on purpose so every child is accounted for.

5) Prevention starts at home, too

• Secure storage saves lives. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends removing guns from homes with children; if not, store locked and unloaded, ammo locked separately. Strong safe-storage policies are linked to lower youth injuries and suicides

• Model reporting. If your child hears or sees something concerning (in person or online), tell a trusted adult or use the school’s anonymous tip line.

Quick checklist for your family

☐ I know our school’s SRP actions and have the Parent Handout.

☐ I know where reunification would happen and what ID to bring.

☐ I’m registered for Stop the Bleed/Until Help Arrives.

☐ I’ve saved the school’s tip line and talked about reporting.

☐ At home: firearms are locked & unloaded; ammo locked separately.

One last thing: it’s okay to be honest that this is unbearable. Pairing that truth with concrete, evidence-based steps is how we protect kids and protect their sense of safety.

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My son is two and has been talking about starting at his new school for months. My daughter has been equally excited, already plotting how to wrap him into her “girl power” crew.

My husband and I dropped them off together, and as we leaned down for one last family hug, I knew it was more likely that I’d cry than my son would. He’s been ready for this for weeks. He finally gets to play with all the toys he’s only seen during pickup but hasn’t been allowed to touch. And now, his big sister is just down the hall.

He’s good.

I’m good too — but there’s always that familiar cocktail of thrill and sadness that comes with watching our littlest ones grow up and be brave.

Here’s the thing no one really tells you about parenting: every milestone your child reaches is also a milestone for you.

When my daughter first started daycare, she cried — no, wailed — at drop-off every single day for the first week. It was gut-wrenching, and I wanted to pull her out because I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her in tears. But by week two, she was fine. More than fine. She was running in to play with her new friends, to learn, to grow.

She had to be brave, but so did I.

The first day of school isn’t just their fresh start. It’s ours, too. It’s learning to unclench your hands when everything in you wants to hold on tight. It’s trusting they’ll be okay in a world where you can’t follow. It’s quieting the voice that says, What if they need me? and replacing it with, They’ve got this.

When I lost my job this spring and decided to pivot, one of my biggest motivations — beyond chasing a dream — was showing my kids what it looks like to get back up when the world knocks you down. They don’t fully understand how big this change was, but I hope that one day they’ll look back and know: their mom had courage when it was scary and hard.

Because bravery, I’ve learned, doesn’t just belong to them. And on days like this, when my emotions sit heavy in my chest, I remind myself: at least now, I only have one drop-off and one pick-up.

The Smallest Acts of Courage

Bravery isn’t always big and loud. Sometimes it looks like:

• Taking a deep breath and walking into a room full of new faces.

• Raising your hand to ask a question.

• Saying hi to a new friend.

And sometimes, it looks like us — parents — forcing a smile that says, I’m fine, even when our hearts are racing. It’s the long walk back to the car, eyes stinging, whispering you’re okay until we almost believe it.

(Although, if I’m being honest, I’ll probably pick them up a little early today to ease my own first-day anxiety.)

How I’m Helping My Kids (and Myself) Be Brave

Here are a few small things that help make these big transitions a little lighter:

Create a Ritual
Last year, my daughter and I created a secret handshake for drop-off — a simple routine to start the day and shake off nerves. This year, maybe it’ll be a family hug before we go in. We’ve also already started talking through our Monday-to-Friday routine I wrote about last week — just another way to make things predictable.

Name the Feeling
“It’s okay to feel nervous.” Naming it helps it feel less scary, for them and for me. I tell my kids about the things that make me nervous all the time so they can see that feelings are normal — and that we can work through them together.

Model Bravery
When I share times I’ve been scared — presenting in a meeting, trying something new — I always tell them how I got through it. Kids notice when you admit that courage isn’t the absence of fear.

Debrief Later
After school, I ask, “What was the best part? What was the hardest part?” Sometimes they share, sometimes they don’t. My son, being two, usually just repeats the same answer every day — and then blurts out the actual story at bedtime. Either way, they know the space is there.

Bravery Grows With Practice

I don’t know how today will go, but I have a feeling we’ll be even more excited to go back tomorrow. Their butterflies will likely disappear long before mine do — because letting go is its own kind of bravery.

But here’s what I do know: I’ll be there to catch them on the good days and the hard ones.

That’s what bravery really is — not the absence of fear, but showing up anyway.

Every first day teaches us the same thing: courage grows in small steps — theirs into the classroom, and mine toward letting them grow.

The rhythm: snack → themed activity (20–40 min) → quick reset.

Monday: Movement Monday

Why it works: burns off the wiggles and resets moods.

Quick ideas:

• Indoor obstacle course with pillows/Nugget + painter’s tape path

• “Freeze dance” playlist: kids pick the DJ or you can do a dance party on YouTube - we love Danny Go

• Yoga: my daughter loves YogaBugs, which basically wraps story time into a yoga class

• Nature walk “I Spy”: find 5 things: leaf, stick, bird, red car, round rock, etc.

Scale up: scooter ride or playground.
Tiny win setup: fun snack ready to go, 1 fresh water bottle or juice box per kid.

Tuesday: Tea Time Tuesday

Why it works: slows the pace and opens conversation.

Quick ideas:

• Herbal tea or warm milk + “rose/thorn” check-in (my kids don’t always respond to the rose/thorn because they’re toddlers, but we still try)

• Mini cheese + crackers board; kids place the snacks

• Cozy reading pile—everyone picks one book

• Warm cup of chamomile and a quick show

Scale up: set up a low-key tea party so you’re not scrambling when people run in the door.
Tiny win setup: one tray lives in the cabinet with kid mugs + napkins.

Wednesday: Wow Wednesday (Science)

Why it works: curiosity + mess that’s easy to contain.

Quick ideas:

• Fizz lab: baking soda + vinegar + food coloring in muffin tin

• Dancing raisins: raisins in seltzer, watch them bob

• Sink or float: tub of water, 6 objects, make a prediction

• Elephant toothpaste: needs yeast, dish soap, peroxide, and food coloring (this is a favorite!)

• Magic milk: needs milk, dish soap, food coloring, and q-tips

Scale up: as for a simple hypothesis - it’s fun to hear what they think will happen!
Tiny win setup: keep a “wow bin”: vinegar, baking soda, food coloring, droppers, muffin tin, towels.

Thursday: Try It Thursday (Arts & Crafts)

Why it works: fine-motor focus with a tangible “I made this!”

Quick ideas:

• Painting old Amazon boxes

• Collage from old magazines + glue sticks

• Salt dough ornaments (flour + salt + water)

• New coloring books and crayons (No need to reinvent the wheel here!)

Scale up: frame one weekly masterpiece with painter’s tape gallery.
Tiny win setup: shallow bin: paper, crayons/markers, glue sticks, scissors, tape.

Friday: Pizza/Movie Friday

Why it works: anchors the week with a ritual kids will remind you about. 🙂

Quick ideas:

• Naan or pita pizzas—kids sauce + top their own

• Vote on a movie (pre-select 2–3 options)

• “Concession stand” tickets kids earn for setting the table

• Intermission dance break halfway through

Scale up: set up cozy pillow and blanket pile for an extra special movie night
Tiny win setup: stash shredded cheese + frozen naan, keep popcorn on hand.

The 10-Item After-School Starter Kit

Painter’s tape, glue sticks, child scissors, crayons/markers, baking soda, white vinegar, peroxide, construction paper, food coloring, popcorn kernels.