Did you yell more than you meant to, work too much, or not have the energy you thought you’d have? Maybe your child struggles with anxiety or anger, and you’re convinced it’s because of what you did or didn’t do. Maybe you look back at all the ways you fell short and can’t see past them.
When many people think about their parenting, their brain (and society) offers only two options: either they were a wonderful parent, or they were a terrible one. But here’s the reality: there’s a massive, meaningful space between those two extremes, and that’s where most of us actually live.
Finding peace doesn’t mean pretending you got everything right. It means accepting that imperfect love was still love. Here’s how:
1. Understand that your guilt proves you care.
Truly terrible parents don’t lie awake wondering if they were terrible. They don’t read articles examining their parenting choices. They don’t feel regret about their shortcomings. If you’re torturing yourself with “what ifs” and “should haves,” that’s actually evidence you cared deeply.
To be clear: if you were genuinely abusive—physically violent, chronically cruel, severely neglectful—that’s different. That requires professional help and real accountability, not reassurance from an article.
But most people reading this won’t fall into that category. There’s a painful paradox: good parents worry they were bad, while bad parents think they were fine. Terrible parents are characterized by a lack of reflection, not an abundance of it. They don’t question whether they were emotionally available enough or whether they should have handled conflicts differently.
The fact that you’re here, examining your choices, feeling genuine remorse for your mistakes—this is proof you weren’t terrible. Your worry demonstrates conscientiousness and love. It means you wanted to do right by your children and you’re devastated by the times you fell short. That devastation is uncomfortable, but it’s also evidence of your care.
2. Recognize that perfect parenting doesn’t exist (and never did).
We torture ourselves comparing our reality to an impossible standard. The parent who never loses their temper, who always has organic snacks prepared, who is endlessly patient and emotionally available every single moment.
This parent doesn’t exist. They never have. Yet we measure ourselves against this fiction and find ourselves wanting. I used to scroll through social media and see the highlight reels—immaculate lunchboxes, craft projects, smiling family photos—and assume that’s someone’s actual life, all day, every day. It isn’t.
Behind every perfect image is a parent who also shouted this morning, who also serves cereal for dinner sometimes, who also feels like they’re failing. The parenting goal was never perfection. It was “good enough,” and good enough is genuinely good.
Recognizing you weren’t perfect doesn’t mean accepting you were terrible. It means accepting you were human, which is actually what the job required all along.
3. Consider the context you were parenting in.
Before I had children, I imagined the parent I’d be. Active, energetic, endlessly patient. Down on the floor, building elaborate projects, running around parks, being fully present every moment.
Then reality hit: after my first child was born, I developed debilitating chronic pain, and after 6 years without answers, I finally learned I have a chronic condition called hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). It’s genetic, so I’d always had it without realizing, but the stress of pregnancy on my body exacerbated what was always there beyond my body’s ability to cope. Couple that with having a child with additional needs, and suddenly, I wasn’t the parent I’d imagined.
I was the parent lying on the sofa while my child played nearby, the parent saying “I can’t” more than I ever thought I would, the parent feeling guilty for every physical limitation and cancelled plan. My internal dialogue was vicious: “Other parents can do this. Why can’t you just push through? Your children deserve better than a mother who’s always tired.”
But I wasn’t parenting under ideal conditions. I was parenting with a chronic condition while supporting a child with additional support needs. What looked like “not enough” was actually a heroic effort given the circumstances.
We each have our story, our own context. Life isn’t easy for any parent. But we do the best we can, even if that best isn’t how we thought it would look.
4. Make peace with the both/and.
Human beings love binary thinking (some of us more than others). Good or bad. Success or failure. Perfect parent or terrible parent. But parenting doesn’t work that way (actually, hardly anything works that way). Believe it or not, you can hold two opposing truths simultaneously: you made mistakes, AND you were a loving parent. I sometimes lost my temper, AND I showed up every single day. I worked too much, AND I provided for their needs. I was sometimes distracted, AND I loved them fiercely.
Accepting this complexity is more honest than choosing an extreme. Most of us lived in the massive middle ground—not saints, not sinners, just people doing our best in difficult circumstances. If you catch yourself thinking, “If I wasn’t amazing, I must be terrible,” pause. That’s false dichotomy talking. The truth is more nuanced and more forgiving.
Integration means accepting all of it—the wins and the losses, the moments of connection and the moments of failure. You don’t have to choose between condemning yourself and absolving yourself of everything. You can simply be human.
5. Stop catastrophizing past mistakes.
It’s likely that your brain has taken single moments and turned them into defining narratives. You forgot their school play, so now you’re “the parent who was never there.” You shouted every now and then, so now you’ve “traumatized them forever.” You gave them chicken nuggets more times than you’d have liked, so you’ve “compromised their entire future health.”
This is catastrophizing, and it’s lying to you. Children are remarkably resilient, and they won’t remember most of what you’re torturing yourself over. What they remember are patterns: Did I feel loved? Did I feel safe? Was someone there when it really mattered?
It’s unsurprising that we do this, because our brains have a negativity bias—we fixate on the handful of bad moments while completely dismissing the thousands of ordinary good ones. But look beyond the parenting fails, and you’ll likely see many more moments when you got it right.
6. Acknowledge what you did right.
Most self-critical parents completely overlook their wins. Presumably, you kept your kids fed, safe, sheltered, and loved—these aren’t bare minimums, they’re profound. Perhaps you drove them to activities they wanted to try. Or you read bedtime stories even when you were exhausted. Maybe you listened to them ramble about their latest obsession or their friendship drama, or whatever was important to them that day. You showed up. Day after day after day.
But we dismiss all of this as “just what you’re supposed to do” while catastrophizing every mistake as unforgivable. Stop that. Right now. List ten things you did consistently well. Even if they felt mundane, they mattered.
The ordinary acts of care—making breakfast, doing laundry, being present—these are the foundations of a childhood. They don’t feel like achievements because you likely did them so reliably that they became invisible. But they count for everything.
7. Separate regret from shame.
Regret says, “I wish I’d handled that differently.” Shame says, “I’m a bad person for how I handled that.” These are entirely different statements, and only one is useful. Regret focuses on behavior and can motivate growth. Shame focuses on identity and keeps you stuck in self-loathing.
When I think, “I regret working so much when they were little,” I’m acknowledging a choice I’d make differently now. When I think, “I’m a terrible parent who abandoned my children,” I’ve crossed into shame. Notice how the first statement leaves room for complexity and compassion, while the second condemns me entirely.
Shame convinces us we’re fundamentally flawed, which makes change feel pointless. You can wish you’d done things differently without being a terrible parent. The reframe that saved me was this: “I did the best I could with the resources, knowledge, and health I had at that time.” Along with: “And now I know better, I can do better.”
8. Understand that your kids needed a real person, not a perfect one.
The reality is, if you’d been perfect, you might have actually harmed your kids. Children need to see adults make mistakes, feel genuine emotions, and navigate repair. That time you lost your temper and then apologized? You taught them that relationships can withstand rupture, that mistakes don’t mean the end of love, and that taking responsibility matters.
A “perfect” parent would have raised a child with impossible standards for themselves and others. When you showed frustration, exhaustion, or disappointment—and then worked through it—you modeled what it means to be human.
The developmental psychologist Donald Winnicott wrote about “good enough” parenting precisely because children need attuned care, not flawless care. They need to see you struggle and recover. Our humanity isn’t a parenting flaw; it’s one of the most valuable things we can give our children.
9. Recognize your children’s agency and resilience.
No one is denying the impact of parenting on a child’s development. But your children aren’t passive lumps of clay you shaped entirely through your actions. They’re active participants in their own development with their own personalities, temperaments, and responses to life.
Two siblings raised identically can turn out completely different because they’re different people. When your child struggles, your first thought is probably, “I failed them.” But what if they’re struggling because life is genuinely hard and they’re learning to navigate it?
You influenced them, certainly. But you didn’t determine everything about who they are. They made choices. They responded to experiences in their own unique ways. They survived your mistakes and may have even grown from them.
Again, to be clear, when we talk about “mistakes,” we are not talking about abusive or neglectful parenting. Trauma in childhood absolutely affects brain development and is not something people can just “get over.” We’re talking about imperfect parenting that no doubt shaped your child, but doesn’t define their entire being.
Give them credit for who they’ve become. They’re not just products of your parenting—they’re whole people who’ve been building themselves all along. Yes, you were a big part of their story, but they’re the ones living it.
10. Practice self-compassion, not self-indulgence.
There’s a crucial difference between self-compassion and self-indulgence. Self-compassion acknowledges difficulty while remaining accountable. Self-indulgence makes excuses to avoid responsibility.
When you can say, “I was short-tempered because I was overwhelmed and in pain,” that’s honest. When you add, “and I’m working on managing my stress better so it doesn’t happen as often,” that’s self-compassion with accountability.
Research by Kristin Neff shows that self-compassion actually helps us grow, while shame keeps us stuck repeating the same patterns. You might fear that being kind to yourself means letting yourself off the hook. It doesn’t. It means treating yourself the way you’d treat a friend—with honesty and kindness simultaneously.
Being hard on yourself won’t make you a better parent. Being honest and compassionate with yourself will.
11. Remember: It’s not too late.
Even if your children are grown, the relationship isn’t frozen in time. You can (hopefully) still repair, acknowledge past mistakes, and grow. If your children are still young, you can change course now. If they’re grown, you can acknowledge what happened and show up differently moving forward.
The story isn’t over—you’re still writing it together. Relationships are living things that continue to evolve. When your brain whispers, “The damage is done, there’s no point now,” it’s lying. Modeling growth and self-reflection is valuable at any stage. Your children might actually find it healing to see you acknowledge the past honestly rather than defend it or pretend it was perfect.
You can’t change what happened, but you can change how you show up now. That matters more than you think.
Final thoughts…
You weren’t a perfect parent. You likely also weren’t a terrible one. You were a human being doing something impossibly difficult with limited resources, imperfect knowledge, and your own struggles to manage.
You can grieve the parent you wished you’d been while honoring the parent you managed to be. Integration and peace are possible. Your story with your children isn’t finished, and it’s not too late to show up with honesty, growth, and compassion. That’s still parenting, even now.
