Ask A Therapist - Brutiful Parenting

How can I be fully present with my children? I feel so guilty now they've gone back to school after the christmas holidays. They spent time on their devices and not with me and whereas I enjoyed the peace and quiet, I feel like I should have been making memories with them or playing with them more. Christmas was pretty full-on and now the return to routine means that the evenings and weekends feel so full of work and commitments and I feel guilty that I don't spend enough time with them. This then makes me snappy and like I'm failing every which way. Do you have any suggestions please?

Dear Anonymous,

Oh yes, I know this place. I’m the mummy sat in the car after the first post-holiday school drop-off having a snotty sob before turning the engine on. The relief of routine returning, the grief that the holidays are already over, and the guilt that somehow it still never felt like enough even though you were there, and doing your best. You are so not alone in this.

What you’re describing is the emotional hangover of parenting. And, let's be honest, Christmas is full-on: the logistics, the expectations, the overstimulation, the constant togetherness. Then suddenly it’s over, the house is quieter, and instead of relief landing cleanly, it gets tangled up with self-blame.

I should have played more. I should have been more present. I should have made better memories. We end up 'shoulding' all over ourselves. That voice can be flipping loud but it simply isn’t truth, it might be pressure.

There’s a phrase I love, coined by my therapist pal Chance Marshall, that parenting is brutiful - both brutal and beautiful at the same time (check out his exceptionally ace SubStack here). That paradox sits right at the heart of what you’re feeling. You can love your children ferociously and still enjoy the quiet. You can be grateful for routine and still ache that another chapter has closed. Those things can absolutely coexist without cancelling each other out. This is the beauty and the pain of being human.

One thing I’d gently invite you to notice is how quickly guilt takes centre stage. Guilt can show up when we care deeply but feel stretched thin and guilt tells us we’ve missed something vital. But children don’t experience love the way guilt tells us they do. They don’t measure connection in constant play or perfectly curated memories, but I wonder if they feel it in the background sense of being held in mind.

Donald Winnicott (often described as one of the godfathers of attachment theory) wrote about the idea of the “good-enough” parent. His work suggested that caregivers only need to get it right around 40% of the time for children to form secure attachment. Read that again. Forty percent. Let that land. That’s often far less than the standard we’re silently trying to meet. I try to hold onto that what matters isn’t perfection, but the ongoing rhythm of connection, missteps, and repair. The ordinary, imperfect, messy human stuff.

And I wonder if your children’s memories of this Christmas won’t be the hours on devices or the moments you were tired, rather they’ll remember the tone of it. The safety and the feeling of being at home with you. Maybe the way you are the steady presence in the room, even when you’re sitting quietly with a coffee, even when you’re depleted.

There’s also something else woven through your words that we don’t often name: a very particular kind of grief that comes with parenting. The grief of the mundane. When the endless snacks, the interruptions, the background chorus of “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy" or "Dad, Dad, Dad" begin to fade. These are the things we sometimes moan about when we’re exhausted but when they loosen their grip, what we miss isn’t the task but it’s the closeness. The way our children once needed us so much. The intimacy of being necessary.

When those moments start to fall away, it can feel disorienting. There’s relief, yes absolutely AND alongside it, a quiet ache. That I will never 'do' this version again. That grief deserves space. It’s not silly or ungrateful. It’s love noticing time.

If you can, you might gently ritualise this transition. After drop-off, take a moment even if it's just a breath to name one thing you’re proud of from the holidays and one thing you’re grieving. Let both exist without trying to fix them. That’s often where guilt softens into tenderness.

And when you notice yourself becoming snappy, try to hear it not as your own failure but as a signal. Because it’s usually a sign that you need care too. Children don’t need a parent who is endlessly present, they need one who returns, repairs, and is allowed to be human.

Parenting isn’t about doing it all. It’s about being good-enough; present enough, loving enough, human enough. So if you find yourself crying in the car again, please know that many of us are right there with you in this brutiful experience; relieved, grieving, guilty, grateful, and loving our children beyond words.

With warmth and real solidarity, Lynsey