Why I Stopped Comparing My Parenting To Other Parents (And Small Changes That Helped)
Last September, after my son’s third grade back-to-school night, I hung around the playground by the wobbly bike rack waiting for him to finish trading Pokemon cards with his new friend. Another mom leaned against the rack next to me, holding a reusable coffee cup printed with her oldest kid’s hockey team logo, and we started chatting about the new teacher. Halfway through the conversation, she mentioned her son does 30 minutes of timed math fact practice every night before bed, and had already tested into the school’s advanced reading group back in second grade.
I nodded and smiled and said that sounded great, but by the time I pulled out of the parking lot, that familiar tight feeling had settled in my chest. I stopped for gas on the way home and mindlessly scrolled the class parent Instagram while I waited for the tank to fill. The most recent post was from another mom, showing off her 8-year-old’s already-finished science fair project, captioned “Early prep keeps stress away this fall!” I got home to find my son cross-legged on the couch eating Goldfish and watching an old episode of Pokemon, and I immediately started mentally running through all the things I was doing wrong: We never remember daily math practice. We still haven’t bought the supplies for the science fair. I let him read graphic novels for fun after dinner instead of the “meatier” chapter books everyone talks about.
I snapped at my husband that night when he asked how back-to-school night went, ate three chocolate chip cookies straight out of the jar, and laid awake for an hour replaying every conversation I’d had that week with other parents. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the first time I really noticed how much energy it was sucking out of me.
A few nights later, we were finally tackling the science fair volcano at the kitchen table, glue and baking soda all over the place, because I’d procrastinated until the night before it was due. My son was smearing red construction paper across the cardboard cone, and he got so much glue on his sweatshirt I had to peel it off mid-project. He looked up at me, grinning with glue on his chin, and said, “Did I tell you Mia from my class says her mom does all the gluing for her projects because she hates mess? I like that we have messy glue. It’s fun.”
That line stuck with me. I realized all the comparing I was doing wasn’t even about my son. It was about me measuring my own worth as a parent against a partial, polished list of other people’s choices. I never stopped to ask if those choices worked for them, or if they came with trade-offs I didn’t see. Later that month, that same mom who does daily math practice told me they fight about it every single night, and it’s the most stressful part of their routine. The mom who finished the science fair in August said she’d missed two of her son’s soccer games to get it done, and he’d been upset about it the whole time. We only ever see the highlight reel, not the messy parts no one posts about.
I didn’t do a big social media detox or overhaul our whole routine to fix this. I started with three tiny, low-effort changes that have stuck. First, I set a 10-minute daily timer for social media. When the timer goes off, my phone goes on the charger in the entry closet, out of sight. I still get to see my friends’ kid photos and check for school announcements, but I cut out the endless scrolling that leads to idle comparing. Second, whenever I catch that tight feeling in my chest starting, I say one specific thing that works for our family out loud. It doesn’t have to be impressive. Last week, when I saw a mom posting about her daily 7am family hikes, I said out loud, “We all sleep until 7:30 and eat pop-tarts together in the living room, and that’s what we all need right now.” Third, I changed the questions I ask other parents. Instead of asking about homework routines or test scores or team tryouts, I ask, “What’s something silly your kid did this week?” It shifts the whole conversation away from benchmarks to real life, and I almost never walk away from a chat feeling bad anymore.
Last month, the school sent home the first round of benchmark reading scores. My son was right at grade level, no advanced label, no note saying he was exceeding expectations. I felt that old twinge, the same one I’d felt back at back-to-school night, before I could even stop it. That same night, though, he pulled out his dog-eared dinosaur graphic novel and sat on the floor next to his 4-year-old sister, and read the whole thing out loud to her, doing silly voices for every dinosaur. He stopped every two minutes to answer her questions about why T-Rex has small arms, and he never got annoyed, even when she interrupted him for the third time. It took almost an hour, and that moment mattered more than any score or any benchmark ever could.
I still compare sometimes. It doesn’t just go away completely. Last week at soccer practice, I heard two dads talking about their kids’ travel team tryouts, and I stood there holding my water bottle and wondered if I should be pushing my kid to try out too, even though he says he just likes playing on the rec team with his friends. The difference now is that the feeling doesn’t hang around for days. I grab a popsicle from the cooler, sit back down, and watch my kid run off to chase a butterfly instead of going for the ball, and I remember: our version of good is enough, even if it doesn’t look like anyone else’s. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s our work, and that’s enough for right now.
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