The Only FAFO that Matters: Living the Parenting Manifesto

Main points, no filter:

✅ Parenting in 2025 feels like drinking from a firehose of advice — overwhelming and nonstop.

✅ Every new “trend” promises the magic fix, but most just add pressure.

✅ Our parents did their best, but some of their “tools” don’t fit today’s world.

✅ Real growth (for us and our kids) comes from discomfort, not perfection.

✅ The only guide that actually matters? Parenting by your values, not the latest hack.

Are you ready to f*ck around and find out what happens when you parent with integrity?

Parenting in 2025 means messages coming at us from everywhere. The school has an app or two. You know when grades are entered or grades are changed.  Then we will get a notification that the platform the grades are on has been a part of a security breach. 

We know when the board of education has a meeting, then we know when the meeting time changed. Then we also get emails just to be sure we saw the text about any of the changes. 

If there are extracurriculars, there is probably an app that facilitates “easy” communication between participants’ families. Anyone else want to send a strongly worded letter to Team Snap or Demosphere just to let them know how not “easy” the communication is?

Parenting trends in 2025 can feel a lot like a scene from Hocus Pocus. Remember when the witches sang their enchanting song, and the children followed entranced, powerless to resist? That’s us, scrolling late at night, exhausted and desperate for answers.

We see a new “hack” on TikTok or a viral parenting method on Instagram and think, Yes! That’s the thing that will finally fix this. We get pulled in by the promise: “I’ll take thee away…” away from the chaos, away from the overwhelm.

The problem? Following every new trend leaves us drifting further from our own values. Instead of feeling empowered, we feel even more confused. Just like in the movie, the spell breaks when we wake up and realize: we don’t need another witch’s (I mean experts) song—we need our own compass.

The last blog was about parenting styles and the overwhelm that comes with being a parent. We want to do right by our kiddos, so we look for advice (or the advice finds us). It feels better to have some guideposts so that when the “parenting tools” from our childhood show up we can use the ones that we value and let the rest go. 

You may have learned a thing or two from your parents, like how to park without a backup camera, how to look up a word in a dictionary (that’s a book of words with definitions), and how to read a map. Some of those skills will serve you forever and some won’t. 

If you are from the generation raised by the wooden spoon, drank from the garden hose, and didn’t have fancy water bottles to keep you hydrated during the school day, I’m talking to you. Our parents taught us some valuable skills. They also passed along habits that may not serve us anymore. And that’s okay. We do our best until we know better—then we do better.

What Does “Better” Really Mean in Parenting?

Better access to information

Today’s parents have research and resources our parents never dreamed of. From car seat safety to smartphone boundaries, we’re constantly navigating challenges that didn’t exist in their day. Better access means we can make informed decisions, but also means overwhelm when we try to make the “right” decision. 

When we think of “better”…

When we say we want our kids to have it better than we did, we often think of concrete examples. They will get to walk down hill to school both ways; with shoes. And those shoes will be “cool” shoes not the Buster Browns that you loathed.  They will have a “better” education which will afford them “better” opportunities, and “better” jobs. 

Do you want to know the “better” that really matters? 

Being a better version of yourself. This comes with embracing the parts of you that have been ignored or hidden.  

“The hardest part of parenting is meeting the awkward, sweaty-palmed child inside of us”. It’s knowing that your kid will go through that same thing and instead of shielding them from those moments, you teach them how to go through it. You grow through what you go through. You are looking at your most uncomfortable awkward moments with compassion and not criticism.  

As I often tell clients: there is no growth without discomfort. Like a baby giraffe learning to walk, we may wobble—but eventually, we find our stride.

Using better parenting guideposts to find the better parent in you

There is a constant among all this change. Our values. What is important to us, what type of person we want to be and what kind of human we want to raise. This is parenting with our values in mind, not what the latest parenting trend suggests or the default mode of our own childhood because we “turned out fine”. 

Enter the parenting manifesto of wholehearted parenting…

This isn’t the latest and greatest parenting trend that we have to perfect. Wholehearted parenting is about being the person you want to be and modeling your values for your family. 

This is where wholehearted parenting comes in. Dr. Brené Brown describes it as living and modeling your values—not following a checklist, but creating a parenting manifesto that reflects who you are and what matters most. Here's the manifesto from Brene Brown’s website. 

(Credit: Brene Brown)

https://brenebrown.com/art/the-wholehearted-parenting-manifesto/ 

How to bring this into your school-year routines

Letting go of perfectionism around academics and extra-curriculars

It isn’t about getting straight A’s or perfect attendance. That might mean accepting a B in math as a win if your kid tried their best—or not signing up for five activities just because everyone else is. 

As parents we need to praise the effort and the process, not the result. We aren’t aiming for making more goals or baskets, we are aiming for good sportsmanship and working in a team. If the goal is more points on the board more A’s on the report card, we are sending the message that your value is based on your performance. 

Creating family values for the year (and modeling them!)

Sitting down to eat dinner instead of shoving food in your face as you multitask chores and work emails. Deciding as a family how to spend time and energy. Sometimes mom’s work project may take a front seat over junior’s extracurriculars. Sometimes the whole family spends their weekend on the sports field or fundraising to earn money for camping trips. And that’s okay. One family member is not a priority over the other. 

Building moments of connection into the daily chaos

Conversations at the bus stop, sharing about your day, asking questions that require more than a monosyllabic answer. Teaching your child what the word monosyllabic means. 

So now what?

This school year, lead with heart — not just schedules. You don’t need to have it all figured out to be a great parent. In fact, showing your family that it is okay to not have it all figured out is the best parenting hack ever. 

Read the manifesto from Brene Brown’s website. Keep this front and center as you navigate the transition from “lazy summer” to structure and routine of school and work.  Imagine yourself living out the values that are important to you and what that looks like. 

📅 Need a judgment-free place to vent, reflect, and figure out your next steps?

Parenting is tough. Parenting with integrity is tougher. Therapist and parenting experts don’t have all the answers. We don’t get it right all the time. What I can do is provide a space to vent and talk through the struggle free of judgment about what you “should” do.  Schedule a consult and see if we are a good fit.