What's a Parent's Role?

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Honoring your own needs as a parent can sometimes mean disappointing or upsetting your children.

Children tend to judge parents' decisions only by how they affect their own needs, not the parent's.

Both parent and child experiences are valid even when their needs openly clash.

One of the hardest things Margo ever did was admit that she wanted a separate bedroom, apart from her husband. It was a truth that had been percolating inside her for a decade, but it took that long for her to be able to share it with her partner and make it happen. The reality was that she needed space where she could be alone, with no one else’s needs present, and where she didn’t have to absorb anyone else’s anxiety, unhappiness, or stress. The role she’d played for years, as a mom who kept everyone in the house happy and regulated—all of it had worn her down to the point of being emotionally ragged and desperate for quiet and her own attention.

Having a place to retreat, to be alone with her own thoughts and feelings, became non-negotiable—what felt like a matter of emotional life or death. After 10 years of silencing her internal whisper, that whisper started to shout. And once she heard it, she couldn’t unhear it. The undeniable truth was she needed a room of her own.

Still, as clear as this truth was for Margo, it was not a truth that her husband or children shared. The transition into it becoming a reality was more brutal than she’d ever imagined. Sharing a bedroom clearly meant something profoundly important for........

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