Courtesy of Creshonda Smith
Growing up, I hardly participated in any activities after school. I did cross-country for a bit until I injured my ankle too badly to continue, and I tried cheerleading for a few years in elementary school, but that was it.
When I got pregnant, I told myself that I was going to be the mom who signed her kids up for everything. I was thinking about dance classes, gymnastics, instruments — the works. But when the time came and I had three girls, that’s not what happened.
We tried ballet lessons for a few months, but it was exhausting
My girls did ballet lessons for about five months before the pandemic hit and in-person activities were shut down, and it was exhausting. It was just one activity, and I was still in over my head. When it restarted again a year later, I hid my face every time I saw the instructor, praying she wouldn’t ask when we were coming back.
The kids didn’t seem to miss it, and I sure didn’t miss rushing them home from school to get dressed just to race to the studio and then stay up all night doing homework. We did that routine three times a week. Weekends? Swamped with studying and catching up.
While my friends’ kids and their peers were zipping off to karate or piano or STEM camp, mine were at home with me — watching movies, helping with dinner, or just lying around doing nothing in particular. At first, it didn’t feel like a choice; it felt like a failure to keep up because I was overwhelmed. Not in a dramatic, falling-apart kind of way, but I was constantly tired in that quiet way no one really sees. How did anyone else find the time to do that stuff?
Between freelance work, co-running a household, and trying to be emotionally available to my kids, adding even one more thing felt impossible. I kept telling myself, “Next month, I’ll sign them up for something.” But then the month would pass, and then another, and I hadn’t done it.
I watched other parents juggle it all and wondered if I was falling behind
My husband and I often discussed whether there was something else we could be doing. I’d scroll through photos of other people’s kids taking swim lessons or playing weekend volleyball games and feel a gnawing sense of inadequacy. Other parents seemed to be juggling so much — and doing it well. I felt like I was letting my kids miss out on something essential, some rite of passage that would make them more confident, social, or well-rounded.
Sometimes I’d ask my oldest if she wanted to join an activity, and she would shrug. “Maybe,” she’d say. But there was never a strong yes, and I didn’t have the energy to push it. The idea of finding the right program, coordinating drop-offs and pick-ups, and buying the gear was all too much. So I did nothing.
And that nothing started to weigh on me.
Was I lazy? Uninvolved? Selfish? Was I doing my kids a disservice by not filling their calendars the way other parents did? I didn’t know. We had already established our own little family traditions, but I also wondered if our kids would be less cultured than others if we didn’t get more active.
I’ve started to see that the way I’m parenting is good enough
Over time, I’ve started to see that being present was enough. The shift didn’t come all at once. It came slowly — in bedtime conversations, in shared jokes, in the way my kids still came to me for comfort or to tell me about their day. I realized they weren’t lacking anything in those moments. They weren’t counting missed soccer goals or music lessons; they were counting on me.
We made cinnamon rolls together, my husband took them on long walks, and they talked about everything from how digestion works to their biggest fears. I was there when they woke up and when they went to sleep. I knew their friends’ names, their favorite snacks, and that “Roys Bedoys” was the funniest cartoon to them. I didn’t need a calendar to tell me I was showing up, because I just was.
There’s this pressure to perform parenthood. It feels as though you’ve got to post the carousel of photos filled with every milestone and accomplishment, as well as the hustle of it all from day to day. But the quieter stuff — the long hugs, the shared silence, the way your kid looks for you in a crowded room — doesn’t get a certificate or applause. It matters just as much, though.
I still sometimes wonder if I should be doing more, and maybe one day I will. But for now, though my kids may not have a full extracurricular résumé, they have me, and I’m finally starting to believe that’s enough.
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