'My Dad said he didn’t think parenting two small children was as hard for him then as it is for me now. I have to say I agree, but why?'
‘This is so hard!’ I wailed to my mum and dad, for the 39th time that day, when they kindly came to stay for a few days to help me deal with a five-month-old baby and a three-year-old while my husband went away for a week on a work trip. My eldest son was in nursery three days a week, but bedtimes and mornings were a nightmare. Getting out of the house with them seemed to take hours, and the days where I had them both all day felt relentless.
For starters, what it means to be a parent has totally changed. This year, psychologist Penelope Leach re-issued her classic book, Your Baby & Child, first published in 1977 to better reflect modern parenting. The reasons she gave were myriad - from new evidence around bed sharing and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to the ever-evolving makeup of the modern family.
'I often encourage clients to ask themselves what they would do/not do if nobody knew!’ Says Anna. 'Would they book that Christmas event? Would they make different parenting choices? It’s a way of stripping back the people-pleasing need, to listen to the needs of yourself and your family. Sometimes we can be so used to following the crowd that we don’t realise we are going against our own values or overlooking our own needs.
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