The Only Piece of Parenting Advice You’ll Need
Venturing into the world of parenthood is a scary thing. You need to be prepared. To know the answers. To anticipate all the choices you’ll have to make (oh, so many choices). Starting long before I was even pregnant, I was reading all sorts of mom-advice posts, pinning and saving the sage wisdom to my memory. Many a blogger and parenting website has made a list – and they are pretty helpful. But I’m here to tell you that there’s only one piece of parenting advice that you’ll really need.
Trust yourself.
Really. That’s it. If you trust yourself – your instincts, your decisions, you’ll be fine.
As a parent, there are so many things you’ve got to decide, starting before the baby is even born. And there are so many different ways to parent. On top of that, even if you do research thoroughly, the research may change. You have to learn to listen to yourself and find your identity as a parent. It may take some time. Some trials and errors. But you’ll catch your stride.
I’m certainly not there – but I’m working on it. We live in a world where people’s opinions seem so much louder than ever. Make a post on Facebook and all of a sudden you’ve got unsolicited advice coming in at every angle. If you make a parenting choice because of those voices, you’ll question yourself down the road.
Now… I’m not advocating to fly this alone. Certainly, it is actually quite the opposite. Gather your village. Find your parenting role models. Read books. Scour the web. But in doing all of that, trust yourself to know what is best, who to listen to, what to implement.
And if it doesn’t work? Trust yourself to acknowledge it isn’t working. Trust yourself to give yourself compassion and grace in the moment to accept that you can be wrong – you are human. Trust yourself to find what will work, even if it takes time.
Being a parent can be overwhelming. The health and well-being of tiny humans is weighing heavily on us. But ultimately, if you listen to yourself, if you gather your village, if you sort through your research, if you trust yourself, you’ll be just fine.
