Your Child Doesn’t Need the Best Parent—They Need a Present One. In today’s fast-paced world, emotional maturity matters more than material success. This article explores what it really means to raise a child with empathy, presence, and intention.
We’ve all heard it—be the best parent you can be.
The one who provides, protects, plans. The one with the answers, the sacrifices. But somewhere along the way, in trying to be the best, did we forget what our children really need?
Let’s get this straight: your child doesn’t need the “best parent” with a trophy to prove it. They need a safe parent. A present parent. A human one.
We’re a generation trying to raise kids while healing from our own childhoods. A generation filled with unhealed wounds, trauma, and memories we rarely talk about. That’s why parenting has become such a loaded, sensitive topic. People joke about “new-age parenting,” roll their eyes at “gentle parenting,” or mock those trying to set emotional boundaries, but deep down, it’s coming from a place of wanting better. Of not wanting to repeat the same mistakes.
Be someone your child can come to—without hesitation, without fear, without overthinking how you might react. Being a parent isn’t just about getting them into the best school, paying their fees, buying them the best clothes, planning fancy trips, etc. Those are mere checkboxes. What matters more—what truly lasts—is the emotional support you give, the comfort you offer, and the safe space you create at home.
Don’t try to one-up other parents by comparing your sacrifices or playing the “at least I’m not like them” card. You’re not in competition. You’re raising a human being—a smaller version of yourself—who’s watching your every move to learn how to handle life. The world out there is already brutal; your child doesn’t need you to be another source of fear.
Having Kids to Fix Marriages? Let’s Talk.
In India especially, conflict in a marriage is often “resolved” by having a child—as a suggestion from well-meaning but misguided relatives. Just like how some parents hand a crying kid a phone to keep them quiet, families hand over this “solution” in the hopes that it’ll silence deeper issues. But what no one talks about is the burden that child grows up with.
So what about the child?
Ask yourself—did you ever sit down and talk it out? Discuss how you’ll parent this child? What kind of values you’ll pass down? What behaviors are off-limits in front of them? How will you resolve conflicts when they arise, not just with your partner, but also with your kid?
You don’t just bring a baby into the world as a distraction from your own issues. A child is not a pause button. Not a fresh start. They’re a living, breathing individual who will grow up shaped by the very environment you give them. You can’t expect magic to happen just because there’s now a kid in the picture. If anything, that child will silently carry the weight of the unresolved conflicts you never dealt with.
"You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.”
— Audrey Lorde
These are the children who require therapy when they grow up. Because they don’t know what to do with their emotions, or whom to confide in. These are the ones who desperately try to find people outside the home to talk to—just anybody who seems kind—and we know even that sometimes doesn’t end well.
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Your child looks up to YOU. You can’t expect them to be mature from day one. It is your job to teach them, guide them, and show them the way—not the school’s, not the society’s. It starts at home. It starts with you.
The bare minimum is for you to Listen.
Not to retaliate. Not to defend. Not to correct. But to understand. Children aren’t trying to argue with you; they’re trying to express themselves. All they have is their innocence, their curiosity. And if every word they say leads to a scolding or a fight, you’re not teaching discipline, you’re instilling fear.
That fear creeps into every corner of their life. It conditions them to expect rejection and blame, even at home. Even from you. So much so that, god forbid, when something horrible happens to them, they might just stay silent… because “what if you get angry?” “What if you blame them?”
Children Mirror What They See
There’s a saying—girls don’t want to become like their mothers, boys want to become like their fathers. And I can’t stress enough how true this statement is. Mothers want their daughters to grow up strong, independent, and financially free because they’ve seen what it’s like to live in a world where men dominate. The last thing these daughters need is to see that same behaviour in their own homes, in their own father, brothers or uncles.
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No matter what you’ve done “for the family,” if you’re not there emotionally, the case rests right there. You don’t parent from ego. You don’t build fear. The world already has enough of that.
Emotional maturity isn’t optional. It’s the bare minimum. If you don’t have the tools to manage your own emotions, you’ll end up projecting them onto your child. And that’s not parenting—that’s damage in slow motion, for you literally kill their innocence & curiosity.
Don’t Build a Home They Want to Escape
Don’t create a home that your child is constantly trying to escape from. Don’t offer help like it’s a burden. Don’t make love conditional.
If they’re getting bad grades in school, you don’t go tell the teachers to remove them from extracurriculars. You sit with them. You try to understand where the gap is. You talk. You support. You listen. Assuming everything on your own doesn’t help.
We live in a society full of flaws, already broken in more ways than one. But it’s easier to raise emotionally aware children for a better tomorrow than to fix the broken adults of today.
What do you make of a child who is restricted from joining extracurriculars, is always the teacher’s pet, a first bencher, a good-to-average grader, doesn’t go out with friends, isn’t allowed on (unmonitored) trips, only wears what you approve of, always says no because that’s what they were conditioned to do? They grow up anxious. People pleasers. Easily Manipulated. Isolated. Unable to trust their own decisions. They say no to the world and even to themselves. Are they any good, for their own selves? Do you see an outlet? I hope you answer in negative.
Can you just… let them be?
Because in the end, it’s not your intentions, your sacrifices, or your status that shape your child’s life—it’s your behavior. If you can’t manage your own emotions, how can their first safe space, their home, ever feel whole?
Your child doesn’t care how much you earn or how many gifts you buy. They care about how safe they feel when they see you. About whether they can talk to you without judgment or not.
What you’ve gone through isn’t their fault but what you choose to pass down is indeed your responsibility.
So no, it’s not about being a perfect parent, the “best parent.” It’s about choosing to be a different one. The one who listens & believes in them. The one who holds space, not the one they dream of running away from.
I understand that everybody is trying to do their best, and that’s perfectly okay. It’s not like you learnt it too. Therefore, the idea is not to be the best—but to just be. No matter what level of parenting you’re in, even if your kids are already grown up, try inculcating the things mentioned above and see the results. It’s important—because however much one says or tells themselves to forgive, unhealed trauma is a reality. It stays. And one day, it may explode—and that won’t be the best way forward.
And truly, that’s not hard. That’s just being human with a thought. And you out of all, can do that for your child.