Hi there,

A few weeks ago, I was talking with my parents about how different parenting feels now compared to when I was growing up.

When I was younger, my mom was a stay-at-home parent. She had time to cook. She didn't hover. My friends and I played outside for hours, unsupervised, and our parents weren't constantly checking on us.

That sounds almost unthinkable now.

It’s not that parents today care more or work harder. It’s that the entire environment around parenting has changed.

Today, we are talking about why parenting feels harder now, what actually shifted, and where you can step back without compromising your kids' wellbeing.

We know too much

One of the biggest changes is information overload.

We watch crime shows, scroll through social media, and see worst-case scenarios all day. We know about every injury, every kidnapping, every danger that could possibly happen.

The reality is that the world is actually safer now than it was when we were kids. But we know more, so we feel more afraid.

At a New Year's party recently, I watched a mom constantly go up and down the stairs to check on her kids. They were playing and were fine. But she could not relax. She kept interrupting them, telling them they were making a mess or doing something wrong.

The kids just wanted to be independent. But her anxiety was taking the joy out of it for everyone.

I get it. My husband is a physician. He sees injuries. He sees kids struggling. So he is naturally more cautious than I am. I am the one saying, "It's fine, let them go explore." He is the one pulling back.

But when that caution becomes constant surveillance, it stops protecting kids and starts suffocating them.

The curse of being connected

The paranoia doesn't just come from news stories. It comes from everywhere.

I am already getting fed ads about college applications. My older son is only in seventh grade, but the algorithms know he will be entering his final year of middle school.

So now I am seeing ads for courses and extracurriculars needed to get into top schools. I didn't click on anything. I didn't search for it. But it is already in my brain, making me wonder if I should be thinking about this now.

It’s the same with group chats. Someone forwards a story about something that happened to another kid, and suddenly you are thinking, "What if that happened to mine?"

We are being fed information constantly, whether we ask for it or not. And it’s too much.

Everything is more competitive

The other shift is competition.

College admissions are harder. Opportunities feel scarcer. When I applied to college, I did well in school, and I got in. Now, top students still get rejected. That pressure trickles down.

Parents start thinking, "If I don't get my kid into this program by seventh grade, they will never get into college." So you add another activity. Then another. Then you are managing multiple schedules, driving to multiple locations, and everyone is exhausted.

Kids are busier than we ever were. And we were busier than our parents were. The stress is not just on the kids. It’s on parents trying to keep up with a system that feels impossible to navigate.

Where you can actually let go

The good news is that not everything needs to be managed at this level.

You can step back in almost every area of parenting without things falling apart.

1. Grades: You do not need to know every single grade your child gets in every subject. If they are struggling in one area, monitor that. Otherwise, let it go.
   

2. Food: You do not need to know what they ate for lunch every day. Ask if they ate. That is enough. Let them make their own food choices within reason. It builds decision-making skills and reduces your mental load.
   

3. Schedules: If your kids are old enough, let them manage their own routines. Your mornings should not revolve around micromanaging every step of their day.
   

4. Decisions: My older son is starting to pick his own classes for next year. Friends have asked me what classes he is choosing. I don't know. I am letting him do it. If I am always picking for him, how will he ever become independent?

We have to let them make their own mistakes when it doesn't matter as much. That is how they learn.

The biggest shift for most parents is letting go of perfection.

Evaluate what you are doing too much of. Where are you over-monitoring? What could you delegate? What could you just know less about without it actually mattering?

You do not have to go all or nothing. Just step it down a notch.

Your kids do not need you managing every detail. They need you present, steady, and not drowning in logistics.

That is the balance most of us are trying to find.

To all my fellow parents,

Parenting feels harder now because the culture around it has changed. We carry more information, more pressure, and more fear than our parents did.

But harder does not mean we need to do more. Sometimes it means doing less with more intention.

It’s okay to let things go. You just need to be present, steady, and willing to let your kids grow into their own capable selves.

That is what they actually need from you.

See you next week,
Lakshmi 💛