Creating Safety for Other Parents to Be Real

At the preschool pickup, I watched another mom struggle to get her screaming toddler into the car seat while her older child ran circles around the parking lot. Other parents averted their eyes or whispered to each other. I walked over and said, "We've all been there. Can I help?" The relief on her face reminded me how desperately we all need permission to not have it all together.

Why Parents Hide Their Struggles

Most parents are drowning behind a facade of competence because we fear judgment, comparison, and the loss of community if we reveal our struggles. We've learned that admitting difficulty means we're failing, so we perform perfection while silently struggling, creating a cycle where everyone feels alone in their challenges.

Simple Ways to Create Safety

Creating safety for other parents starts with small gestures: offering help without judgment, sharing your own struggles first, responding to their difficulties with "me too" instead of advice, and avoiding the temptation to one-up their story with your own harder experience. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can say is simply, "That sounds really tough."

The Ripple Effect of Vulnerability

When we create space for one parent to be real, it gives permission for others to drop their masks too. The mom who admits her child is struggling with potty training gives another mom permission to share her bedtime battle stories. Vulnerability is contagious in the best possible way—it builds the community we all desperately need.

What Our Children Learn

When our children see us creating safety for other struggling parents, they learn that community means supporting each other through difficulties, not just celebrating successes. They learn that asking for help is normal, that everyone struggles sometimes, and that showing up for others is how we build the world we want to live in.

Being the parent who makes it safe for others to be real doesn't require special skills or perfect wisdom—it just requires the courage to be human first and the commitment to see other parents as allies rather than competition. In a world full of judgment, we can choose to be sources of acceptance and support.

Find more ways to build authentic community in "Unexpected Gifts of Parenting"—where vulnerability becomes the bridge to connection.