Maybe I’m Messing It Up (and Other Summer Truths)
When I started my own company, I thought summer would look different.
I pictured slow mornings. Afternoons by the pool. Evening dinners on the patio and ice cream that melted faster than we could lick it. Long, less chaotic days where I’d finally get to just be with my kids.
But it’s mid-July, and the reality is… I’ve spent more time with my laptop than with them.
The guilt? Heavy. Soul-crushing some days.
I planned to work part-time this summer. That was the dream—freedom, flexibility, presence. But I didn’t account for how fast my company would grow, how much I would love what I do… or how terrible I am at saying no. So here I am, overcommitted, whispering “just one more email, one more call” until it’s 4 PM and I’m flying out the door to pick up the boys from camp and then negotiating “just another hour of work when we get home and then mommy can play”.
Every day, Franco asks the same thing as we walk to the car from camp:
“Mommy, will you play with me?”
And my heart splinters. Because I want to say yes—yes to forts and scooters and popsicles. But most days, I don’t. Instead, I find ways to “parallel play.” He serves me imaginary coffee and muffins while I balance my laptop on my knees, pretending his “coffee shop” isn’t really my mobile office.
It’s not what I pictured.
Even on the rare days I block off work completely, I last maybe 30 minutes before I’m restless. My brain starts churning—deadlines, meetings, the mountain of tasks waiting for me. I’m torn between wanting to be fully present and craving the electric buzz of my work—the stimulation, the purpose, the part of me that isn’t just “mom.”
But at what cost?
At night, I try to make up for it. Ten minutes in each boy’s bed (equal time—Alexa keeps score like a referee). We talk about their days. What they did at camp. What they ate for lunch. Sometimes we watch old videos—Franco’s baby giggle, Maxwell’s wobbly first steps, their chubby cheeks and sticky hands.
It guts me. How are those moments already gone?
I lie there in the dim glow of their nightlight, aching with the realization that they will never be that small again. Loving where they are now, but feeling a deep, unshakable sorrow for the babies they’ll never be again.
And the brutal truth? Back then, I wasn’t soaking it in. I was drowning—exhausted, touched-out, silently praying for bedtime to come at 4 PM – knowing the witching hour was still to come.
Now? I’d give anything to hold those sticky hands again.
Motherhood is a complicated bitch—the constant tug-of-war between wanting to give your kids everything and knowing you’ll never get it all right.
I remember this moment—and today it makes my heart skip a beat with nostalgic warmth. But if I’m honest, the reality was far messier: there was a fight over whether the younger one was allowed to join us, a full-blown toddler tantrum, and (if you look closely) a little elbowing to establish who was king. I was exhausted, hadn’t washed my hair in five days, and just wanted five minutes to myself. Yet now… I’d give anything for one more of those perfectly imperfect days.
And the world doesn’t make it easier.
Was my childhood perfect? No. But outside our family, the world felt stable—predictable even. Summers stretched out endlessly. The news was background noise from 5 to 6 PM. There was no Instagram feed showing other moms on weekday trips to waterparks, making me feel like I’m failing before noon.
Now? The world feels heavier, more chaotic, more dangerous in ways I can’t always name. And I’m caught in this impossible fight—trying to give my kids a safe, stable childhood in a world that feels anything but, while also trying not to lose myself.
And I don’t know if I’m doing it right.
I don’t know if one day my kids will come to me and say I didn’t give them enough of me—or worse, that I gave them the wrong things.
I’ve spent years working with families. I know how fragile it all can be. How much of adulthood is spent untangling the threads of childhood.
It terrifies me that I might mess it up.
I know humans are resilient—we’ve always been resilient. But childhood has changed. The world has changed. And every day, I’m just trying to figure out how to live in it, work in it, and parent in it without losing myself… or losing them.
I don’t have an answer.
And what scares me most? I don’t know what lies ahead for our world or how it will shape them. How do I protect them from the unknown? How do I shield them—not just from the “school bus lessons” my almost six-year-old will face as he steps into kindergarten—but from the instability, the unpredictability, the dangers of what’s still to come?
I don’t know.
And it terrifies me more than anything.
I wish it was simpler. Not tradwife simpler—I’m not looking to hand-stitch curtains and bake sourdough from scratch. Just… less complicated.
I’m starting to realize there’s no roadmap, no guarantees. Only this endless balancing act between who I am, who they need me to be, and a world I can’t control.
When Djifa and I first got married, any time he’d “step in it,” he’d say:
“I need the book.” You know, the instructional manual for navigating your wife.
Man, I could use a damn parent handbook about now.
The one titled:
“How Not to F*ck Up Your Kids’ Childhood.”
I’d buy it in bulk. Hell, I’d gift-wrap copies for my kids to read in therapy someday.
