“Just enjoy every moment” is one of them.
It’s usually delivered with a soft smile. Maybe from someone older. Maybe from someone whose kids are grown. Maybe from someone watching you wrangle a toddler who is currently melting down because their banana broke in half.
The implication is clear: this is fleeting. This is precious. You’ll miss this someday.
And while there is truth in that… it’s also terrible advice.
The Pressure Hidden Inside That Sentence
“Enjoy every moment” doesn’t feel like a suggestion. It feels like a mandate.
It suggests that if you’re not soaking up every second—every tantrum, every 5 a.m. wake-up, every sticky hug, every argument over socks—you’re failing in some invisible way.
It turns normal exhaustion into guilt.
It transforms overwhelm into shame.
It quietly tells you that if you aren’t savoring this, you’re ungrateful.
That’s a heavy thing to carry when you’re just trying to survive Tuesday.
You Can Love Your Kids and Hate the Moment
Here’s a radical idea: you can adore your child and still despise the current experience.
You can cherish your baby and resent being up for the fourth time at night.
You can love your teenager and be completely drained by the emotional turbulence.
You can know this season won’t last forever and still feel buried by it.
Parenting is not a single emotion. It’s a collision of joy, frustration, awe, boredom, tenderness, and rage—sometimes within the same hour.
Demanding that you “enjoy every moment” erases that complexity.
Fleeting Doesn’t Mean Easy
Yes, childhood moves quickly. Yes, the baby stage ends. Yes, you blink and they’re suddenly taller than you.
But fleeting doesn’t mean pleasant.
Labor is fleeting. That doesn’t make it enjoyable.
Sleep deprivation is fleeting. That doesn’t make it magical.
Something being temporary does not automatically make it delightful.
The fact that you will one day look back with nostalgia doesn’t mean you’re required to feel bliss in real time.
The Toxic Positivity Trap
“Enjoy every moment” often falls into the category of toxic positivity—the belief that you should focus only on the good, suppress the hard, and maintain gratitude at all costs.
But gratitude doesn’t eliminate struggle.
You can be grateful for your child’s health and still be desperate for a break.
You can be thankful for your family and still fantasize about silence.
These feelings are not opposites. They coexist.
Pretending otherwise doesn’t make you stronger—it makes you lonelier.
Memory Is Selective (And That’s Okay)
One reason this advice persists is because memory edits the story.
Parents of grown kids often remember the sweetness more vividly than the exhaustion. The sticky hugs, not the sticky floors. The giggles, not the 3 a.m. screaming.
That doesn’t mean they’re lying. It means time softens edges.
But you’re living in the unedited version right now. The raw footage. The unfiltered chaos.
You don’t need to romanticize it in order to appreciate it.
The Emotional Cost of Forcing Enjoyment
When you try to “enjoy” something you’re actively struggling through, your brain has to do extra work.
Instead of simply feeling tired, you’re tired and judging yourself for not being more present.
Instead of just feeling overwhelmed, you’re overwhelmed and guilty.
That double layer of emotion makes everything heavier.
Sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is say, “This is hard,” without trying to wrap it in gratitude immediately.
What Kids Actually Need From You
Your child does not need you to enjoy every moment.
They need you to be consistent enough. Safe enough. Present enough.
They need love, structure, repair, and a caregiver who is willing to keep showing up—even imperfectly.
They do not need you to smile through exhaustion or suppress your humanity.
In fact, seeing you navigate hard moments with honesty teaches them something powerful: that life contains discomfort, and we can move through it without pretending it’s beautiful.
Enjoyment Isn’t a Constant State
Enjoyment comes in flashes.
A quiet laugh during bedtime.
The way they mispronounce a word.
A spontaneous hug.
A shared joke in the car.
Those moments don’t need to be forced. They arrive on their own.
And they’re often sweeter because they exist alongside the hard parts—not instead of them.
Trying to stretch enjoyment across every second dulls its meaning.
You’re Allowed to Want the Stage to End
This is the part we whisper.
You’re allowed to want your child to sleep through the night.
You’re allowed to look forward to the end of diapers.
You’re allowed to anticipate a future where you have more space, more independence, more sleep, more quiet.
Longing for relief doesn’t mean you don’t love the stage you’re in.
It means you’re human and responsive to your limits.
Love Doesn’t Require Savoring
Love is steady. Enjoyment is fluctuating.
You can deeply love someone while not enjoying the current circumstances.
Parents in hospitals love their kids. Parents navigating behavioral struggles love their kids. Parents juggling three small children while working full-time love their kids.
Enjoyment is not the measure of devotion.
Replacing “Enjoy Every Moment” With Something Kinder
Instead of “enjoy every moment,” what if the advice sounded like this:
“Notice what you can.” “Take pictures when you remember.” “Let the hard parts be hard.” “Trust that you’ll remember the sweetness.”
That feels different.
It doesn’t demand emotional perfection. It allows for nuance.
When Nostalgia Arrives Later
One day, you will probably miss something about this season.
You’ll miss the way they needed you in small, specific ways. You’ll miss the softness of their hands. You’ll miss a version of them that no longer exists.
But missing something later does not invalidate how hard it was while you were living it.
Two truths can coexist: it was difficult, and it was meaningful.
You don’t have to rewrite the story to make it beautiful.
You’re Not Failing If You’re Just Getting Through It
If today you’re not enjoying every moment—if you’re just surviving bedtime, managing homework, cleaning up spills, negotiating screen time, and counting the minutes until silence—that doesn’t make you ungrateful.
It makes you in the thick of it.
Parenting is not a highlight reel. It’s a long, uneven road with breathtaking views and potholes close together.
You’re allowed to breathe through the hard parts without forcing joy into them.
You’re allowed to say, “I love my kids, and this is exhausting.”
That isn’t terrible parenting.
It’s honest parenting.
And honesty is far more sustainable than pretending every moment is something you should enjoy.
