It's All Inside You

And why growling at a toddler might be the exact thing you need

When my son arrived I was absolutely shocked by how much I wasn’t prepared for. The pressure was so all encompassing. To “do what’s right” , to handle situations with a a certain poise, sleep with the utmost “safety” in mind, feed within windows, raise children according to xyz , be a very specific type of healed and all-knowing mom, etc. etc.

Anyone who knows me well knows I am not a rule follower. I’ve always done things a little bit differently from the crowd. I question, and have strong opinions about anything common and widespread. And if everyone is going one way, I’m usually trailing down somewhere sort of near, sort of adjacent, but in my own unique way.

What I wasn’t prepared for however were all of the opinions that everyone was going to have about all of the choices I made when it came to how I was raising my son. And how I would need to get really really good at standing my ground, shutting out the noise, and being myself in the face of people questioning me or thinking my ways were “crazy.”

My work and ‘why’ continuously comes back to the same thing that I’ll never stop looking at from all angles: the art of listening to, and expressing yourself, fully and Truly. Over and over and over again.

My son and I have been fighting a lot recently. I’m realizing that in the way I have my own unique way of being and going about my day, he does too, and it doesn’t always align with my way. He has ideas about what he wants, how he wants things done, just so, and how I am to help him get there. And I just want to play a game called, how much sleep can I squeeze into this night before I am inevitably interrupted by the 2 and 3 year old in my care?

This morning he came in to my room to wake me up because he needed me to get something for him from his room.. The room he literally just walked out of… to come to my room… to tell me I needed to go down to his. If you can’t tell, I am not a morning person. And I am especially not a morning person when you wake me up whining in my face asking me to do something you are clearly capable of doing yourself. But alas, that is life with a 3 year old. And so naturally I wasn’t super chippy and excited about rushing downstairs to help him. I have a routine I need to do when I wake up. I need to scrape my tongue, brush my teeth, drink some water, open the curtains, give my eyes a moment to adjust. I have a little ritual that helps me rise. And the entire time I’m doing this, for these minutes in the morning I count on having before I am getting bombarded with demands, I am getting bombarded with not only demands but incessant whining about how I need to go downstairs and get something from him. Out of the room….. he just came from!!

And so right off the bat I hear the voices in my head. I see the words on the pages of the books I’ve read swirling around in my brain. The content I’ve scrolled on particularly vulnerable nights. I’m trying so hard to be that gentle parent I imagine I can be. Naming what’s happening: you are waiting, mom is getting ready, I will help you soon, thank you for being patient. And as the whining isn’t letting up I can feel that gentle parent costume I’m wearing dissolving around me, and I start to get short with him. Grumbling about how he woke me up, how it’s not making me want to rush down to get his stuff, trying to bargain with him about getting the stuff himself because now I’m just pissed and I don’t want him to win… it obviously is making things worse.

So there I am, arguing with a 3 year old. I’m doing this snippity, exasperated voice with him and he’s doing it back. And I hate that this is happening so now I’m getting pissed at myself. And now we’re literally growling at each other. Like literally growling.

As I’m trying to reason with him, I’m hearing all the things I’ve heard calm, gentle parents do in books. I’m hearing things I catch in passing or on the internet. Getting on his level, affirming his feelings, taking a breath together. And I’m like fuck that, that little fucker woke me up! And I’m not being mean, but I’m not being nice. I’m just being annoyed… because that’s how I genuinely feel… really fucking annoyed.

Of course I get the thing he asked for. And everything in the world is good again. He’s happy and now he want’s to cuddle on the couch together. Of course he does. Because he doesn’t hold grudges like I’ve learned to. Because he’s not avoidant like I can be. And now that the growling is over he wants to reconnect. And I’m just like… fuck. And I lose it.

I’m sobbing into his sweet, curly head. We’re holding hands and I’m crying and apologizing. And he’s like, “You were growling mama. You were super mad.” And I’m like, “So were you. Are we good?”

“Yeah. Good.”

And that’s all it takes. Just being real with my kid. Letting myself be seen by my kid. Following my feelings and expressing them without making it mean I’m deviating from some gentle parenting identity that I’m supposed to take on because I’m a millennial and the pendulum has swung to the complete opposite side where we’re just supposed to be these positive parenting robots who always have the right thing to say and do everything right and don’t raise our voices and have perfectly regulated nervous systems because that’s what that podcast interview said and because that book told me I have to be a co-regulator to create a secure attachment and because that Substack article gave me 5 tips for how to be a super fucking chill parent like all the time.

I’ve tried the books and so have you. The methods. The formulas for how to parent better. You’ve scrolled your way into a frenzy, preparing all the things, the room, the words, your inner child. And no matter how much you take in, it doesn’t “work” — you end up right back where you started, frustrated, depleted, crying into your son’s curls, wondering what’s wrong with you.

It’s not you. You’re outsourcing your authority to an expert who isn’t you. And you’re holding yourself back from expressing what IS You.

And by doing so, you’re giving your peace away because the internet has delivered unrealistic expectations around what it means to be a mom who doesn’t lose it on a random Friday morning.

Every time I’m having a particularly hard time with one of my kids, I can feel the voices of the outside world telling me to turn the volume down on my Self. Quick! Dissolve yourself, kill your ego, shove your feelings to the side, they don’t matter, and they will traumatize your kids, just like you were traumatized. Become a space holder, your kids need you to be calm, regulated, peaceful. No if, ands or buts! Fade into the background, don’t be too big, too needy. This season of life is not your time.

You’ve been sold a lie. That outsourcing your authority — to the parenting experts, to that influencer on TikTok, to your partner, to your in-laws, to that free download on IG, to your own parents, to the moms at the gym — is normal. It is the only way to survive this trying time. To forget yourself and follow the people around you. Because you’re hormonal and crazy and erratic and you don’t know up from down, right?

The truth is, you have this unique way of being that is just yearning to be expressed. There is magic inside of you that’s bubbling to the surface. And every time you deny yourself of real self-expression, a part of You is reaffirmed that there is no room for you. Oh, shit! That nagging low-level hum is back — you know, the one that every so often becomes voice screaming in your head JUST RUN AWAY. That is is your rejected inner voice, telling you to evaluate all of the outer authorities you’ve allowed to rule YOUR life. To deeply inquire whether your outer presentation matches your inner world. The deep, feminine, creative, emotional, wild, intuitive current that lives inside of you. The one that has all the answers because you were literally built to do this. Not the one who is perfect, but the version that is fully self-expressed. There is a You in there who is just begging to be unleashed.

The whole point is the process, the messiness, the realness. Not the perfectly calm, gentle parent. Not the idealized future version of what your kids become because you never raised your voice or got real with them. Not the ten-step program you teach on the internet that comes after you’ve dodged the trenches. It’s the living experience.

Going through it is the magic. Being IN it is the magic. Hugging your kid after you’ve been growling at each other. That’s the magic.

You can’t Google your way to tapping into your own big-ness.

All you can do is be in it. Feel it. Lean into it. Embrace the suck of it all. Growl at your toddler if you need to.

You don’t have to be sunshine and rainbows and butterflies just because you asked for this and now you have to suck it up and be happy with what you asked for.

But you do have to learn how to shut out the noise. Everything that everyone is saying about this sweet wonderful time you’re supposed to love 24/7. And just smell your babies head because that smell will go away and suddenly you’ll be calling the gyno to get your IUD removed for round three (me rn). Because you forgot about those trying times once you realized the head you’re crying into no longer smells like a fresh baby.

There’s no room for you. That’s the belief I want to challenge.

What I need. And what I imagine you need to if you’re still here reading this.. Is the reminder that you have permission to take up space inside motherhood. That you have to.. Absolutely have to without question… come alive inside this life you’ve built, in order to actually enjoy it.

And that means expressing your real feelings when they are there, letting your kid see you feel. See you hurt. See you real. So they come to understand a feeling really is just a feeling. Not something to be shamed or coveted or rushed through, but just a feeling to be expressed. And maybe it’s not even about them, because they know this. They haven’t been made to believe that it has to mean anything about them in the way we’ve been conditioned as such.

Until they see you pushing and shoving and contorting your True self in order to be digestible and accepted by the world. Enough of that and they will learn the only way to survive this beautiful, wild existence is to do the same.

You don’t need another piece of content on good parenting. You just have to stop pushing down the Truth living inside of you.

And it starts with authentic self-expression.