If there’s one universal truth about parenting, it’s that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. From the moment you see those two pink lines, your life becomes a whirlwind of lists, logistics and late-night Googling.
There are registries to build, bottles to sterilize, diapers to buy, schedules to follow—and just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, life throws in a surprise.
Maybe it’s a mid-commute diaper explosion that sends you racing to the nearest store, a carefully organized sleepover derailed by a sudden case of the sniffles or a teen who suddenly “hates you” and “is never leaving their room again!”
Parenthood, for all its planning, is a masterclass in adapting on the fly. Something that comes as a hard lesson for Type A parents like me who like to feel that they are in control.
As kids grow, calendars fill up: baby classes give way to preschool, elementary school, sports, music lessons, summer camps and the ever-growing list of social commitments. Add in holidays, family events and the occasional cross-country trip to visit loved ones, and it’s clear—parenting is a full-time juggling act.
And that’s before you factor in the unexpected worldwide events we’ve all endured—a pandemic, global instability, unprecedented inflation…. It’s enough to make anyone feel like they’re just barely holding it together.
So, what do we do, as the grown-ups who are supposedly steering the ship? How do we provide our kids with a safe, secure environment to grow up in when we feel completely lost at sea?
We adapt. We find joy in the mess. We teach our children resilience not by talking about it, but by living it. We take the sad detours and turn them into adventures. We turn our pain into poetry. We speak honestly about burnout, caregiving and the hard work of breaking cycles and forging new ones.
We learn to laugh, to breathe, to embrace the unpredictability—we ride the waves. Because maybe the point isn’t to have everything under control—but to find meaning, connection and even a little fun in the unpredictable chaos of parenting.
– Stacie Gaetz
