It’s okay to miss your old life: Parenting Edition. So what do you do?

By, Rachel Goldman, PhD

One of the roughest growth edges in the adjustment to parenthood often can be one of the least anticipated. You buy the things, you read the baby books, you take the classes, you set up the nursery, you make your birth plan. And you feel as ready as you are going to be. 

But on the other side of those first few months, and beyond, is a complex, multifaceted feeling that many parents may struggle to acknowledge, “I miss the old me.”

It’s impossible to truly prepare for the shift in identity that comes along with parenthood. There is grief in the loss of “‘what was, and what will never be again,” the missing of yourself, your body, your relationships, and your freedom. Part of what feels so confusing about these feelings is the dissonance around “I’m not supposed to feel this way.”

There are many underlying assumptions in our society that parents are so full of joy, so grateful, and so fulfilled for what they have that they shouldn’t ever miss the before moments, or tempt themselves with the scary questions of “why did I do this to myself?”

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