Spoiler Alert: You're Going to F*** Up Your Kids Somehow

A phrase I've adopted in motherhood and frequently share with the moms I work with is this:

"We're all going to f*** our kids up somehow — let's just try to minimize the damage."

I know how that lands the first time. Moms usually laugh, a little startled, and then something in their shoulders drops half an inch. We've all heard the therapy cliché — it's all the mother's fault. Every therapist's couch eventually leads back to "Well, tell me about your mother." Rather than avoid it, let's just own it. Underneath the humor is a permission slip you didn't know you were waiting for.

Here's what I mean by it. Every parent who has ever lived has done something that left a mark on their kid. Every single one. Not because they were bad parents, but because parenting a whole human being from birth to adulthood, in real time, especially in today's chaotic world with so many demands, is simply not a task that can be executed perfectly. There is no version of you that gets through eighteen-plus years without a misstep your child remembers.

So the question was never "how do I raise a child with zero wounds." That goal doesn't exist, and chasing it is part of what's making you so tired. The real question — the one that actually changes how you parent — is "when I get it wrong, what do I do next?"

That's where the damage gets minimized. Not in the moment you snapped, or forgot, or said the thing you regretted. In the moment after, when you go back and say, "I was really frustrated earlier and I raised my voice. That wasn't about you. I'm sorry."

When your child voices objection to something you did, you listen. You hear it. You don't minimize their words. And you work on repair versus sweeping it under the rug.

That repair is what your child's nervous system actually learns from — not that you're perfect, but that rupture doesn't mean the relationship is unsafe. That people can mess up and come back.

Here's the reframe I want you to sit with: the goal of parenting was never to never hurt your child's feelings, never upset them, never let them down. That goal isn't just unrealistic — it's actually not the point. The real goal is to teach them that it's okay to speak up about their feelings. That hard conversations are survivable. That when a relationship gets ruptured, it can be repaired. Those are the skills that will actually serve them — in friendships, in partnerships, in every relationship they'll ever have. And they can't learn any of that from a parent who never messes up. They can only learn it from watching you mess up, and then watching you come back.

I think a lot of the anxiety I see in moms isn't really about their kids. It's about an impossible standard they're holding themselves to — one that was never survivable in the first place. Letting go of "flawless" isn't giving up. It's actually the thing that makes you a more present, more regulated, more available parent, because you're not spending all your energy managing the fear of failing.

So if you take one thing from this: you are going to get it wrong sometimes. That's not a prediction of failure — it's just what being human and raising another human looks like. Your job isn't perfection. It's repair. And repair is something you can absolutely do.

The fact that you care, that you're putting thought into how your parenting affects your kids, means you're already doing a good job.

If this resonates, it's one of the core mindset shifts we work through inside Empowered Motherhood — learning to release the pressure of perfect and build a relationship with yourself (and your kids) that can hold the messy, human moments. Check it out or get in touch if you need more support navigating this season.