d3sign/Getty Images
For a long time, I thought I had to wear a mask.
At school drop-offs, I’d paste on a smile and chirp, “We’re good!” when another parent asked how things were going. I said it even when I’d had just a few hours of sleep, when the house looked like a toy store had exploded in it, and when I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something that wasn’t off my kid’s plate.
I said it even when I felt like I was quietly unraveling. Because I thought the truth would be too much. Too messy. Too revealing.
I didn’t want to seem like I couldn’t handle motherhood. Like I wasn’t grateful. I didn’t want pity, and I definitely didn’t want judgment, so I faked it. And so did everyone else it seemed. We traded tight smiles in the hallway, texted “Hope you’re doing great!” in the group chat, and went home to collapse in private.
The first time I broke the pattern, it wasn’t on purpose.
I let honesty slip out
I was at a birthday party, the kind where kids scream in a bounce house and parents stand around pretending the noise and endless requests for juice boxes aren’t giving them a migraine.
Another mom, one of those I always assumed had it together, asked me how things were going. And I don’t know what happened. Maybe I was too tired to lie. Maybe I just couldn’t pretend that day.
I said, “Honestly? I’m struggling. This week has been awful. I cried in the laundry room yesterday because I couldn’t take one more tantrum.”
She blinked, and for a second I panicked thinking I’d gone too far. But then she exhaled. Her shoulders dropped. “Oh my God,” she said. “Same. I thought it was just me.” And something shifted.
We stood there for the next 20 minutes talking not about milestones or summer camps, but instead about the weird isolation of parenting, about how hard it is to admit we’re not okay when it feels like everyone else is nailing it. That conversation was the most honest I’d been in weeks. It didn’t solve everything. But it made me feel human again.
We’ve all pretended to be OK
After that, I started experimenting with honesty. Nothing dramatic. Just small truths, like “I’m actually running on fumes today,” or “We’ve had a rough week.”
I expected awkward silence or polite nods. What I got instead was connection. Every time I told the truth, another parent told theirs.
One mom said she dreaded bedtime because it meant the loneliness of her evenings would set in soon. Another admitted she was scared her child’s tantrums meant she was failing. A dad confessed he felt like an outsider in all the parenting spaces his wife managed effortlessly. Each story was different, but they all had one thing in common: we’d all been pretending, and we were all tired of it.
Now, I’m not afraid to share my truth
I’m not saying parents should trauma-dump on every stranger at the school gate. But I am saying there’s something powerful about lowering the mask just enough to let someone see you — the real you. It’s not a weakness. It’s courage. And often, it gives others permission to do the same.
Parenting isn’t just exhausting, it can be lonely in ways no one warns you about. We’re told it takes a village, but no one tells us how to find that village, much less what to do when it seems like everyone’s pretending theirs is perfect.
I’ve learned that the village doesn’t have to be big. Sometimes it’s just one other parent saying, “Yeah, me too.” So now, when someone asks how I’m doing, I try to answer honestly. Not always in detail, but in spirit. Because every time I do, I crack open the possibility of real connection and remind myself that I’m not in this alone.
The post Parenting is hard for everyone, so I’ve decided to stop faking it when others ask how I’m doing appeared first on Business Insider.
