From the outside, it can look like you’re coping fine — meals sorted, schedules kept, everyone where they need to be. But inside, it can feel like you’re constantly running on empty, with everyone needing something from you all the time. You lose your patience over small things, then end up replaying it later and feeling bad about it. You love your child deeply, and yet still find yourself wishing for just a bit of time where nobody needs anything from you.

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There may be a quiet loneliness in it. People often ask how the children are doing, but not much about how you are. So you keep going, because that’s what parents do — quietly carrying the worry, the pressure to get things right, and the feeling that you’re meant to be managing it all better than this.

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Finding it hard doesn’t make you a bad parent. It just means that you're a human, doing one of the hardest jobs there is, often without enough space or support for yourself.