Are Parents Unhappy?

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I was planning to talk about Earth Month today, but there’s something else rattling around in my head, and I think I need to say it out loud first.

We’re currently visiting our little island home, and the other night, I was talking with an old friend who’s considering having kids. At one point, she said, “All my friends with kids seem kind of miserable.”

Later, my wife Megan mentioned this idea has been circulating — apparently sparked by a celebrity who recently said her parent friends are “in hell.” And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Because… what a bummer.

Parenting is the single greatest thing that’s ever happened to me — and I think a lot of parents would say the same. But I guess it doesn’t always look that way. We feel exhausted. We feel overwhelmed. And we share those things in an effort to connect with other parents and tell them it’s ok to be struggling.

But maybe this has become too much of the narrative. Maybe we’re writing our own story and making it sound miserable. That’s not the way we wanted to feel when we signed up for this.

The thing is, parenting isn’t what makes us miserable. It’s everything else we try to do at the same time.

We’re told we can have it all — thriving careers, glowing skin, self-actualization, five hobbies, a clean house, and happy kids. And sure, some of that’s great. But when everything gets equal priority, parenting starts to feel like a burden instead of the beautiful, natural role it is meant to be.

Before we had Maggie, I was a surfer, a ski mountaineer, and building a new creative business. If I had expected to keep doing all those things the same way and enjoy parenting? I would’ve failed. Or worse — I would’ve resented it.

When Megan and I first moved in together, we dove straight into a pretty brutal season — seven years that included cancer, miscarriages, a home lost to hurricanes, saying goodbye to sick puppies, and more. We didn’t know it at the time, but those years were teaching us how to surrender expectations, how to support each other when everything felt upside down, and how to keep showing up.

Those lessons didn’t make parenting easier. But they gave us practice at letting go of the idea that we could do it all, be it all, and still enjoy the process. We were forced to prioritize the life we were building together over the versions of ourselves we thought we had to maintain.

Those years also taught us that the way we talked about our life made a big impact on the way we felt about it.

And now, with Maggie, we’re still learning. We still catch ourselves believing we can juggle everything without cost. But here’s what I remind myself and my friends –

If you want to love parenting, you have to make loving parenting your priority.

I hope I left my friend with a glimpse of the joy I carry with me every day since becoming a dad. I hope she stays open to what could be the most joyful, surprising adventure of her life. And I hope that, as parents, we start fostering a culture that reflects just how beautiful and sacred this season can be — even if it is messy.

Earth Month thoughts coming soon…but I guess, in a way, this is where it starts: with conversations about the kind of world we want to build. And the children we hope to raise as part of it.