MAY and June encompass Mother’s and Father’s Day, and for the lucky ones, we still get to celebrate it without grief.

I really do feel it for parents and how society, as well as your own guilt (probably from the shame from society), makes you feel as though you need to limit emotional expression—where reclaiming your time and mental space is selfish or bad parenting. This is crucial not only for your own well-being but for the well-being of your children.

I imagine that one of the biggest barriers to self-care in parenthood is guilt—where that may stem from would be different for everyone. You are bombarded with messages that if you aren’t constantly sacrificing, you’re doing it wrong. But guilt is not proof that you’re a good parent; it’s just a sign that you’re internalising unhealthy expectations. It means that society has trained you to believe your needs are less important than everyone else’s.

Parenting is often described as the ultimate act of selflessness—sacrificing your time, your sleep, your social life, and very often your identity to raise the next generation. From the moment a child is born, society expects parents to give endlessly, and any deviation from this—any desire for solitude, space, or personal fulfilment—is viewed with suspicion. But here’s the truth we rarely say out loud: parents need to be more selfish. Not in the harmful, neglectful way that society fears but in the deeply necessary, life-affirming way that says, “I matter too.” Bearing the weight of invisible expectations, parental selfishness is simply self-preservation.

The moment you become a parent, you step into a role riddled with unspoken rules. You’re supposed to be infinitely patient, eternally giving, and immune to burnout. You’re told to cherish every moment, even the ones that leave you sobbing on the bathroom floor or hiding for a sliver of silence. There’s no room in this narrative for honesty—no space to say, “I am completely overwhelmed,” or even, “I don’t really like my kids today.”

But those feelings are not rare; they’re human. Parenthood is hard, and love doesn’t always encompass joy. Sometimes, love is dragging yourself out of bed on two hours of sleep. Sometimes it’s setting a boundary. And sometimes, it’s stepping away from your child to protect your sanity—because you’re about to break.

Another radical truth: It’s okay to feel what you feel. Feeling angry, undervalued, resentful, or disconnected as a parent is inherently normal. What isn’t normal—or healthy—is the pressure to pretend otherwise. When we suppress our emotions, we don’t become better parents—we become more brittle, more reactive, more disconnected from ourselves and, ironically, from our children. For everyone’s benefit, we need to normalise the full range of parental emotion, including the darker shades. Parents must be allowed to say, “This is too much.” They should be able to admit, without fear of judgement, that a personal break is needed. This honesty doesn’t make someone a bad parent. It makes them real—and real parents raise real, emotionally intelligent children.

I’d like to think that everyone is familiar with “We cannot pour from an empty cup”; that if you run yourself into the ground trying to be the perfect parent, what you end up giving your children isn’t your best—it’s your leftover exhaustion, irritability, and emotional depletion. But when you prioritise yourself—your rest, your joy, your growth—you recharge your capacity to parent with patience and presence. Taking time for yourself is not neglect; it’s a strategy on how to show up as a whole person rather than a hollow one.

Before any disagreement, this doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility or ignoring your child’s needs. It means integrating your needs alongside theirs. It means building a parenting culture that includes your humanity rather than erasing it.

Self-care for parents doesn’t have to mean long getaways but small, simple steps such as saying no to activities that you do not have the capacity for, spending time doing hobbies that encourage your own identity, and time with other people who remind you of who exactly you used to be—before you started to simply identify yourself as a role. Start small but remain consistent. Taking a measly ten minutes a day for yourself, without multitasking for anyone else, creates long-term habits of self-recognition. Schedule this time like unmissable appointments; you do not need to earn rest. Take a few minutes when you feel triggered—every situation does not warrant an immediate response. This models emotional regulation and secure attachment for your children, not only for your own relationship with them but for any future relationships they have.

Another radical truth is that modelling self-care, self-respect, and boundaries is one of the greatest gifts you can give your children. When your kids see you taking care of yourself, they learn that it’s okay to take care of themselves, too. They learn that emotional honesty, balance, and boundaries are not weaknesses but character necessities. In return, they are parented with more patience, empathy and presence.

It’s time to shift the narrative. We need to stop glorifying the exhausted parent and start honouring the balanced one. We need to build a society that makes space for parental needs—through supportive policies, more open conversations, and less judgement. Let’s start praising parents not just for the meals they cook or the tantrums they soothe but for the boundaries they set, the therapy they attend, the naps they take, and the friendships they nurture.

Let’s applaud them for saying, “I need a break,” and then actually taking one. Let’s make it normal to ask for help, to drop the ball sometimes, not to have all the answers—and still be worthy of love and respect.

The obvious truth is that children do not need perfect parents. They need healthily present ones—and taking care of yourself is how you take care of them. The better you feel, the better you parent, and this is done through self-preservation, not self-depletion.