Lindsay C.M. Garrett - Parent Goals: The Millennials Guide to New Parent Preparedness

Praise for Parent Goals

Garrett rejects the standard of mothers as default parents and writes to parents as a team, offering no shortage of practical advice. New parents will find this [book] worth returning to.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

If youre considering parenthood, but youre not sure what questions you should be asking, how you should emotionally prepare, or what to do to set yourself up for success, this is the book for you. Garretts advice is smart, thoughtful, and incredibly useful.

MELINDA WENNER MOYER, contributing editor, Scientific American, and author of How to Raise Kids Who Arent Assholes

One of the most challenging parts of parenting is dealing with the unknown. Parent Goals helps demystify those early days and offers parents concrete advice as they prepare for their new roles. By sharing her own experiences and expertise, Garrett helps parents be thoughtful and purposeful in their parenting decisions.

DR. CHRISTIA SPEARS BROWN,
author of Parenting Beyond Pink & Blue and Unraveling Bias

If youre looking for your babys user manual... well, that doesnt exist but Parent Goals comes pretty close. Garrett mixes her own story as a mom with her journey as a parenting mental health specialist, and then adds in nuggets of goodness from all the parents she interviewed. Parent Goals is a real honest look at preparing for a baby mixed with optimism and humor.

ROBYN GOBBEL, therapist and parent educator

Parent Goals is the right combination of evidence-based parenting reality, humor, and tangible instruction. This guide provides a clear road map for new parents to all the things I wish I had known.

MARK MELSON, president of the Gladney Center for Adoption

This is the book I wish I had read a decade ago. There are countless practical and emotional aspects of parenting I had no idea would impact our lives so dramatically, and Parent Goals gives a framework for parents to talk them through before children enter the scene.

ELIZABETH BAKER, editor of Houston Moms blog

Copyright 2021 by Lindsay C.M. Garrett

Foreword copyright 2021 by Vanessa Lapointe

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021912216

ISBN 978-1-63756-008-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63756-009-9 (EPUB)

Editor: Allison Serrell

Cover design and interior design: Morgan Krehbiel

Original cover image: iStock.com/samxmeg

Author photo: EightyTwo Photo

Published by Wonderwell in Los Angeles, CA

www.wonderwell.press

Distributed in the US by Publishers Group West and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada

To John, who partners me in all things, and to G and R, whose impending existence caused this book to be written

Contents

Foreword

As a psychologist trained in child development, I felt pretty confident about becoming a parent. I casually read a book about breastfeeding but otherwise approached the birth of my first son with a surprising degree of nonchalance. And then... wham! Parenthood hit me square in the face. Everything from a chaotic delivery to feeding challenges to disagreements with my spouse about how to parent made raising this little human feel overwhelming.

None of it was going according to plan! To top it off, the swells of self-doubt that accompanied the chaos prompted a massive identity crisis as my confidence wavered about whether or not I could actually do this. News flashturns out my biggest challenge was that I hadnt actually made a plan! Looking back, I realize I should have spent a lot more time contemplating my parent goals.

But everything happens for a reason, and I now see that this crisis happened for me, not to me. I had so much to learn about getting my parenting swagger on! Since those early days of motherhood, Ive been able to pass along the lessons I learned to the thousands of new parents Ive had the privilege to support throughout my twenty-plus-year career. That said, if I could have changed one thing about being a new parent, I would have started the journey a little more eyes-wide-open to minimize the intensity of that precious beginning.

Lindsay C.M. Garrett, LCSW, offers new parents just the kind of clarity and guidance I wish Id had in this accessible and engaging book. As a mother herself who has spent her career supporting parents through adoption preparation, Lindsay really gets what goes into thinking through the enormous concept of what it is to welcome a child into your life. With personal anecdotes and a healthy dose of humor, Lindsay capably guides hopeful new parents through this monumental life decision, offering a wealth of knowledge, concrete examples, and insightful tips.

One of the things that makes early parenting so challenging is that there is a sort of mythical assumption about how warm and fuzzy it all ought to feel. The reality is often very different. And yet, because of stigma, we often dont talk about the hard parts, opting instead to just keep our heads down and tough it out. Lindsay is real about the mess and the challenges, and her voice throughout Parent Goals offers steady assurance that this is all normal.

In my work as a psychologist, I often find myself wishing I had a how-to guide to give to clients who are contemplating parenthood or who find themselves feeling a little lost in those early days and months of being a parent. Parent Goals is that guide. As someone who reads most of the new parenting books published each year, I can confidently tell you this is the one I have been waiting for.

Dr. Vanessa Lapointe, registered psychologist and author of the bestselling Discipline Without Damage and award-winning Parenting Right From the Start.

Introduction

In the summer of 2016, my husband, John, and I were eleven years into our friendship, four years into our romantic relationship, and had been married just shy of one year. Natives of Fort Worth, Texas, we had recently relocated to Houstona terrifying and unknown leap into a new adventureand had just begun to discuss another terrifying and unknown leap: having children (dun dun dun!).

John and I met as summer camp counselors and had seen each other in action with children, so this area was not a great mystery for either of us. Wed had the hypothetical kid discussion even before we got married. We both wanted kids: two, maybe three. John had made several jokes throughout the conversation about how the men in his family father only boys, so we wouldnt possibly have any girls (cue eye roll from me)... and so on.

Being type A and Enneagram Type 1 (a.k.a. a perfectionist) and a mental health professional, I have an innate desire to overmanage pretty much everything. Before taking a leap, I must do the research and talk about all the possible outcomes. Pro and con lists are required. Information is to me like drugs to an addict; I cannot get enough. Spreadsheets are a facet of my daily stress management. I know: I am super fun to be married to! To give you some context, when John and I got married, I took the lead on planning our wedding and...