The culture of impossible parenting shapes our experience of parenting before we ever become parents. A lot of expectations and assumptions are placed on us, by others or by ourselves. This section, called “Hurting,” explores four significant pain points for parents: (1) birth, including how we become pregnant, how we stay pregnant, and trauma associated with birthing; (2) sleep, or the lack thereof, which can feel torturous during the postpartum years and often creates feelings of desperation; (3) relationships, which often feel strained and pushed to the limits as frustration grows about sharing the work of parenting; and (4) bodies, including physical suffering related to the size of our bodies and distress surrounding infant feeding.
I think a lot of the pain we feel in the early parenting years stems from facing the limits of our control and trying to navigate the contradictory messages from impossible-parenting culture. Unmet internal or external expectations are common reasons people feel depressed or anxious. This next section explores how the culture of impossible parenting shapes our desires and tries to convince us that we have more control than we actually do.