Three weeks ago, I had one of the worst parenting nights in recent memory.

It began, as many domestic tragedies do, with television.

Oliver wanted a marble run video. Sienna wanted Daniel Tiger. I told her that if she helped Oliver clean the living room, she could watch Daniel Tiger. For the record, Oliver had watched a marble run video the day before. This was, objectively, Sienna’s turn.

And what did she do?

She sat on the bottom stair, happily fiddling with her Moana toy — adorable. Not helpful.

So after Oliver and I finished cleaning, I found a new marble run video for him (these are plentiful on YouTube, by the way) and that was that. Well…not really.

Because Sienna began wailing.

I calmly explained the decision. She is three and a half, after all — old enough for cause and effect, old enough (theoretically) for reason.

She cried harder.

Tears streamed down her face, impossibly large, like Midwestern raindrops. The storm lasted an entire hour, breaking only when buttered brioche (known in our house as “soft bread”) entered the scene.

Bedtime followed.

Things did not improve.

“Sienna keeps crying and it is making me sad, Mama. Please take care of her.”

Yes — my five and a half sweet boy said this.

And what did I do?

Instead of kneeling down to embrace my daughter, I chose that exact moment to make and remake beds the children were about to climb into anyway.

While straightening sheets that did not need straightening, a familiar thought crept in:

I am not being a good mother.

My son is asking me to take care of my daughter. What is wrong with me?

This is usually the point where a parenting expert would advise breathing.

So, fine. I took a breath.

I thanked Oliver for his patience. He chose Love You Forever — a deceptively simple pop-up book about a mother and son, about time, about love, about loss.

Halfway through, I started to cry, just as Sienna began to stop. FINALLY! 

“Why are you crying, Mama?”

If only they really knew.

If only they could understand that while my nerves felt like fraying wires, I loved them with a ferocity that defies language. That I could adore my daughter, and, in the very same moment, feel completely overwhelmed by her. Oh, also, annoyed AF.

Moments like this are where parents often turn inward, just like I did.

We decide the problem is us.

We tell ourselves we should be more patient, more even-tempered, more “on their level.” After a sufficient amount of self-recrimination, many of us migrate to the couch, turn on Bridgerton, and cry. Perhaps not before standing in the kitchen, staring at a towering pile of dishes, wondering: How did this get so out of control? 

You know what, whatever, it’s okay. Tomorrow I will be more disciplined. I will have more willpower. I will be a better version of myself.

And yet… nothing changes. Not really.

Why?

Because the thing we think we’re failing at isn’t actually the thing that’s breaking us.

The hardest part of parenting is rarely the tantrum, the sibling fight, or the bedtime unraveling. It’s the sheer, relentless demand of it all — the constant need to absorb emotions, manage reactions, stay regulated, whatever that means, when you are the very person running on empty.

But when you start working with that reality instead of fighting it, something unexpected happens.  

What I mean to say is: The chaos doesn’t disappear. Duh. 

But, the mishigas does get better. Not because you become a zen master of parenting, but because you stop interpreting every hard moment as evidence that you are doing everything wrong. 

Some things? Sure. But not everything.

Parenthood, like most of life, cannot be put into tidy boxes–much like the ones I wish I had in my living room.  Awful and wonderful coexist. We can be exhausted and experience a burst of energy from seemingly out of nowhere. And even though we live in a world that insists on categorizing everything in black and white, parenthood remains stubbornly, inconveniently, and completely grey.