You’re Not Doing It Wrong. It’s Just Really Hard Right NowA Reflection on Parenting, Summer, and the Shame of Not Loving Every Second

There’s a seasonal shift happening—one that brings more daylight, backyard dinners, and sticky popsicle fingers. But for many parents, summer doesn’t feel light and breezy. It feels like pressure. The kids are out of school, routines are gone, and parental personal space evaporates. And in that wide, echoing void, a different presence rushes in: the illusion that you should be savoring every second. That illusion doesn’t soothe, it suffocates. It whispers that if you’re not loving every moment, something must be wrong with you.

In our practice, summer often brings a wave of quiet desperation. The kind of desperation where you find yourself fantasizing about a silent cabin in the woods. The kind where you dread making yet another camp lunch, feel overwhelmed by the logistics of pickup times that change weekly, and beat yourself up for not being more grateful for the chaos.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the truth: Loving your children and feeling claustrophobic around them are not contradictions. They are co-existences, which is a part of life’s gray space.

Holding the Gray

Our culture teaches us to seek certainty. We like our emotions in neat, boxed categories labeled “good” or “bad.” But the human experience, especially in parenting, doesn’t work that way. You can be overflowing with love and desperate for solitude. You can be grateful for time with your children and grieve the loss of structure and space.

This is not a sign of dysfunction. It’s a sign that you’re struggling with and holding complexity, which is where growth lives.

Why Does This Feel So Hard?

It feels hard because it is hard. But it’s also hard because your past lives in your present.

Our expectations of ourselves as parents are shaped by what was modeled for us. Some of us are trying to replicate the comfort of our own childhoods while others are working just as hard to avoid the wounds we experienced growing up. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the blueprint for “what makes a good parent” is built from your earliest experiences. And those blueprints don’t always match your current life, values, or needs.

It’s no wonder we’re overwhelmed.

And yet, instead of offering ourselves grace, we layer on shame. Shame for not doing it all, shame for not enjoying every moment, and shame for not showing up like the filtered moms on Instagram who make parenthood look flawless.

But I’d like to offer a thought:

You’re not the problem in your relationship with your children in the summer. You’re the one holding the problem.

The pressure you feel may not be coming from you. It may be coming from what you’ve absorbed about who you’re supposed to be.

The Role of Discernment

Discernment is not just a skill, it’s a boundary, a muscle we build over time. And parenting, especially in the unstructured swirl of summer, requires us to use that muscle daily. Being discerning means more than just making good choices, it’s the practice of slowing down enough to notice why we say yes.

The practice of being selective with your energy and your internal narratives.

Parenting in the summer demands discernment. It’s not just about which camp to choose or whether to allow popsicles before dinner. It’s about filtering the shoulds from the truths. It’s about noticing when guilt is driving your decisions and when your soul is calling for a pause.

There’s a quiet grief that comes with the loss of spaciousness. During the school year, your energy may be mapped in reliable chunks: morning rush, work time, and after-school hustle. Summer shatters that rhythm.

Without intentional discernment, your energy gets scattered and spread thin across the demands of others without time to replenish your own reserves. Your energy is not unlimited. Discernment reminds us that just because we can do it all doesn’t mean we should.

Your Internal Narratives

This may be the hardest part of discernment: interrogating the internal scripts that shape our decisions. We carry stories from our childhood, culture, and society about what it means to be a “good” parent, partner, and human.

Stories like:

• “If I don’t do it, no one will.”
• “If I want something done well, I have to do it myself.”
• “Rest is selfish.”
• “Asking for help means I’ve failed.”
• “Other moms handle parenthood better than I do.”

These narratives are inherited. They’re shaped by our earliest experiences and reinforced by what we consume. And unless we question them, we’ll keep living by their rules.

Discernment asks: “Is this belief true, or just familiar?”

In parenting and in life, there will always be more “asks” than capacity. The goal isn’t to do it all. The goal is to know yourself well enough to choose what matters.

You Deserve Support—Not More Shame

If you’re overwhelmed, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.

There is no gold medal for doing it all alone. In fact, much of what we consider “normal” parenting pressure is rooted in isolation and unrealistic cultural ideals. You are allowed to ask for help. You are allowed to feel what you feel. And you are allowed to change your mind about what “a good summer” looks like.

At Philadelphia Couples Therapy, we believe in holding space for the contradictions. We welcome the stories you’re afraid to tell: The messy, the conflicting, and the beautiful.

You are not the problem, but you are holding the problem.

Let us hold it with you.

Ready to process the gray space of parenting? Book a consultation with us today. Therapy is not about fixing you. It’s about finding you.