Don’t Lower Your Standards. Expand your consideration set to get some peace of mind in early parenthood

“Nobody talks about how hard motherhood is,” Elena—not her real name—told me at a small university reunion dinner. “People talk about the love and the cuddles, and how your instincts just wake up and you know what to do. And it’s not like that. It’s learning.” Her son is a teenager now, and they are working through new challenges, and she is still learning.

Unlike Elena, I expected parenthood to be a lot of work. I took an infant-care class and a breastfeeding class. I read the advice new parents are handed. You’ve come across these, I’m sure—freeze meals, sleep when the baby sleeps, accept help, lower your standards.

I didn’t use much of this advice. My son often slept in 20-minute increments—not enough time for me to fall asleep and get any rest, even if I skipped the bathroom break and shower.

Accepting help was challenging, too. So many women in my extended family talked about how they had managed it all alone—cooking, cleaning, and taking care of everything else while looking after the baby. Indeed, there were some raised eyebrows and some guilt for me to get over when my husband and I chose to pay for a cleaning service in those early months. It seemed like a splurge, but it was a great decision and a sanity saver.

The advice I struggled with most, though, was to lower my standards. Especially when I was younger, there was no halfway. Whatever was worth doing was worth doing well. Like A+ well.

The idea that babies need to spend at least an hour outside, regardless of the weather, was drilled into my mind in early childhood, so we always walked. We stayed away from malls and crowded places because the flu outbreak was particularly bad, essentially isolating ourselves at home. Singing and reading to the baby daily. Talking to the baby all the time to expedite his development. Tummy time and infant massage. No phone near the baby. No watching TV while nursing, so that he got proper attention. For that matter, no TV at all when he was awake. Developmental music was ok. On and on these rules went.

If I scored myself on that long and tyrannical list of “musts,” “must-nots,” and “shoulds,” I was acing it. What it missed was how miserable I was.

It was only by the third baby that I understood how I showed up mattered just as much as any of the good motherhood practices. Being joyful, being curious, being amused alongside my baby—these are crucial components of raising children.

My list of “musts” accounted for everything I thought I should do for my children. What it didn’t account for was me—even though my state affected the atmosphere around them, too.

Ultimately, it wasn’t about lowering my standards. It was about expanding my consideration set. Once my well-being and the way I showed up were included, the calculation changed. Doing something the easy way wasn’t necessarily doing it badly. And doing every “right” thing wasn’t necessarily the best thing for my children.

That was part of my learning. I didn’t need to care less about how I raised my children. I needed to recognize that my ability to enjoy being with them belonged among the things I cared about.

If lowering your standards isn’t your thing, you don’t have to. Include everything that matters—and then optimize.