Before I had a kid, I had a genuinely long, confident list of things I’d never do as a parent, and I’ve now done nearly every single one of them.
Pre-parenthood confidence is a specific, universal kind of delusion, and comparing notes with other parents confirms almost everyone had their own version of this exact list.
Here’s everything I said I’d never do, and how completely I’ve done it all anyway.
Why pre-parent confidence never survives contact with an actual kid
Before having kids, most parenting opinions are formed in the abstract, without the actual exhaustion, love, and real-time pressure that shape decisions once a specific kid is involved.
Every kid is different too, which means a rule that sounded reasonable in theory often doesn’t survive contact with your particular kid’s particular personality.
None of this makes the original confidence foolish. It’s just what happens before theory meets the genuinely messy, specific reality of actual parenting.
Everything I Said I’d Never Do As a Parent (I’ve Done Them All)
“I’ll never give in to a tantrum in public.” I have, more than once, handed over the exact candy bar I swore I wouldn’t, purely to survive a grocery store meltdown.
“I’ll never use a screen just to get through dinner.” The iPad has bought me entire peaceful restaurant meals I’m not remotely ashamed of anymore.
“I’ll never let my kid sleep in our bed.” We’ve had entire stretches of nights where the family bed was simply what got everyone actual sleep.
“I’ll never bribe good behavior.” Stickers, small treats, and the occasional promised treat have become a completely normal part of our household toolkit.
“I’ll never raise my voice.” I have, plenty of times, and I’ve also learned to repair afterward, which turned out to matter more than the perfect, unattainable standard I’d originally set.
Why breaking these rules turned out to be fine
Most of my original list was built from other people’s parenting philosophies, not from actually knowing my own future kid’s specific needs and temperament.
Flexibility in the moment, responding to the actual kid in front of me rather than a rigid pre-set rule, has consistently served us better than stubbornly holding a theoretical line.
None of the broken rules have led to any of the disaster outcomes I’d vaguely imagined beforehand. My daughter is doing completely fine, screen time and family bed included.
What I’ve learned about pre-parent judgment in general
I remember judging, quietly, other parents for some of the exact things I now do myself, which is a genuinely humbling realization to sit with honestly.
Watching a parent from the outside never shows the specific context, the exhaustion, the particular kid, the particular day, that shaped a decision that might look questionable from a distance.
I’ve become considerably less judgmental of other parents’ choices since becoming one myself, having personally broken nearly every rule I once held onto so confidently.
What I’d tell my pre-parent self now
Most of your rules are about to meet a specific, particular person who doesn’t care about your theoretical parenting philosophy, and that’s genuinely a good thing.
Flexibility isn’t failure. It’s what actually responsive parenting looks like once you’re dealing with a real kid instead of a hypothetical one.
The version of you who judged other parents for these exact things is about to become considerably more humble, and honestly, more compassionate, very soon.
A few more from my extended family’s own lists
My sister swore she’d never let her boys have toy guns in the house, a rule that lasted about a year before practicality and their own persistent interest won out.
A close friend swore off ever being “that parent” glued to her phone at the playground, and now laughs about how often she’s exactly that parent during a genuinely necessary work email.
Comparing lists with other parents has become one of my favorite conversations, since almost everyone has an equally long list of confidently broken promises to themselves.
Why admitting this openly actually helps other parents
New parents especially benefit from hearing this honestly, since the pressure to live up to an idealized pre-parent standard adds unnecessary guilt to an already demanding job.
Normalizing the gap between pre-parent theory and actual practice gives newer parents permission to be flexible without feeling like they’ve failed some important standard.
The parents who seem to have it most together are, almost universally, also quietly breaking their own old rules. They just don’t always say so out loud.
The one thing that hasn’t changed from my original list
I did hold onto one thing: never making my daughter feel loved conditionally, based on behavior or performance, which has genuinely stayed a consistent priority through everything else that’s shifted.
It turns out the rules that mattered most were fewer and simpler than the long, detailed list I started with, which was mostly noise around a few genuinely important core values.
If you want the lighter, funnier version of parenting reality, this collection of parenting fails I only laugh about now covers similar territory from a different comedic angle.
Whatever’s on your own pre-parent list, expect to break most of it, and expect to be completely fine anyway. Nearly every parent’s list meets the exact same fate.
What I’d genuinely love to hear from you
What was on your own pre-parent list, and how thoroughly have you broken it since. I’d bet the specifics are different, and the overall pattern is nearly identical.
There’s real relief in comparing these lists honestly with other parents, discovering just how universal this particular gap between expectation and reality actually turns out to be.
A few more items I somehow forgot were even on the original list
“I’ll never let her watch the same show twice in one day.” We’ve had entire weekends built around a single episode on a loop, and the world kept spinning regardless.
“I’ll never do the voices for every stuffed animal at bedtime.” I now have a distinct voice for no fewer than six different toys, and I will defend all of them.
“I’ll never let dinner be the same three meals on rotation.” Some weeks it genuinely is, and I’ve made peace with the fact that a fed kid matters more than a varied menu.
Why this list keeps growing instead of shrinking
Every new stage of parenting seems to introduce a fresh batch of confident pre-stage declarations, “I’ll never let a teenager talk to me that way,” that I fully expect to also eventually break in some form.
I’ve stopped treating the list as evidence of failure and started treating it more like a running joke, one that gets a little longer and a little funnier with every new stage my daughter moves into.
If there’s a pattern worth actually learning from all of this, it’s that the confident rule usually mattered less than I thought, and the flexible response usually mattered more than I gave it credit for at the time.
What actually predicted which rules I’d break
Looking back, the rules I broke fastest were almost always the ones about convenience and comfort, screens, bribery, sleep arrangements, things that sounded principled in theory but were really just untested opinions about situations I hadn’t lived through yet.
The rules that actually held, staying warm under pressure, never using shame as a discipline tool, tended to be the ones rooted in something deeper than preference, closer to an actual value I genuinely cared about protecting.
That distinction, between a preference dressed up as a principle and an actual core value, turned out to be more useful in hindsight than anything on my original list itself.
What I’d say to a pregnant friend making her own list right now
Write the list if it helps you feel prepared, but hold it loosely, since most of it is going to meet a real kid with real needs and quietly rewrite itself within the first year.
Save your actual energy for the two or three values that genuinely matter most to you. Those are the ones worth protecting fiercely, and everything else can, and probably should, stay flexible.
The last thing I’ll say about all of this
There’s a specific kind of relief in finally laughing at your own broken list instead of quietly feeling guilty about it, and I’d genuinely recommend getting there sooner rather than later.
Your kid isn’t keeping score of which pre-parent promises you broke. They’re just living inside the actual, flexible, imperfect version of parenting you built for them instead, and that version is almost certainly serving them just fine.
