Do you wonder if you have the resources you need to be a good parent? Do you find yourself thinking that having more of something – time, money, support, experience, etc. – would help you parent better? Are you trying to do the best for your children but have limited resources?
Parenting is incredibly demanding so few parents feel that they have enough of everything and don’t need anything else to make parenting easier. But those who are lacking important resources face additional challenges.
However, lacking resources doesn’t mean that you can’t be an excellent parent – it can make this more difficult, but the most important aspects of parenting are largely within your control.
If you remind yourself what is most important for children to have – a home where they feel loved – you can still make good decisions and raise happy and well-adjusted children.
What does parenting with limited resources mean?
What resources do you think are the most important for parents to have? Which do you feel that you’re lacking? How would your life and parenting style be different if you had more?
Parenting requires resources, both internal and external.
While there are many different types of resources that are needed while raising children, the most prevalent and fundamental are:
1) Time
It’s painful for both parents and children when they don’t have enough time to spend together. Children benefit from time with their parents more than anything else, so it can create challenges for both you and your child when you can’t be together as often as you would like. This can be especially painful when it’s because of things that are largely beyond your control, such as having to work long hours, caring for others, or health problems that make you unavailable.
2) Money
Not having enough money to live comfortably is one of the biggest stressors that parents can face. Not knowing if you can pay the bills, having to choose which essentials to buy, and the many other challenges caused by poverty can leave parents with little energy left to engage with their children. This is often paired with the guilt of not being able to meet their children’s material wants and needs as well.
3) Support
Parental support can be practical, mainly as help with the children and/or housework, and it can be emotional support, such as a friend who is supportive when you’re struggling and fun to spend time with on good days.
It’s also valuable to know someone supportive who has parenting experience, such as older generations and friends with young children. Otherwise you can feel left to figure out much of parenting by yourself, which is exhausting and can leave you worrying about how much you could be doing wrong.
4) Internal tools
Internal tools are the knowledge and abilities you possess that govern your reactions in various situations, including automatic reactions. These include patience, empathy, staying calm when being challenged, and many more that are useful in general but especially valuable when parenting. Lacking these can be frustrating, embarrassing, and discouraging; you can worry that if you didn’t develop these tools growing up, then it’s too late. You can also rationally know how you want to treat your children yet struggle to do this when you’re emotional so you regret many of your reactions.
The resources you’re lacking may or may not be interconnected. A parent could have plenty of support and income yet lack patience. Another could be under a great deal of financial strain with little support but feel that they have the internal tools to be the loving and supportive parent they want to be. However, it’s common for the quantity of resources you have to affect each other – people without a lot of income and/or support are typically also short on time; the pressure of making do with less often makes it challenging to access and use your internal tools.
How does a lack of resources impact families?
Both parents and children are affected by a lack of resources.
As a parent, you can feel that lacking resources interferes with your relationship with your children. Not having enough money to buy everything you need is very stressful; not having enough time to spend with your children can cause grief; not having people around to share responsibility and wisdom can leave you feeling isolated and overwhelmed; and not having the tools you need to parent can leave you feeling unsure of yourself. These are highly exhausting and distracting feelings that can keep you from being the type of parent you want to be for your children.
Children are typically impacted by a lack of resources because of how it keeps their parents from being present, whether this is physically or by being distracted by worry. As children get older, they can become more aware of the details of what’s lacking and share in their parent’s stress and/or blame themselves for their parents’ struggles. They can feel the need to grow up fast so they can help their parents, which can lead to resentment in adulthood. Some children get upset at their parents for not meeting all of their needs.
However, most of these impacts can be compensated for:
If you lack time with your children, quality is more important than quantity
Children need and crave time with their parents, most noticeably when they’re young but even when they’re older and unwilling to admit it. If they had it their way you would have unlimited time together, but this unrealistic and wouldn’t be setting them up for success as adults even if it were possible.
What is much more important than how much time you spend together is what this time is like. If you’re present – not distracted by worries or your to-do list – and focusing on your child so you can be responsive, a little time spent together can make you and your child feel reconnected and confident that the relationship is secure and stable.
Relationships are more important to children than anything extra money can buy
While living in poverty creates many challenges for children and parents, if you have enough money to live comfortably and don’t have to worry about meeting basic expenses, then you likely have enough income to be a great parent. Just about every child makes excessive demands of their parents at times and wish they would receive more, but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t getting enough.
What children need more than anything that has a price tag is a relationship with their parental figures. You can teach them to be grateful for what they do have, to take care of what they own instead of taking it for granted, and to value relationships more than objects. These are valuable lessons for people of all income-levels.
Recognise what you’re missing from a support system and do what you can to compensate
Having a support system is incredibly valuable for your mental health, so if you have little support it’s important that you still priorities taking care of yourself. Consistently having the energy to be a good parent will at times require you to spend time away from your children so you can return refreshed. But self-care doesn’t need to take a long time. This could be leaving the house a mess to relax with a book after the children go to bed instead of cleaning on some evenings or enrolling your children in an afterschool activity to have an afternoon to yourself.
Commit to working on building internal tools and being forgiving with yourself during the process
People who lack internal tools typically weren’t taught them growing up, so they can feel under-prepared to be parents. But internal tools can be learned and practiced. Realising that you’re missing internal tools and it’s impacting on your parenting is very meaningful – many people never discover this and instead raise children who lack the same tools. It’s often challenging to learn new ways of behaving as an adult, but with awareness and practice you can break old habits and build new ones you can pass on to your children.
It can also be helpful to remind yourself that you’re probably overestimating how much other people know what they’re doing, rather than largely improvising, making mistakes, and doing their best.
Although it would likely be easier to be the type of parent you would prefer to be with additional resources, having more of something might not be the solution, and it isn’t the only way to give your children a healthy childhood. Because you as a parent are the most important aspect of your children’s lives, you can feel more confident in your parenting if you know that you’re putting your energy into where it can make the biggest difference in your children’s lives.
Adopting a healthy mindset
What sorts of things do you tell yourself about your situation? How much is there that you might be able to change? Where do you tend to focus your energy?
Although all parents have different types and amounts of resources available, what makes these resources limited or plentiful is largely subjective. When someone believes they don’t have enough and that’s where they put their focus, they can develop a ‘scarcity mindset’.
Having a scarcity mindset is giving more of your attention to and being more affected by what you don’t have while ignoring what you do have. You don’t think that you have the resources (internal and/or external) to care for others or yourself, and you believe that you’re likely to experience challenges you won’t be able to manage. This mindset is almost always anxiety-provoking, can cause feelings of depression, and makes it more difficult to be engaged and present in your life, which is incredibly important when parenting.
People with a scarcity mindset are afraid of running out of important resources and losing what they have. They’re often overly self-reliant because they don’t want to depend on others and/or are afraid that asking for help will cost them that relationship. It tends to make people risk adverse (because they worry that they don’t have any resources to spare), fear the unknown (which there is plenty of when parenting), and cause perfectionism (because mistakes will cost them resources). All of these beliefs make it difficult to be a present parent who is capable of connecting with their child and responding to their child’s needs.
Anyone can develop a scarcity mindset regardless of how much or how little they actually have since it’s based on perception rather than reality. Someone poor could live like they’re rich and not think twice about making parge purchases, while someone with a scarcity mindset will worry about running out of money no matter how much they make. Someone could have a large support network yet still think they don’t get any help and are lonely.
But no matter how much you do or don’t have, if you have a scarcity mindset you would likely benefit from moving away from these ways of thinking and feeling and embracing a mindset of enough.
The opposite of a scarcity mindset is often referred to as an ‘abundance mindset’, but this isn’t accurate. The opposite of scarcity isn’t abundance – it’s having enough. You don’t need to have an abundance of something – as in more than what you need – to be content, you simply need enough. Sometimes enough isn’t as much as what you want, but it’s as much as you need.
Needs and wants aren’t the same. You can want to spend the day inside watching reruns when you’re feeling low, but you know that what you need to do to improve your mood is go for a walk or call a friend; you can want to have ice cream for dinner but know that you need to have something more nourishing or else you’ll feel unwell.
If you can tell the difference between what you want and need and are willing to accept not getting all of your wants fulfilled, you’re more likely to be content with what you have because wants can grow and grow no matter how much you fulfil them – trying to fulfil wants can be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
But a scarcity mindset isn’t the only perspective that can make parenting with limited resources more difficult than it needs to be. You can also struggle if you put too much focus and energy on things that you can’t control, such as the behaviours of others, many challenges that children experience, and much more. This is exhausting because you invest your energy without getting any rewards.
Giving disproportionate attention to things you can’t control can also make them seem much more significant that what you do have the power to change. Your attempts to change make changes can lead you to believe that there’s nothing you can do to improve your situation since you always fail, leaving you with the sense that you have very little control over your life.
Instead of trying to change the unchangeable, it’s important to practice acceptance. Acceptance is a form of control because you’re choosing how the situation makes you feel. This doesn’t mean telling yourself that you shouldn’t have negative thoughts, because that’s unrealistic and unhealthy, but recognising that it isn’t going to change so you’ll likely be better off making the most of your life as it is.
The less energy you put into what you can’t control, the more energy you’ll have available to work on changing the things that you do have the power to influence. Focusing on these areas of your life while practicing acceptance is a very empowering mindset.
Moving away from old thoughts and behaviour patterns is often challenging, and making sustainable change takes time. It’s likely that some of your beliefs will never go away even if you work hard to address them. But there are relatively simple methods to begin the process of reevaluating your priorities and shifting your energy to where it can be the most beneficial.
If you believe that your mindset is making parenting challenging, try the following exercise:
1) Make a list of what you’re lacking
What do you think you’re lacking that you need to be a better parent? How much more time, money, help, etc. would you need to feel that you have enough?
It’s easy to believe that parenting is more difficult that it has to be because you don’t have enough of something important, but it can be difficult to clarify exactly what you need, how much more of it is necessary, and how these additional resources would make a positive difference. However, these beliefs typically lack details, so you haven’t identified exactly what you would need to feel better off. But if you can provide these details, your situation becomes more tangible and you can begin to make plans for how to get what you’re lacking.
Remember that it’s natural, especially when taking on the challenges of parenting, to feel that you don’t have enough resources. So try to tell the difference between needs and wants – there are few parents who wouldn’t appreciate more friends and family who are willing to help with childcare and chores, getting a raise, freeing up more of their time, or having more patience. Be honest with yourself both in differentiating between need and want, yet compassionate with yourself and willing to accept what you wish you had more of in your life.
2) Divide your list into two categories: those that you have the power to change and those that you can’t
This is important to determining how you can use your energy in the most effective ways possible. Every challenge and obstacle in life is either changeable or unchangeable. When you can tell the difference you can move towards accepting what you can’t change and asking yourself if changing the changeable is worth the effort.
3) Decide what you want to work on changing right away
You won’t be able to change everything within a short amount of time, and many of the things that you technically have the power to change likely aren’t easily addressed.
You may decide to begin with the things that are the easiest to change to build your confidence and remove some small annoyances before getting to work on the harder things on your list. Or you could prefer to change the most pressing matters first even if they’re difficult because they’ll have the biggest impact.
However, just because a problem can be changed doesn’t mean that it’s practical. You theoretically have the option to look for a higher paying job if you have a low income, but there could be many reasons why this isn’t feasible. But even if finding a solution would take a long time, having a plan for the future can make you more optimistic. Knowing that a problem exists because it’s not worth the effort of addressing it can be empowering – instead of being a victim of circumstances, you’ve made a choice. And if it becomes too difficult to tolerate you can decide to take action.
4) Make a detailed plan for what you’re trying to achieve through change
If you wish you had more time, what would you do with that time?
If you want more money, how would you spend it and how would the additional income make a difference in your life?
If you had more support, what would you ask for help with?
What internal tools do you wish you had or would like to improve?
Describe scenarios where you spend a day with the resources you wish you had. What is different? How does this version of you feel? What enables you to make better choices and behave differently than you currently do? In what ways are you and this ideal version of yourself as a parent the same?
Begin with this version of yourself being vague and general, but add details as you progress. If you picture yourself getting up early to make a healthy breakfast for your family and everyone eats together, what would you need to do to make this happen? Would you meal-prep the evening before? Should you go to bed earlier so you can get up without being overtired?
If doing what’s necessary to make your ideas possible doesn’t interest you, then maybe this isn’t something you really want after all, or at least not enough to make it worth the effort. This doesn’t mean that you’re lazy but rather you accept what behaviours and ways of parenting come naturally and therefore don’t take too much energy and those that would be too draining – remember there’s no right way to parent.
5) Make your vision a reality
Once you’ve developed a clear image of the type of parent you want to be and how you can make this possible, put your plan into action.
This will require giving yourself a series of goals and changing your habits.
You’ll likely have the greatest chances of being successful in making your dreams a reality and have a more positive experience doing so if you’re open to compromise and are willing to adapt your visions as you progress. There might not be a way you can get exactly what you want, but by identifying the more important and achievable elements, you can still find solutions you’re happy with.
The point of this exercise is to help you realise how much control you have over your situation and make your ideal version of your life become more of a reality instead of existing as a difficult to conceptualise fantasy.
The ultimate goal of parenting with limited resources is identifying ways that you can improve your situation and making the most with what you can’t improve. Improving your situation could take away your most pressing causes for concern, but it won’t remove all of them because parenting inherently comes with challenges so some would remain and new ones would appear no matter what changes.
Changing your mindset doesn’t remove any of the challenges you’re facing as a parent because of limited resources. Adopting a different mindset is meant to be a tool that can help you feel empowered and capable of making changes in your life by appreciating what you do have while feeling capable of improving your situation wherever possible and accepting the unchangeable.
When you’re less weighed down by what you can’t provide your children with, you can give more attention to what is within your power to provide for them and what they need most of all.
Put your energy into the most important aspects of parenting
What do you think is most important for children to have? How do you want your children to think back to their childhood when they grow up? What can you do right now to start giving your children these things?
Focusing your energy on meeting your family’s needs is easier when you understand of what is most important for children: a home where they feel safe and loved. Love and security can compensate for just about anything else that’s lacking, and nothing else matters to a child if they don’t feel loved or safe.
Security means that children have their needs met and they feel confident that they’re safe from danger. They think of home as a protected place where they’ll be loved unconditionally because they belong. Disruptions to routines and changes in authority figures are as infrequent as possible, and when age-appropriate come with advanced notice and context. Parents encourage physical and mental health by making sure their children are healthy, attend school, feel secure emotionally, and are practicing self-care. Although they will make mistakes, parents serve as role models for their children, behaving consistently with the types of behaviours they want their children to repeat.
And most of all, there is love.
In order for children to feel loved, they need to spend quality time with you. This takes energy, which is why it’s valuable to prioritise where you put your energy as a parent.
It’s often much more difficult to provide this type of environment when you’re working withing the constraints of not having enough resources, but you can take energy away from worrying about what you don’t have and using it in ways that benefit your family – including taking care of yourself. You might not have as much time to spend with them as you like, but how can you make the time that you do have together as meaningful as possible? You could be stressed about making ends meet, but how would your parenting improve if you were able to stop worrying and be present with your children for a few hours of the day (especially when worrying doesn’t accomplish anything)? If you wish there were more people outside your immediate family involved in your children’s lives, you can try meeting new people you think would be a positive influence. If you too often have emotional reactions you’re not proud of, you can salvage the situation by turning it into an opportunity to model apologising and asking for forgiveness. These are ideals that won’t always work out the way you want them to, but mistakes are inevitable in parenting.
Although there are certain limitations that can’t be overcome by shifting a mindset, you have a good chance of improving how you feel about yourself as a parent by building your confidence that you have the ability to be enough for your children.
If your child is taken care of and happy more often than not, you’re probably doing a good enough job. Accepting good enough parenting is believing the evidence your children give you that you’re doing well as a parent by making them feel loved.
Time with their parents is more important for children than anything else
Parenting is challenging, and when you’re lacking resources, it becomes even more difficult.
There are plenty of useful practical tips that can be useful for struggling parents – budgeting, scheduling, reaching out, workshops, etc. – but these are often best when paired with a shift in perspective that puts your attention where it’s the most useful: to the areas of your life you have the most control over, especially how you’re present for your children.
Many of the struggles caused by parenting with limited resources can be less impactful if you choose to embrace a mindset that focuses your attention and energy where it can have the greatest impact – making your children feel safe and loved. This requires not worrying about things that don’t matter and you can’t control, and doing what you can to improve your situation where practical and possible[HS2] .
A change in mindset doesn’t remove your challenges and you’ll still have times when you struggle, as a parent and in general, but you can be less effected by obstacles and hardships because you feel empowered to cope with them. This can give you confidence in your ability to give your children a good childhood where you feel proud of yourself for doing your best in a less-than-ideal situation, instead of guilty for what you children’ don’t have.
By prioritising needs over wants and focusing your energy on giving children what they need – love and security – you have the potential to overcome many of the challenges associated with parenting with limited resources.
