How Much of Day-to-Day Parenting Do You Actually Enjoy? Honest Reflection and Realistic Small Tips
Last Tuesday at 5:47 p.m., I was standing on a single neon ankle sock in the middle of my kitchen floor, scraping congealed boxed mac and cheese off a plastic dinosaur plate, while my 7-year-old Clara screamed from the bathroom that her 4-year-old brother Milo had flushed her favorite holographic unicorn eraser down the toilet. I glanced at the microwave clock, and for half a second, I thought: is this it? Is this the routine part I’m supposed to be savoring?
I set the plate in the sink and walked to the bathroom, where Milo was perched on the edge of the tub grinning like he’d just pulled off a genius science experiment, and the toilet gurgled like it was about to overflow. I didn’t yell. I just leaned against the doorframe and tried to remember the last unplanned, ordinary moment of parenting that I’d actually enjoyed, not the big planned stuff like birthday parties or weekend beach trips where I’d spent half the time chasing hats and reapplying sunscreen.
That night, after both kids were in bed and I’d mopped up the puddle that seeped out from under the toilet, I scrolled past a 15-second Instagram reel of a mom in a linen shirt laughing as her two toddlers dumped sprinkles on cookie dough, golden light filtering through her kitchen window. The top comment had 12,000 likes: “This is why every hard minute is worth it.” I thought about the 20-minute fight I’d had that morning over whether Clara could wear mismatched socks to school, how I’d snapped “we don’t have time for this” when she’d dragged her feet getting her shoes on, and I closed the app.
The next day, I decided to keep a loose mental tally, just to see. I didn’t write anything down, just noted when I felt actual, uncomplicated enjoyment, no background hum of to-do lists or correction running through my head.
At 6:30 a.m., Milo climbed into my bed and kicked me directly in the ribs three times while asking for chocolate chip pancakes on repeat for 12 minutes. No enjoyment, just tired.
At 7:20 a.m., halfway through breakfast, Milo poured an entire puddle of syrup on his wrist and started licking it, and Clara said he looked like a tiny syrup vampire, and I snort-laughed into my coffee. That was 90 seconds, total.
Then came the rush to find backpacks, sign a forgotten field trip form, argue about brushing teeth, and herd everyone out the door to school and daycare. Zero enjoyment, just checking boxes.
After pickup, Clara ran out of class waving a crayon drawing of our family, all of us with giant rainbow hair and our cat drawn as big as the couch. I smiled when she handed it to me, that was two minutes. Then Milo tripped over a curb, screamed for 15 minutes because his graham cracker broke in half, and we had to stop for milk on the way home, where Milo hid in the cereal aisle twice and Clara begged for a popsicle every 30 seconds until we checked out. By the time we pulled into the driveway, my shoulders were up by my ears, and I couldn’t wait for bedtime.
By the end of that whole weekday, I counted maybe seven total minutes of actual enjoyment. Seven. I spent the rest of the 13 hours I was with the kids either troubleshooting, negotiating, cleaning, or just making sure no one got hurt. I met my sister, who’s worked as an elementary school counselor for 12 years, for coffee that weekend, and I told her I felt like I was doing something wrong, that I must not be a very good mom if I didn’t actually like most of the day-to-day work.
She stirred her oat latte and said something that stuck with me: of course you don’t enjoy most of it. Most of what you do when kids are small is lend them your prefrontal cortex, because theirs isn’t done growing yet. You’re the part that remembers erasers don’t go in toilets, that crossing the street requires holding hands, that you can’t eat syrup for dinner, that homework has to get done before screen time. That’s maintenance work, same as taking the trash out or changing the oil in your car. No one expects you to enjoy changing your oil. Why do we expect parents to enjoy every minute of this maintenance?
She didn’t tell me to schedule a big weekly self-care day or force more “quality time” that would just end up being more work for me. She suggested two tiny, low-lift changes that I’ve been testing ever since.
First, stop treating every minute you’re around your kids like it has to be fun or bonding. The time you spend folding laundry while they watch a cartoon doesn’t count as a failure. You don’t have to turn every trip to the grocery store into a learning game. Most of the work is just neutral, and that’s okay.
Second, aim for one two-minute micro-moment per kid per day, no agenda, no correction, no cleanup on your mind. If they’re stacking blocks, you sit down and hand them blocks, don’t remind them to pick up when they’re done. If they’re drawing, ask them to tell you about the picture, don’t point out that dogs don’t actually have 12 legs. You don’t have to carve out an hour. Two minutes is enough, and it doesn’t add another task to your list.
A week later, I was complaining about the whole thing to a friend while our kids chased her cat around her minivan in the driveway, and I asked her offhand how much of the day-to-day she actually enjoys. She leaned against the sliding door and shrugged. “Maybe 10 minutes on a good weekday,” she said. “The rest is just making sure no one dies and the laundry gets folded. I love them more than anything, but most of it is boring.” I felt like someone had let air out of a tight balloon I’d been carrying around for years.
I also stopped trying to make the “perfect” fun activities I saw online. I used to force cookie-baking afternoons, the kind with matching aprons, and they always ended with flour all over the floor, someone crying because they got less stir time, and me scrubbing dough out of the grout for an hour after bedtime. Now I bake the dough myself after they go to bed, and we spend 10 minutes after dinner the next day decorating with sprinkles. No prep, no cleanup fights, and that 10 minutes is actually fun for all of us.
It’s been three months since the unicorn eraser incident. The plumber cost $180, Milo lost dessert for two nights, and Clara got a replacement eraser from her teacher a week later. I still step on stray socks at least four nights a week. I still fight about mismatched socks every Monday and Wednesday. Some weeks, I’m too swamped with work deadlines or just too tired to remember the two-minute micro-moments, and I go days without a single uncomplicated laugh with the kids.
Last week, Milo flushed a purple crayon down the same toilet. I sighed, got the plunger out of the closet, and Clara followed me in with a sparkly sticker she’d gotten at school, which she stuck to the plunger handle “so it’s fancy.” We didn’t have a big talk about gratitude or being kind. We just stood there while the toilet gurgled, and I watched her pick at the edge of the sticker to make sure it stayed on.
Most of it is still just work. The sticker part was nice.
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