'It's so much harder to raise a family and be a parent in the U.S. than it needs to be': Author Angela Garbes on parenting when the system is against you

Welcome to So Mini Ways, Yahoo Life's parenting series on the joys and challenges of childrearing.

Angela Garbes, author of Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy and Essential Mothering: Mothering as Social Change, has made her career about analyzing, critiquing and offering solutions to parents. But Garbes, a mom to kids aged 5 and 8, will be the first to tell you that, despite her bibliography, she's "not big on advice."

“I think the best way is your way," she tells Yahoo Life. "There’s always going to be mistakes made and you’re always gonna try your best.”

Ahead, the writer shares her observations on parenthood at every stage, and explains why "care work — taking care of vulnerable people, especially children — is the most important work you can be doing."

Author Angela Garbes on parenting when the system is against you: 'It’s so much harder to raise a family and be a parent in the U.S. than it needs to be'

Angela Garbes's books explore the challenges of parenting. Here's why she thinks parents deserve grace, and more support.

Author Angela Garbes on the challenges of parenting and why the 'the system makes us feel like failures': 'You’re having a hard time because it’s hard'

Trusting yourself during pregnancy

When it comes to advice, Garbes defers to the pediatrician whose books, including 1946's Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, have guided parents for decades.

"I would probably go back to Dr. [Benjamin] Spock," she says, noting that the late doctor advised parents to "trust yourself; you know more than you think.”

While Spock wrote about the early days of raising a baby, Garbes wants parents to apply this advice to themselves when thinking about what and who to trust during pregnancy. During pregnancy, it's important to listen to your gut and advocate for yourself. “No one’s lived in your body as long as you have," she notes. Even though “doctors know a lot about biology and physiology,” and parents should “listen to what they say and take it under advisement,” they should think of their doctor as someone with whom they have an equal relationship.

It feels hard because it is hard

Many new parents, especially the one who does the birthing and feeding, struggle. "Even if you had the best birth ever, birth is physically traumatic," Garbes says. "You’re swimming in a sea of hormones." For most people, she adds, caring for a baby is "the greatest responsibility they've ever had.”

As such, new parents should resist the urge to beat themselves up because they're struggling to cope. "The first thing I want to do is validate everyone’s experience," says Garbes. "It’s objectively very challenging. ... You’re having a hard time because it’s hard.”

Give yourself grace — and accept help when it's offered

Garbes would like to "really undo" the idea that love has to mean sacrificing one's own needs. "You need to give yourself time and give yourself grace,” Garbes tells new parents. Because a parent's health and well-being can impact their baby's, she reminds caregivers that personal needs — time to sleep, take a break and so on — are not selfish.

“You are taking care of and guaranteeing the next generation of our human beings, a continuation of our species," she says. "That’s not being dramatic. You’re not a burden; you’re actually providing a tremendous service to humankind."

She also tells parents that "if someone is offering you help, take it." She encourages more caregivers to have this mindset: "Now is my turn to need help. At some point I won’t need this much help and I can return the favor.”

Help can be simple. “If your friend comes over and watches your baby — even if the baby cries the entire time — so you can take a luxurious 20-minute shower, that can actually get you through a whole day," she points out. Parents could allow friends to bring groceries or organize a meal train, or let someone come fold laundry. "You’re never too much for someone who loves you,” Garbes reiterates. “A person cannot be a burden. A person is not a problem. You have needs. To be a human being is to exist in a state of needfulness.”

Making relationships work as parents

The parent who gave birth isn’t the only one who has a hard time after having a baby. “Your relationship is changing. Suddenly there’s a very small person who has a huge presence who takes up all the oxygen in the room,” says Garbes. She notes that some partners "could be feeling grief because the relationship you had until this point is gone or it’s changed."

Many new parents feel like they only have each other, but Garbes says the key is to “have a support network too that is not their spouse or other birthing parent,” since that person is also in survival mode.

One stereotype is that in heterosexual partnerships, men don’t have their own friends outside of their wives or female partners. Even if they haven’t previously been encouraged, Garbes says having a community is “part of being a person and people need to figure it out.” She encourages dads to look for, or even start up, Facebook support group for fathers. “People didn’t create them for mothers. Mothers created them for themselves because they needed that. You can do that, too."

Reconnecting with your pre-kid self

Many new parents feel their pre-kid self has died and will never return. Garbes does not think this is true, but concedes that parents’ true selves “go a little dormant — they hibernate for a while." But when the kids are older and need less, parents have an opportunity to see their children's independence — however hard that may be — as a win. “Eventually you will find yourself again,” she says.

While it can be hard to justify or even sometimes enjoy time away from the kids, Garbes encourages parents to "keep in the habit of giving yourself some time." Accepting that life isn’t going to be about one's self for a few years doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t try to hold onto their sense of self.

Writing-wise, Garbes says her next exploration will be about “middle age and what comes after that intense caregiving of young children" — including changes in personal, physiological and professional spheres, and having to take on the caregiving of one’s own parents. "I want people to see this time of life not with dread," she says. "The dream is to look at it with excitement. What’s gonna happen next for me?”

Pushing for change

What the pandemic helped illuminate, but has yet to fix, is that "it’s so much harder to raise a family and be a parent in the United States than it needs to be," adds Garbes. "The system makes us feel like failures, but actually it’s the system that’s failing us" by not offering more support in terms of things like parental leave, child care and more.

"Individual people and families are already doing pretty much all they can" when it comes to child care, she says. “It’s time for us to put pressure on our elected officials and the federal government to step in.”

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