Was today a good day? Did my kid seem happy? If the answer is no, even a little, it can feel like the whole day failed, like you failed.

Dr. Becky sits down with Kate Bowler, a professor at Duke University, to make the case that happiness might be the wrong thing to optimize for in the first place. Happiness, Kate argues, is really just ease: a hundred small circumstances lining up so nothing feels hard. Which means chasing it for your kids can quietly turn you into what Kate calls a professional happiness manager, smoothing every rough edge before it reaches them.

Joy is different. It doesn't need conditions to line up. It shows up in weird obsessions, a dumb dance in the kitchen, a dry pasta fight, a moment at the worst point in Kate's own life (she spent years navigating a serious cancer diagnosis) when something good found her anyway. Kate and Becky talk through what kids already understand about joy that adults forget, why so many moms don't believe joy is even available to them, and a practical exercise Kate uses to name the resentments that quietly block it.

Read A Blessing for Parents Who Are Trying, adapted from Kate Bowler’s latest book, Joyful, Anyway.

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Resentment, Joy, and Why Moms Don't Believe They're Allowed Either

Good Inside with Dr. Becky

Resentment, Joy, and Why Moms Don't Believe They're Allowed Either