Part 4 of 6: Embodying the Parent You Want to Be - Why Aligned Choices Feel So Hard
A 6 part series for queer parents (and prospective parents) who love their kids so fiercely, they refuse to settle for a family where there are conditions on love, support, and belonging.
In the last three posts, we’ve explored why parenting decisions, challenges, and questions can feel so much heavier than they need to be.
First, we talked about how shifting from avoidance to intention helps you clarify what you’re actually trying to build—not just what you’re trying to avoid.
Then, we explored the hidden tensions that make even clear decisions feel impossible—competing values, fears that feel bigger than they are, and old inherited scripts that quietly shape your instincts.
But even after all that, something can still pull you back into old patterns.
Today’s post reveals two more tensions—the ones that make follow-through feel hardest. These are the forces that quietly pull you back into old patterns, even when you know what you want.
💡 Take a moment now to reconnect with the challenge or decision you’ve been reflecting on. As you read this post, notice where these final two tensions might be shaping how you are experiencing them.
4️⃣ The Unquestioned Assumptions Running the Show
Even when you’re intentional about your parenting choices, hidden assumptions shape your decisions more than you realize.
Assumptions are the invisible rules you’ve absorbed about what’s required to honor your values—and because they feel like facts, they often go unchallenged.
Unlike fears (what if this goes wrong?), assumptions act as quiet certainties that limit your choices before you’ve even explored them.
And unlike beliefs (good parents prioritize their kids), assumptions dictate the specific actions you believe are required to uphold those beliefs.
🛑 Belief: “Good parents put their kids first.”
➡ Assumption: “I can’t take time for myself without neglecting my child.”
🛑 Belief: “Children need a strong connection to their extended family.”
➡ Assumption: “If I set a boundary, I’ll be damaging my child’s sense of belonging.”
🛑 Belief: “Stability is important for children.”
➡ Assumption: “If we relocate, my child will struggle, and it will harm them.”
The belief itself may or may not align with your deepest held values—but it’s the rigid assumption about what’s required to honor it that creates the real tension.
That’s why decisions and challenges feel impossible. The opportunity isn’t to abandon your values—it’s to question the assumptions about what’s actually required to uphold them.
The hardest part? We usually don’t even realize these assumptions are driving us. They just feel true. That’s why we make sacrifices that don’t actually serve us. Why we feel trapped between impossible trade-offs. Why even when we think we’re making a decision, we still feel conflicted.
And this is exactly why community is essential.
We all have blind spots—assumptions so ingrained that we can’t even see them, let alone challenge them. But here’s the powerful part:
💡 What’s invisible to you is often obvious to someone else. And vice versa.
The Lab was designed exactly for this purpose—so that the framework allows others to hold up a mirror, helping you see where your assumptions have been fixed, but don’t have to be—so you can create alignment with what truly matters.
5️⃣ Emotional Resistance & Avoidance of Discomfort
This may be the hardest tension, but it is also the place of the greatest place for lasting transformation to living in alignment with your deepest values.
Some decisions force us to sit with emotions we’d rather not feel—guilt, uncertainty, fear, grief. Even when we know what we want, actually following through is a different story. Because making a decision is one thing—sticking to it when it gets hard is another.
🔹 You set a boundary with family, but when they push back (again), you hesitate. Maybe I should just let this one go.
🔹 You decide to prioritize co-parenting equally, but when you ask for more support and feel your partner’s resistance, you wonder if it’s even worth the fight.
🔹 You commit to raising your child with pride, but when a teacher makes an assumption about your family, you freeze instead of correcting them.
This is why some challenges feel impossible to resolve—because they require us to sit with discomfort again and again.
✨ But when we stop fighting discomfort, we can move through it—and the decision itself becomes lighter.
And over time? What once felt like an unbearable challenge becomes second nature.
When you build the ability to be present with grief, disappointment, and uncertainty, you open up so much more freedom in every part of life. Instead of shrinking back when something feels hard, you create space to put yourself out there—for what you want, for what matters, for the life you’re building. And your kids? They see it. They learn from it.
You’re showing them how to sit with their own discomfort instead of avoiding it—so they can grow, take risks, and step into the fullness of who they are and a deeply fulfilling life.
This is what makes the hard moments worth it. And it’s how real, lasting change takes root.
Next up, we’ll talk about how to make all of this automatic—so you don’t have to rethink every decision, challenge or question from scratch.
P.S. Unquestioned assumptions and avoiding difficult emotions are the hardest patterns to spot—because they don’t feel like patterns. They feel like truth.
Inside The Lab, you’ll have people who can reflect back what you can’t always see—helping you challenge assumptions, spot blind spots, and uncover new ways forward.
Because the truth is, the things that keep you stuck are often obvious to someone else.
✨🌈TL;DR:
Even when you know what you want as a parent, challenges, decisions, and questions can still feel impossible to resolve—and that’s often because of the last two (of five) hidden tensions:
4️⃣ Unquestioned Assumptions — Invisible “rules” that limit your choices before you’ve even explored them. These assumptions often feel like facts but are simply inherited ideas about what’s required to uphold your core beliefs.
5️⃣ Emotional Resistance & Avoidance of Discomfort — Difficult emotions like grief, guilt, and fear can pull you back into old patterns and prevent you from follow through — even when you’re clear on your intentions.
By recognizing these hidden forces, you build the ability to sit with discomfort, challenge old assumptions, and move forward with clarity, confidence, and self-trust—laying the groundwork for a family life that reflects your deepest values.