Let Go of the Perfect Summer

In this episode, Dr. Becky unpacks why summer feels so hard for parents—and shares real tools to survive sibling fights, snack overload, and the pressure to make it magical. You’re not failing summer. You’re just parenting in it.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today.

• 0:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It is season 21, episode one of the Good Inside Podcast. I know, season 21. And speaking of season, I got casual my t-shirt today. I want to talk about the summer because I started hearing a lot of talking about the summer and I'm hearing parents have a pretty kind of relaxing summer. I'm just in my beautiful flowy summer dress in mind. And when I hear that, I just think about what the reality of my summers have been like. And I just want to paint a very different picture for you. Okay. It's 10 a.m. The sprinkler is on. I have one kid hysterically crying that they didn't get a popsicle yet. I have another kid asking for the TV remote. I have another

• 1:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  child who, I don't know, ended up with a Sharpie and is kind of drawing it somewhere in my house. And I'm Googling something totally random, like, how many coffees can you have before noon? The truth is, in this moment, I'm not just a parent. I'm like a cruise director where my kid is always thinking I'm going to plan some amazing activity. I'm also a sibling referee, because probably at that moment, two of my kids are arguing with each other. I also feel like I'm a snack machine. Like, how many snacks, how many popsicles does a child think they should have before it's even dessert time? And none of these are roles I signed up for. And all of them feel stressful. And not only is there not a manual for those additional roles, but I am still

• 2:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  expected to do the first role. That also feels hard, being a parent. So that's the image I have in mind when I think about the summer. It's not me in some flowy, beautiful dress, I don't know, sitting down, reading a book, watching the sunset. And I want to talk about it because if your summer has felt like that image, I think we can at least get a little ahead of it here and really think about what the summer might be like and what of all those roles, the cruise director, the snack machine, the sibling referee, maybe we don't want to play at least so often this summer. So that's what we're going to talk about.

• 2:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside. We'll be back right after this.

• 3:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list

• 3:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.

• 4:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  My summer before I had kids and my summertime after I had kids was even more different. The gap was even greater than the rest of my year was different. Of course, our whole life changes when we have kids. But in the rest of my year before I had kids, like I was in grad school some of it. So I'd be going to school or I'd be going to the hospital, right? Where I would work. And again, I'd be in this routine. Now, after I had kids during the school year, I also had a routine. Now, in the summer, when I think about my summer before I had kids, I traveled a lot. And I think we know traveling before you have kids and traveling with kids like could not be more different. When you are traveling with kids, you are not going on a vacation.

• 4:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You are just doing the same thing you always do in a more inconvenient location and you're spending a lot of money doing it, right? So different. So before I had kids, I just remember on a Thursday texting with a friend, "Hey, where do you want to go this weekend?" It would be spontaneous. We'd plan it last minute and you know what? We'd forget a lot of things. Didn't matter. We'd figure it out. After kids, like what? A spontaneous weekend trip? That felt really hard. And also, even if I did it, if I did forget the bottle or anything like that, of course I survived it, but it felt very different. I wasn't having this kind of spontaneity. I feel like I'd be out late at night in the summer, even if I had something to do for work the next day. Now, if I'm late with especially my young

• 5:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  kids, I feel like there was a price to pay. Like my kid wouldn't go to bed till two hours even later because their cortisol was so high, trying to figure out what to do with them the next day. Extra hard. And so, look, I think if we zoom out, this kind of whole myth of what the summer will be like, there's a couple of elements. What the world tells us, it's just not in line with reality. And let's just name that. It actually will make the summer more enjoyable if we realize that. And the other thing is, I think a lot of us, before we had kids, the summers did feel like a break. They did feel light. They did feel extra fun. They did feel kind of like the peak of the year. They allowed us to kind of do different things, go different places, take an extra day off of work. And again,

• 6:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  the summer after you have kids, not like that at all. None of this is a way of saying, "Your summer with your kids is going to be miserable. Buckle up." I actually believe the more realistically we can talk about something, the more space there will be for enjoyment in those kind of magic moments. So that's the goal today. Let's just laugh. Let's remember. Let's be real. And in doing that together, let's create a little more space this summer to have more moments that feel the way we'd want them to. Okay, let's start with this. Let's start with the myth of the perfect summer, or even just the myth of summer. I still, even after all my years of parenting kids in the summer, have this idea that the summer is going to feel like a break. "Summer break. Are you ready for

• 7:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  summer break? Are you ready for school to end? Get ready for the summer." Oh, right? And yet, it never feels like that. But if we zoom out, why would it feel like that? School gives us structure. It gives our kids a routine. It gives us so many hours in a day that are relatively predictable. I know, you might get a call from the school nurse, or you look at your calendar, like, I didn't know we had that holiday off. But in general, you can count on your kids having somewhere to go, other adults creating an environment for them, then seeing their friends. Hopefully, they have a little recess, they're also doing some learning. Then, maybe even after school, you have an activity or two. You're used to it.

• 7:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And then the summer comes. And often, it's just blank. So, there's less structure. There's not so much of a routine. And as a parent, whenever I think, less structure, not having a routine, I don't feel like that's a break for me. In a way, for me at least, I can just say for me, when I have structure and a routine, those are the two things that allow me to have a break. Because then I have time in my day that I know can be for me, or for catching up on something, or actually cleaning my house, not from a place of rage and frustration, but from a place of self-care. When I don't have structure and routine, honestly, I feel a little more out of control.

• 8:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So then, I'm showing up in my house, a little more frenetic. My kids, I think, also feel a little out of control. They don't know what to expect. They're more likely to have intense reactions. What? We have to do that today? What? There's nothing planned? What? I'm bored? And then, that energy and my energy, it does not give me this perfect summer break vibe. If summer feels like that for you, if summer sounds in your neighborhood like the assumption there will be a break, but then summer inside your body actually feels really hard.

• 9:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's nothing wrong with you. Right? I think in this time, it's just such mismatched expectations and reality. Right? Where it's kind of like in the summer, the world tells us to make memories. And you and I, we're thinking, I just want to make it till bedtime. Okay, can we talk about the jobs we take on over the summer that you and I do not want, but somehow we find ourselves locking into? I want to go over three main jobs and let's start with the first one. I don't know, let's call this one cruise director, camp director, um, magic memory maker. Okay, so I picture a backyard and you have, I don't know, one of your kid has a playdate, a kid's coming over and the day before you're like, that's it, I gotta go to the store.

• 9:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I need the slip and slide. I need those watermelon slices in the triangle, kind of like all lined up. I need to think about the music playlist and we need to have this amazing outdoor time. And then you know what happens? Your kid that day refuses to put on sunscreen and you're thinking, okay, it is like 95 degrees and the UV index is, I don't know, whatever it is, that would be really, really high. Now I have all this stuff set up. I spent two hours setting up my backyard. My kid has a friend coming over who wants to go outside. My kid wants to stay inside because they're already burned from yesterday and they won't put on sunscreen. What the heck do I do?

• 10:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, again, if I'm in camp director mode, which I can get into because I'm an optimizer. Okay, I get so mad at my kid because in a way my kid is getting in my way of running this amazing camp. I mean, I'm on this cruise, like we have blocks of time and right now is go outside, do your slip and slide, laugh and say, this is the best afternoon ever. Maybe run through the sprinklers, grab your watermelon slice and look at me and say, this was the best playdate ever. My kid's job is to make that happen for me. Okay, I know my kid's job isn't really to make that happen for me, but when I'm in camp director mode, I do slip into that. I do. Okay, I want to actually contrast that with something else I believe Becky believes, maybe not camp director.

• 11:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Boredom is really good for your kid. And maybe you're thinking, you're just saying that to make us feel better. No, no, I'm really not. First of all, I swear I'm not someone who says really anything to make anyone feel better. It's just not really in my DNA. But boredom, I want you to know, is something we want for our kids. And therefore, the summer where it's impossible to plan a day for your kid like they would have in school, because we're not an institution, okay, with those resources behind us, is the best time of the year to make sure your kids have, I'm going to brand it, boredom blocks, boredom blocks, right? Now, I'm not talking about like the blocks like this, but again, if I'm in camp director

• 11:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  mode, or if I'm in cruise director mode, and I think about blocks in a schedule, I'm going to make sure my child has a block in their day for boredom. Okay, now you may be thinking, why do you want this? My kid whines all the time. Do you like whining, Dr. Beck? Are you a sadist? No, I do not like whining, and I am not a sadist. Here's why boredom matters so much. Boredom is the feeling all of us have before creativity, independence, and flexibility. I want to tell you a story. This happened last summer. My kids were home, and all of them were bored, because I had reminded myself that morning, I'm not a camp director all day.

• 12:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  First of all, it just makes me resentful, makes me depleted, and I have to remember the boredom block, okay? There were no screens at this time, there was no activity I planned. And I want to tell you what happened after, of course, the whining. My three kids did an art project together. They made it up, it wasn't like a project. They drew together, they kind of worked on this design, one of them did one page, one of them the other. Now, my two sons basically never do art. Okay, and do you want to know why they did art with their sister? Because they were bored, because there was literally nothing better to do. That led them to say, oh, all right, well, I see my sister drawing. I guess I'll join her. That's amazing. It created a new thing they could do together.

• 13:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It brought out a part of them that's a little underdeveloped. And that only happened because I let them be bored because they had a boredom block in their schedule. It is not my job to make my kids not bored. They will only find their creativity, their competence, their willingness to be flexible and do something they don't want to do after they go through a period of boredom. Now, just to be clear, my kids have never said to me, Mom, you know how you make sure we're bored and you don't take that feeling away from me? I just want to tell you that's really good for my development. I really appreciate that about you. Never. The reward we get for carving out boredom and not taking it away is whining.

• 14:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But when you see this summer, your kids whining as a sign you're doing something right, it won't become enjoyable. It will become tolerable. And so I think one way we get out of camp director mode, cruise director mode, all the time, is we actually use that mode to help us. Okay, if I'm in that mode anyway, let me be smart about it and block out boredom. Tell your kids, this summer, we're going to practice something called being bored. It's a thing. It's actually an important thing. And so the times that you tell me, I'm bored, I'm going to get it, I understand. And I'm not going to fix that with an exciting activity. I just want to let you know because I believe in you, I believe in your creativity and your independence. And I know by the end of the summer, you're going to find one or two things

• 14:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  you would have never done before because of that boredom.

• 15:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space

• 15:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  empty, you can list it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.

• 16:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Role number two, we find ourselves in in the summer, even though we don't even want this role, is sibling referee. And if you're like me, you find yourself doing truly bananas things with your kids, like this. This happened a few summers ago when my kids were young. Okay. It's not fair. My sister has 13 pretzels and I only have 12 pretzels. I need another pretzel. Okay, here's another pretzel for my son. Then, of course, my daughter goes, wait, that pretzel that you gave him is bigger than any of my pretzels. And I find myself going like this. Okay. And I'm like breaking off this much of my son's pretzels to like, give it to my daughter to make it even and to be this referee affair. What are we doing? We are breaking pretzels.

• 16:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We are, I don't know, re-cutting the grilled cheese a million times. So my kid's grilled cheese over here looks just like that. We're making things fair. And we are taking on the role of saying who was wrong and who was right. Oh, okay. Well, I think it's true. Your sister did go first on the slide the last three times. And so yeah, now you should go four times and then she'll go.

• 17:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to get out of this role. And I realized this a little while ago. I want to share it with you because it's going to sound really weird at first, but then I promise you it's life changing. Making things fair for your kid. Determining who was right for your kids only makes sibling rivalry worse. Isn't that interesting? We think we're working ourselves out of a problem and we're locking ourselves into that problem. Here's why. When you make things fair as the referee, okay, now that's fair. Same number of pretzels. All you're doing to your kid is you're saying, hey, for you to be happy and satisfied, I want you to have eagle eyes on your sibling and notice everything they have and make sure it is the exact same.

• 18:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And then if it isn't the exact same, I want you to come to me and demand that it be the exact same. And then I will make it even and then you can be happy. Literally, nobody wins. First of all, I don't want that role. I really don't. But also I want my kids in life to know you don't get happy by noticing what other people have and then getting the same thing. I mean, really, can we imagine our kid calling us in adulthood and saying, my friend has a mom who bought her a big house. You have to buy me a big house. That's only fair. I mean, I know that sounds laughable and also totally cringe worthy. But when my kids are young in their sibling relationships,

• 18:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I am locking their gaze into noticing what the other person has and then telling them the only way they can feel calm and competent is by having the same thing. I don't even think that scenario is totally crazy. Okay, so what can we do instead? Now, look, there's so many different things and I won't do it justice by pretending in the next couple of minutes. I can completely shift out of fairness into regulation and connection and confidence. That's a process and a path, not a moment. But I can at least get you started and I promise you it starts by promising yourself something.

• 19:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  By saying to yourself, my job is not to do fair and my job is not to determine right. I don't do fair with my kids and I am not the arbiter of who is right and who is wrong. Then there's definitely things you can do, but we can't do different things if we haven't reconciled that for ourself. And so maybe take a moment with me, we'll repeat it together because I still need to hear it. My job is not to do fair. I actually do want you to say it out loud. Okay. My job is not to do fair. Second part. My job is not to determine right. What can we do?

• 20:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After that, you could tell your kids, you can tell your kids, look, this summer, you guys are going to be spending a lot of time together, more time than usual, because there's no school. One of the things I'm going to do differently this summer is I'm not anymore going to make things exactly equal between the two of you, because honestly, that gets in each of your way of figuring out what you actually want, which might be different from what the other person has. And the other thing I'm not going to do is when you come to me complaining about an argument, I'm not going to determine who was right and who was wrong and who gets the toy and who actually gets to go first on the side. I'm going to help you become problem solvers, because the truth is, the two of you are

• 20:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  awesome kids, and you have the ability inside to figure out how to go first on the slide or second on the slide, or who should get the blue cup and who gets the red cup. And my job isn't to solve it for you, it's to help each of you access and bring out those problem solving skills. And then you can now dropping sibling referee. And honestly, everyone wins when we do that. Okay, I want to talk about the third job that I know I really take on in the summer, and then I get resentful, I get so annoyed, and also, I just can't believe the pace at which we're going through things in my pantry. And what is that job? Snack machine. Snack machine.

• 21:39Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  The number of snacks my children need, not want need, I need, I'm starving before 11:02 a.m. I don't even want to name the number, it would be embarrassing. I swear, it's like 19 each, and all of a sudden, I'm like, I swear, I bought this snack at the store, and now it's gone, I have to go back to the store. And also, it seems incessant. How is my kid never hungry? Okay. Here's the thing I realized. Sometimes my kids are hungry. I'm not saying that's not real. That can be very real. But sometimes I need a snack. I need it now. Is my kid's unsophisticated way, because they're young, they don't have the skills yet, at saying, "I'm not sure what to do now." Or, "I'm looking for something fun and exciting,

• 22:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  and I can't find it." Or, "I just feel uneasy, and I want to feel better."

• 22:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Now, food is fuel. Food is important.

• 22:39Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Food and snacks, it's not the same thing as emotion, regulation, and connection. The other thing I've reflected on with myself is let's say my kid came to me and they said, "I'm sad." Can you imagine? I was like, "Oh, no, you're sad? Oh, my goodness, let's make this sadness go away right now." I, for whatever reason with food, have that reaction. Like, "You're hungry? Oh, my goodness, you're hungry. Let's get you a snack." It's actually powerful to remember, like, it's okay to feel sad. Not gonna kill you. Maybe this is controversial, but I'm gonna say it. It's okay to be hungry. Like, I would actually say it's good to be hungry. I want my kid to be hungry before lunch. I want my kid to be hungry before dinner. Hunger is what makes you try new food or be more curious or eat more of something that's presented.

• 23:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so I actually think it's powerful just to say that. It's okay for my kid to be hungry. Now, like, anything else, there's a range. I am not going on record saying, "Dr. Becky thinks we should starve our kids and make sure they don't eat so they're hungry." No, no. But that's extreme. And I think in our home, we know whether my kid is really, really in a bad place with food or whether even, maybe this is about food and it's not kind of an emotional bid for connection. Even if it is just about food, my kid can be hungry and not eat right away. And I started saying that to my kids when they were younger, and it totally changed things. "I believe you really want a snack. You're hungry. I get it, you're really hungry. I totally get that.

• 24:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know your body best." And...

• 24:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's okay to be hungry before lunch. In fact, it's actually good to be hungry before lunch. You can be hungry for the next 30 minutes. I know it's gonna feel uncomfortable. You might just think, food, food, food, food, snack, snack, snack, every minute. And snacks aren't happening right now. Lunch will happen very soon. I'm gonna go back to finishing it and we'll eat together. That's kind of the more pure food side. The other thing I realize with my kids is sometimes, especially in the summer, this all relates. There's just more transition time. There's more open time. There's not a schedule. They're bored and they're looking for satisfaction.

• 24:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  They're looking for comfort. They're looking for something that gives them a good feeling. Food can do that. And again, this is not about being rigid, but we don't want our kids to think when they're bored, snacks are always the option. Unrelated to food, I want my kids to think when they're bored or in between that they are the option, that they can figure it out. And if we're always kind of avoiding that by kind of plugging that true feeling with a snack, we actually get in our kids' way of something that really helps them long term. It's okay to have a moment in between things.

• 25:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't need to always go to my phone or go to food or distract myself. It will take time to kind of sit in that like interstitial time and be comfortable. But I'm not gonna get there if I just use a snack all the time to avoid it. I also think this is something really powerful you can talk to your kids about. Summer's weird, right? There's all this time when we're like, oh, what am I gonna do? I wanna have more fun. I wanna be doing something better than this. And I don't know about you, but sometimes in that moment, I think I want a snack. Sometimes I do. But sometimes my body's just saying, this feels a little tricky.

• 26:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Just kind of being on the same team with your kid can get us out of snack machine role because what we're really saying to our kid is, I sometimes want someone to be a snack machine for me too. And that's true for both of us. And I'm in this with you.

• 26:39Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go

• 27:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.

• 27:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So look, I just want to tell you, in the summertime, when you're doing so many different roles, it's not that you're doing any of those jobs badly. You're just doing too many jobs. I mean, think about if you worked at an office, okay, and you had your job for the year, and then it became the summer, and you're already at full capacity because this is a hard job. And someone tells you, okay, in the summer, I need you to plan all of the events for the team. And actually, in the summer, you're in charge of every meal everyone eats all the time. Oh, and in the summer, when anybody argues, you have to go and referee and make it better, okay? I don't know about you, but I say, I feel like I'm being set up for failure here. Like, I already have a full-time job here in the summer. Now I have three, four, five, six, seven more jobs?

• 28:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And ironically, if I did take on all those jobs, I'd probably start feeling bad at my real job, which would make sense. You'd say, well, of course, Becky, whatever your real job is in the office, if you're now taking on these other three jobs, it's crowding out your ability to do your real job well. What is our real job? Being a parent, right? It's trying to stay sturdy when they're having that meltdown. It's trying to remember when my kid lies to my face, wait, they're not doing this to me. They're having a hard time. It's trying to figure out getting my kid to bed in a way that stays connected and still holds boundaries. Like, that's a full-time job as a parent, and it requires so much of us to do it

• 29:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  in a way that I think we feel good about. When we have any job that requires a lot of energy and intention and emotion, layering on three, four, or five more jobs, because I don't even talk about the other ones in the summer, right? I also feel like you're like the chauffeur, like, all of a sudden, everywhere, right? There's just so many more things. And then we say to ourselves, I'm an awful parent. I'm failing parenting. And I just want to tell you, you're not. You're parenting in the summer. You're parenting in the summer. And I think together through this, what we can realize is, okay, of all those extra jobs, snack machines, sibling referee, cruise director,

• 29:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Uber driver, boredom breaker, what is maybe one of the roles that I take on the most that actually then gets in my way of doing the job I care about most? Being a parent. And how can I separate those two things? Because I think when we relinquish some of those extra jobs, our kids benefit. Honestly, they probably don't need all the snacks. They don't even need all the activity. They don't benefit from fare and sibling referees. They sometimes don't need to be driven to all the activities they're invited to. We actually will have a summer where it won't be perfect. No, it won't be kind of frolicking. Not for me.

• 30:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But there will be more moments where I just say, I'm really proud of the parent I was in that moment. I really am.

• 30:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And that's the best it gets, right? Not the myth of the perfect summer. That myth won't become reality. But we don't necessarily have to be weighed down by all of those extra roles that frankly, we didn't sign up for. So I can tell you, I am definitely resigning from a bunch of them. I hereby resign my role to kind of chief entertainment officer. Doesn't work for me. It's exhausting. It means at the end of the night, when I want to spend those extra five minutes with my son, because that's when he tells me everything, I'm just going to be too depleted and resentful. And so it's also not good for him because I know those moments matter so much more

• 31:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  than kind of him having a constant dopamine summer. I wish for you, for you to think about what one or two extra roles you want to resign from. Maybe even write the resignation letter. Talk to your friends about it. Share this episode. Let it lead to a, yes, light and funny and also meaningful discussion. So we can have a little bit more of that summer that we want. And that maybe is then realistic for our family.

• 32:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, parents carry a lot. In fact, data show that most parents spend every waking hour caring for someone else. So if you feel exhausted and stretched thin, you're not alone and that makes sense. And look, I also know from experience what a relief it is to find caregiving support. Finding a babysitter you trust and your kids will have fun with. That makes it so much easier to go back to work or travel or yeah, even go on one date with your partner. Care.com makes it easier to find trusted, background-checked caregivers with search and hiring tools you won't find on social media. Whether you need full-time help or just part-time help with morning drop-off

• 32:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  or after-school care, care.com can help you find nannies, sitters, and daycares. And you can find the expertise that matters to you. Think homework help, CPR training, or experience with multiple kids.

• 33:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if you're considering daycare, you can search, compare, and request tours, and could even get a discount on daycare tuition as a Care.com member. If you need more support, Care.com can help. For a limited time, you can use the code BECKY35 to save 35% on a Care.com membership. When it's not you, it's Care.com.