Does parenting get easier as the kids get older?
If you're in the thick of the newborn days or chasing a determined toddler around the house, you've probably heard it before: "Don't worry, it gets easier." It can be a comforting thought when you're surviving on broken sleep, cleaning up the same mess for the fifth time that day, or wondering if you'll ever drink a hot cup of coffee again.
But then you have school-aged kids and suddenly you long for the easy days when your kid’s life felt a little more in your control.
So does parenting get easier?After working with families through every stage of childhood, we've come to believe the answer is a little more complicated than simply yes or no.
“When some other parent tells you ‘It gets easier’, you want to throw things at them.”
The hard parts change
The early years are undeniably demanding. Babies and toddlers rely on you for everything.
They're physically exhausting. You're feeding, changing, carrying, comforting, and often functioning on far less sleep than you need. You don’t remember a time you went to the bathroom alone. Your days revolve around nap schedules, snack times, and keeping tiny humans alive despite their endless curiosity. Maybe you have a child who simply will not sleep unless glued to your body and all you’re allowed to do is lie there and stare at the wall.
It’s no wonder that many parents look ahead to school age and imagine life becoming dramatically easier. What will it be like when they can walk themselves to school? you think to yourself, dreamily.
In some ways, it does get easier. Children become more independent. They can get themselves dressed, tell you what's wrong, make their own breakfast, and even entertain themselves for a while. Maybe they go off on playdate and you don’t see them for hours.
So you no longer have to watch every single step they take. But the worries don't disappear. They just become something different. Now it’s worries about their social lives, it’s fights about independence, social media and device addiction creep into your everyday life. Suddenly you’re worried about completely different things.
Goodbye sleep deprivation, hello complications of youth
As children grow, many parents find that the physical demands lessen, but the emotional ones increase.
Instead of worrying about naps, you're thinking about friendships. Instead of wondering why they're crying, you're wondering why they seem quieter than usual. Instead of baby-proofing the house, you're helping them navigate school, confidence, peer pressure, and eventually, the online world.
The problems become less visible. You can't simply kiss a scraped knee or solve every disagreement with a cuddle, and how powerless does that make you feel? Even when you know it’s part of the process, it’s developmental stages they have to get through, it can be really hard once you’re in it.
The challenges today’s parents face
Parenting has always been challenging, but today's families are navigating pressures previous generations didn't have to think about. Social media, smartphones, online friendships, cyberbullying, and constant comparison have become part of childhood far earlier than many parents expected.
The research reflects these concerns. According to the CDC's latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 53% of U.S. high school girls reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023. While this is a slight improvement from the 57% reported in 2021, it remains dramatically higher than a decade ago and far higher than the rate among boys. The U.S. Surgeon General has also warned that children and teenagers who spend more than three hours a day on social media face about twice the risk of experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Of course, social media isn't the only reason young people struggle. Mental health is shaped by many factors, including family relationships, school, sleep, bullying, genetics, and life experiences. But it's one more challenge that modern parents are learning to navigate alongside their children, and if your kids are school-aged, you are in it.
You might have a favorite age
One more thing to take into consideration – one that we’ve seen often with both caregivers and parents – is that we often have favorite ages. Some parents absolutely love the baby years. They enjoy cuddles, routines, and being the center of their child's world. Others find those early years overwhelming and don't really settle into parenting until conversations replace crying and children become more independent.
The thing is, neither of those is right or wrong. You can have wanted children for years and be thrilled to have become a parent but still mostly suffer through the baby years. You can struggle with the tween years or pretending to be excited about the latest boy band/video game/neverending sports team schedule and still love your tween kid beyond the moon.
But it might help to recognize that some stages are tougher for you than others. It doesn’t mean you can’t parent through them, just that there may be more grinning and bearing it than others.
Maybe it doesn’t get easier, but you might get perspective
You can breathe a sigh of relief that you got through the preschool years without your kid sticking a fork in the power outlet, but you can never fully relax.
Listen, parenting is never, on the whole, easy. You can breathe a sigh of relief that you got through the preschool years without your kid sticking a fork in the power outlet, but you can never fully relax. Maybe it turns out the calm baby who slept through the night turns into a ten-year-old who rides their dirt bike over poorly constructed ramps in the backyard, so when some other parent tells you It gets easier you want to throw things at them.
There’s no telling what the future has in store when you’re a parent.
The point is, every challenge you overcome gives you a little something to help you as a parent: perspective, a new skill, muscle memory, or even a boost in self-confidence. If you could get over insert seemingly impossible challenge here, you might actually be able to get through anything. Parenting will test you, but you look at you, you’re already doing it every day.
And one day in the distant future, maybe your kid will have a child of their own, and show up at your doorstep apologizing for allllll the stuff they put you through, and you’ll get a little spark of redemption. Maybe, but we’re not making any guarantees.
Maybe in that distant ideal future, that’s when it gets easier. Until then, just one foot in front of the other, you’ve got this.
Ps. Whatever stage you’re in, you don’t have to do it alone
Whether you're adjusting to life with a newborn, juggling busy school schedules, or raising independent teenagers, every season of parenting can stand a little help. If you are looking for an experienced caregiver to lighten the load, we’ve got you. Our nannies and babysitters are not just experienced and dedicated, we hand-pick the ones we think fit your family and your need. They can’t fast-forward or rewind to an easier phase in your life, but they can do just about everything else.
Tell us a bit about what you’re looking for via the button below, and a member of our team will take it from there.