We aren’t doing this right.

It’s an ongoing joke my wife and I share when we see other parents and their babies. After the standard “how cute,” we quietly wait for the meltdowns. The screaming. The kicking. The running into walls. The knocking-everything-off-the-table behavior.

Sadly for our psyche … it comes far less often than we'd expect

With holiday parties in full swing, we’re seeing more babies than ever, and they all appear to be near-perfect angels when we’re around. Meanwhile, our memories of our youngest, Will, are anything but angelic. Sweet, 100%, but he does not ever evoke the word calm.

So when we’re debriefing at the end of the night, talking about how tired we are, if we happened to see a well-behaved child that day, one of us inevitably says some version of, “We aren’t doing this right.

Every kid is different, just like every parent is different. There are plenty of variables, making each circumstance unique. Different aged parents, different schedules, different temperaments, everyone is so unique. 

So even if there is a “best practice,” the playbooks that exist in thew orldare always going to be for most people, most of the time.

And that idea, that we must be doing something wrong, shows up everywhere. Parenting ✅. Starting a small business (maybe a popsicle one) ✅. Coaching ✅. Learning any skill ✅✅✅. Anything you care about eventually brings you to the same thought.

After writers block and then thinking about it for a while I landed on this truth: there is no right way. It probably doesn’t exist. But even if it does, you certainly can’t be aware of it in the moment.

So try this on for size:

“You are doing this right.”

You’re doing it exactly as you should, in this moment, with the information, energy, and life you have right now.

💛 Steve