Debate: Are Parents Overthinking? Or Are We Just Trying to Get it Right?

Two Parents Explore the Modern Pressures of Raising Kids

Dylan Macinerney

Tyler Scott

, and

Jenna Michael

May 26, 2025

Are Today’s Parents Overthinking… Everything?

It’s a fair question - and one we’re diving into in today’s inaugural debate edition of The Fatherhood Framework. Two thoughtful parents. Two contrasting takes. One increasingly hectic parenting landscape.

Happy Memorial Day, everybody! Today, we’re thrilled to welcome our first-ever debate contributors: Jenna Michael, an author and mother of four, and Tyler Scott, a full-time work-from-home dad of two. Whether you’ve seen their work before, or are meeting them for the first time, they’re both excellent, and absolutely worth a read.

Huge thanks to both Jenna and Tyler—not only for sharing their perspectives, but for helping shape the very structure of this new format. They were generous with their time, their insights, and their willingness to go first.

With that, let’s hear from Jenna to kick things off.

We’re Not Overthinking. We’re Overloaded.

By Jenna Michael

I’ve seen the blog posts. I’ve heard the commentary:
“Parents today overthink everything.”

But I don’t think we’re overthinking.
I think we’re carrying too much.

This isn’t about helicopter parenting or decision anxiety.
This is about a system that’s too full, and a generation of parents trying to hold it all together.

Have a baby, but also your life shouldn’t change.

Did I remember to order more diapers?

We ran out of soap in the kids’ bathroom last night. I need to replace it.

Kiddo number three grew out of his shoes, I need to get him fitted for new ones.

Annual doctor’s appointments are coming. We need to schedule them, fill out the parent surveys, complete the e-check-in, and make sure all the meds are up to date.

Someone woke up with a fever, so we can’t go to school or daycare. I need to reschedule the day.

You’re supposed to breastfeed, but also that’s gross, so cover up.

Fed is best, but formula is wrong.

Sleep training is mean, but your kid should already be sleeping through the night.

Sign your kids up for all the activities, but don’t complain when everyone is tired and worn out from too much.

Do it all. You’re a parent. You can handle it.

You’ve probably seen the argument: parents today are overthinking everything.
We research too much. We read too many blogs. We agonize over decisions that our parents never gave a second thought to.

We aren’t overthinking. We are overloaded.

Overloaded with information, obligation, stress, opinions, ours and others.
Overloaded with social media impressions of who we should be and constant commentary from our inner critics.

Modern parenting comes with more information, more pressure, more judgments, and more expectations than ever before.
We’re not sitting around trying to make things harder.
We’re doing our best to keep up in a world that moves fast and shouts loud.

We don’t doubt ourselves because we’re unsure.
We doubt ourselves because there’s too much noise.

I’ve caught myself walking into a room and forgetting why I was going there.
Or staring at the pantry with no clue what to make for dinner.

Not because I don’t care—but because my mind is already ten tabs deep into everything else I’m managing.

A lot of days, there’s no more room in my brain.

If that’s you too, you’re not broken.

You’re overloaded.

And you’re not alone.

When you're sleep-deprived, stretched thin, managing your kids' emotions and your own, while also feeding everyone three times a day and trying to remember the library books, household management, work, or basic self-care, your brain goes into survival mode.

Decision fatigue isn’t a failure of thought. It’s a symptom of an overloaded system.

So if you're tired of wondering if you’re doing it "right," let me be the first to tell you that you are.

You’re a great parent.

If you find yourself craving less. Less input, less comparison, less mental clutter, you’re not alone.

Let me shout it from the rooftops: you are seen.

And the good news is: we can choose.

Contrary to what our world has convinced us, we don’t have to do it all or be the perfect parent.

It’s okay if our living room is messy.

It’s okay if the kids eat chicken nuggets for dinner again.

It’s admirable to be a working parent.

It’s admirable to be a stay-at-home parent.

Of any gender.

We don’t have to listen to what the influencer on social media says.

We can ignore the woman in the grocery store.

We can tell our inner critic to take a seat.

There’s a choice to simplify.

And all we have to do is decide we’ve had enough of reacting to what the world tells us we should be or do.

Simplifying isn’t about doing less for your kids.
It’s about making space to actually enjoy them.

It’s about tuning out the noise so you can hear your own voice again.

It’s about turning down a social invitation so you can have a quiet evening at home.

Saying “no thank you” to a birthday party you can’t attend, regardless of how obligated you feel.

Trusting your own judgment about what your kids need, rather than what helps you keep up with your neighbors.

Simplifying isn’t about perfection.

It’s about reducing the clutter in your calendar and your home to something more manageable.

Life with kids will never be quiet or perfect.

But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

And it doesn’t have to be overloaded.

We have a choice.

Jenna Michael is a writer, speaker, and mom of four who helps overwhelmed families simplify daily life. She’s the author of Let’s Choose Less, a guide for young families to slow down, tune out the noise, and find peace in the middle of modern parenting. You can follow her work on Instagram at @purposeful__parenting or subscribe to her Substack for more encouragement and practical tools.

Analyze and Optimize - Overthinking Parenting

By Tyler Scott

“Should I go to the hospital if my water broke or wait for my appointment tomorrow?”

I’ll Google it, babe. My wife’s water had just broken as the first sip of whiskey hit my lips. I didn’t know, she didn’t know. Google said, call the Doc. Less than 24 hours later, our baby girl entered the world.

In the days and weeks after her birth my actual Google search history included the following:

“How often and how much should your baby eat”

“Infant baby food intake amount”

“When can I take a bath after giving birth”

“When do babies heads harden” (right after I found out about soft spots, the hard way)

“Infant deaths 2020”

“Can you flip an infant sleep schedule” (someone was sleeping most of the day…)

“Postpartum husband support”

“How often do infants eat” (yes, again)

With more information at our fingertips than ever before, are we overthinking this whole parenting thing? For as many times as you can click there are as many different answers for parenting questions.

This leads modern parents into overthinking everything…How much should they be eating, what if she’s not eating that much? What if she eats double that?

Overthinking as a parent in the modern day seems to be more about trying to avoid failure than it is about helping kids thrive. We’re all scared. I know I was. What if I mess this up, surely I’ll get my kid taken from me.

Getting caught in an overthinking cycle removes one critical ingredient children need for growth. Adversity.

Paralysis by Analysis - The Fear Of Getting It Wrong

We’ve all heard it. You’re overanalyzing that, just make a decision. Well, I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say please, just let me think about it & do some research. It is my CHILD after all. I’m kinda responsible for this thing.

We’re all force fed this perfect image of parenting, the clean house and well-behaved kids saying Yes Sir Daddy. They eat 3 perfectly balanced meals a day and pick up their toys at the end of the day. L…O…L.

While playing with my newborn daughter I remember thinking “OK, don’t use baby talk. They said speak normally so her language develops”.

According to my timer I’m only at 27 minutes of tummy time today, I need her to do 3 more minutes so she gets strong enough.

Every decision feels high stakes.

The pursuit of perfection is paralyzing. Stop analyzing and comparing your child to a Google standard. You’ll run yourself into the ground trying to get it all right. What’s perfect…is what’s perfect for your child.

As they grow teeth and start the bobble wobbles, we find ourselves hovering like, well, a literal helicopter. I’ve done it, I’ve seen it.

A friend the other day was telling us how much her back hurt. Then, I watched her stand crooked for an hour directly above her little guy as he played in the yard. It’s ok to back up.

Kids don’t need a padded room, they need a safe one. We don’t need to micromanage, they need a mentor. I’ll steal the perfect analogy from a great dad, @ be a super dad.

“Being a parent is being the scaffolding. It’s not the building itself–it’s the temporary structure that supports growth, providing stability while something strong and lasting is being built. Your role isn’t to do everything for your child, or to shield them from every challenge. It’s to be there, offering support when they need it, stepping back when they’re ready, and adjusting as they grow.”

Trying To Optimize - Killing Real World Learning

If you try to build a perfect, optimized child’s day you’ll run out of hours and hair on your head. Just think, we need to cram in 2hr 15min of outdoor free play, 45min of guided play learning, a flawless nap for perfect rejuvenation, 10 minutes to read books, the list goes on.

I offer an alternative method, just be there.

Recently my daughter found a ziploc bag in the pantry and a “special” rock in the garage. Those two items became the focus for literally hours. Who am I to cut her imagination short and say we need to do something else because I read that I need to include all these things into each day? My son regularly juggles nap times ranging from 90 minutes to 3 hours and Google says…who cares what Google says. Is a longer nap more optimal? Sure. Does it really matter? Not one bit.

Learning happens in the boredom and frustration. When parents are interfering with those by forcing activity and a slam-packed schedule kids only learn how to be busy.

I’ve watched my son learn to build block towers. The way he would get SO pissed still makes me laugh. Slamming blocks against each other when they wouldn’t connect just right.

Yeah, I’ve showed him hundreds of times how to click them together. But it wasn’t until I just left him in the playpen with nothing but blocks, did he learn. He struggled and struggled, and on the second day he stood on his tippy toes to add the highest blocks to his massive tower.

I wanted to sit there with him, move his hands and guide that block to connect. Would he have learned? Sure. But I don’t want to handicap his critical thinking muscles. It might not seem like much, but I’m solving the problems for him. That one little nudge, one little shift, is restricting learning.

Being the best parent you can be, is as simple as being as present as you can be. It’s all phases, seasons, nothing lasts forever. They learn, grow, develop, and change almost daily. My kids have gone through spurts where they eat nothing but olives and gold fish for days. Initially, that caused me massive stress. Now, I know…it’ll pass. They’re fine. Probably.

Tyler Scott is a stay-at-home dad of 2 with a full-time job. You can find more of his writing right here on Substack.