In the first part of this series, we explored why young children repeat themselves, follow us from room to room and seem to need us most when we have the least left to give. Their behaviour, while exhausting, begins to make sense once we understand how their minds and bodies are developing.
This time, we’re turning the lens around to explore what many parents feel but few talk about openly.
Young children need connection to feel safe. Parents need moments of not being needed in order to stay emotionally available. Early parenthood is where those two realities meet, and inevitably collide.
Perhaps you’ve had a moment like this.
Your child asks the same question again. For the fifth time in the last two minutes. Climbs onto your lap just as you’ve finally sat down. Calls your name from the next room while you’re trying to remember what you came upstairs for. Nothing they are doing is unreasonable. In fact, they are probably seeking exactly what children are supposed to seek.
And yet your whole body whispers the same thing: Please. Just leave me alone.
For many of us, that feeling is followed by guilt. What kind of parent gets irritated by a child who simply wants to be close?
We may get to that eventually, but first I’d rather explore: What has your day already asked of you?
The Weight We Rarely Notice
When we think about parenting, we often imagine the visible jobs: preparing meals, getting everyone dressed, reading stories, bath time, bedtime.
Those are demanding, but not the whole picture. Running alongside them is what Allison Daminger (2019) describes as mental load: the ongoing work of anticipating, remembering, planning and monitoring everything that keeps family life moving. It is remembering that tomorrow is library day, noticing that the toothpaste is nearly finished, keeping track of doctor’s appointments and wondering whether there is enough milk for breakfast while you’re helping your toddler build a tower.
Unlike folding laundry or washing dishes, this work leaves almost no visible trace. By the end of the day, it can feel as though you’ve hardly stopped, yet struggle to explain exactly what you’ve been doing.
The mental load is tiring because of its continuity. Your attention is constantly divided between the present moment and everything that is about to happen next. By itself, that might be manageable. Parenting, however, rarely asks only one thing of us at a time.
A Backpack That Slowly Gets Heavier
Imagine putting a single pebble into a backpack. It wouldn’t bother you.
Now imagine adding another every few minutes.
A snack to prepare. A disagreement to settle. Another game of “Watch me!” A drink to refill. A toy to find. A question to answer. A cuddle. A nappy. A missing shoe. A nursery email. A reminder that you’ve forgotten to order a birthday present.
By late afternoon, most parents are no longer carrying one pebble, but hundreds. Yet we rarely notice the weight until one more pebble is added.
The famous last drop.
Your child asks if you’re going to the park. Again. Or wants to show you something for the tenth time. Or climbs onto your lap just as you’ve finally stopped moving. That final moment looks like the problem but it’s often just the moment your body lets you know the backpack has become too heavy.
When Love Starts to Feel Like Another Demand
Even loving acts can become overwhelming. Love, it turns out, doesn’t cancel out the limits of the human nervous system. Touch is still sensory input. Conversation still requires attention. Answering another question still asks your brain to stop what it was doing and shift focus once again.
After hours of responding, comforting, deciding and thinking ahead, your nervous system may begin wanting less input.
Not that you love your child any less than you did that morning, only that your capacity has changed.
Think about your favourite song: listening to it once is a pleasure, but playing it on repeat for twelve hours would become exhausting. The song hasn’t become worse; your brain simply needs silence.
More Than Being Touched Out
Many parents describe this experience as being touched out. The phrase captures something important, but not the whole story.
You are not only over-touched by demand. You may also be under-supported by care.
Parenting young children involves giving an extraordinary amount of attention, affection and emotional energy. Yet many parents spend entire days responding to everyone else’s needs while very few people respond to theirs. They become the organiser, the problem solver and the safe place everyone returns to.
This role is profoundly meaningful and one-sided at the same time. Especially when there’s too little support.
Perhaps what many parents long for isn’t simply time alone, but more so time in which nobody needs anything from them.
Why It Feels So Wrong
If the story ended with tiredness, most parents would simply rest. But many of us carry shame on top of exhaustion. The good old “A better parent wouldn’t feel this way.”
Of course that belief rarely appear out of nowhere. Many of us grew up watching adults, especially mothers, who seemed endlessly available. Whether they truly were is another question. What many children saw was someone who kept going, often putting their own needs at the bottom of the list. Rest was something you earned once everything else was finished, even though everything else was never really finished.
So we absorbed the idea that good parents cope, don’t need much and certainly don’t need space from the people they love most.
Yet our nervous systems were never designed around those expectations. They respond to reality, not ideals.
Learning to Listen
When we immediately judge our reactions, we miss the information they carry.
Our bodies are constantly communicating with us: hunger tells us to eat, thirst reminds us to drink and fatigue tells us we need sleep.
Overload has a language too. It sounds like irritation, wanting everyone to stop talking for just a minute or feeling strangely resistant to a cuddle that would have felt wonderful an hour earlier.
Instead of seeing this as evidence that we are becoming less loving, we can begin to see it as a signal that our own needs have slipped out of view.
Why Taking a Break Isn’t Always Easy
Recognising that we need a pause is one thing. Allowing ourselves to take one is another.
Sometimes the obstacle is practical. There simply isn’t another adult available. Or our child is going through a stage where separation feels especially difficult.
But there is often something else at work. Many parents feel guilty the moment they begin thinking about themselves. They tell themselves they’ll rest after the kitchen is clean. After bedtime. After the emails. After they’ve caught up with the washing.
The pause keeps moving further away.
Others find it difficult to ask for help, even when help exists. They worry about inconveniencing their partner, burdening grandparents or appearing incapable. Doing everything themselves feels easier than having to explain what needs doing.
These responses reflect years of learning that caring for ourselves comes second, while caring for others comes first.
Children Need Connection, Not Constant Availability
Many also worry that stepping back will somehow harm their child.
Of course young children need closeness. They also need parents who are emotionally present.
A parent who says, “I’m going to sit quietly for five minutes, then we’ll read your book,” is modelling something children will eventually need to learn for themselves: that everyone has needs, relationships include boundaries and taking care of yourself is part of taking care of other people.
Children won’t like those boundaries at first. They’ll protest or ask again which doesn’t mean the boundary was wrong.
Learning that someone can step away and still come back is part of secure relationships.
A Kinder Way to Understand Yourself
If your child reaches for you when every part of you longs for space, the irritation you’re feeling is not the problem.
What matters is what you do with it.
You might snap.
You might notice it, take a breath and realise you’ve been carrying that backpack since breakfast.
You might recognise that what you need is a few moments in which nobody needs anything from you: a cup of tea that stays hot, a walk around the block, a conversation where you don’t have to solve anyone else’s problem, a partner saying, “I’ve got this.” Those moments are part of how we remain able to keep giving.
Understanding your child’s behaviour can make you more compassionate towards them.
Understanding your own limits can make you more compassionate towards yourself.
Both are crucial.
Looking Ahead
In the first part of this series, we explored why toddlers seek connection so persistently. In this article, we’ve looked at what happens when that healthy need meets a parent whose own resources are running low.
The final part asks: If both the child’s needs and the parent’s needs make sense, how do we build family life in a way that honours both?
We’ll explore why replenishment is about more than occasional self-care, what real support looks like, and how small changes in the way we organise things can make it easier for everyone to thrive.
Reference
Daminger, A. (2019). The cognitive dimension of household labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633.
Explore Further:
Touched Out, Talked Out: Why Your Toddler Gets Louder When You Need Quiet Most (Part 1 of 3)
More Than Exhausted: The Real Story of Motherhood Burnout (+ Free Guide)
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