When I became a mom I worked full-time at Mindset Works – the global leader in growth mindset training.

I expected myself to keep delivering results AND to be the caring, loving, kind, and patient mom I wanted to be.

When things got hard, I heard myself thinking:

“I should know better”

“I should do better”

“Parenting should come naturally”

I had no tools or skills to cope with these thoughts.

These thoughts drive the way many of us parents approach parenting and consequently, the choices we make and the way we experience it.

I didn’t know that the way we think about parenting has been shaped through years of passive and active learning – through messages we got from society, our community, and our family. Through verbal and nonverbal communication and through conscious and unconscious mechanisms. These messages taught us to think about parenting and about our role as parents in a certain way.

The journey to becoming the parents we want will take unlearning and relearning. It will take challenging the way we think about parenting.

I imagine a future in which parents know that it’s OK not to know. Parenting doesn’t come naturally. We are not born to be the parents we wanted to be. We are born to learn.