Is It Okay To Complain About Your Kids?

 I complain a lot. Even about things that are technically blessings. I’ve whined more than once about how I barely sleep because my co-sleeping child insists on pressing his body weight onto me throughout the night. I complain about it while knowing that I’m living the better version of this problem.

Because yes, I’m tired. And yes, I fantasize about having an enormous bed all to myself. But my son finds comfort and safety in curling up next to me, and someday he won’t. I can complain about the exhaustion without pretending I don’t understand the privilege inside it. Complaining is one of the simple ways for moms to reset when overwhelmed.

In this article:

Why Do I Love My Kid But Hate Parenting Sometimes?

Why Do Moms Feel Guilty When They Complain?

The Benefits of Venting for Mental Health… and Why It Can Make Things Worse

How to Complain in a Healthy Way

Why Do I Love My Kid But Hate Parenting Sometimes?

The co-sleeping struggle sounds dramatic until you picture the alternative; my epileptic toddler alone in his room, having a seizure nobody notices. I’ll take the endless body heat, the sweat-drenched mattress, and the occasional heel to the rib cage over the possibility of a medical emergency going unseen.

That’s the part of parenting nobody talks about. Sometimes the thing driving you insane is still the safest, kindest, smartest choice. Life doesn’t always give you a “great” option and a “terrible” one. Sometimes you’re choosing between a hard inconvenience and a heartbreaking consequence.

You can complain about the inconvenience without forgetting why you chose it. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s awareness.

Examples aren’t limited to sleep:

• You complain about cooking again, but you don’t want the nutritional fallout or the bills from nightly takeout.

• You roll your eyes at constant cleaning but the alternative is a house where you’re even more overwhelmed.

• You complain about the daycare bill, but can’t work from home while your toddler climbs all over you.

• You might groan about being stuck at home with your kid, but don’t want to miss half their milestones because you were somewhere else.

You’re allowed to have grievances with the best deal you can get. You’re acknowledging that even the best decisions still take something from you. You don’t have to love every aspect of parenthood. We can have ‘I hate being a mom’ moments.

Why Do Moms Feel Guilty When They Complain?

Many of us were raised by people who believed the highest form of strength was silence. The Silent Generation and, by extension, many Boomers lived through eras where survival mattered more than emotional comfort. Complaining wasn’t allowed because it didn’t serve survival.

So, when their kids or grandkids express frustration, the reaction is judgment. “We never complained” they might say with pride. But it wasn’t strength, it was trauma training. They didn’t talk about overwhelm, loneliness, depression, resentment, or rage because they weren’t given permission to have human emotions.

The result was generations of people who thought:

• Admitting exhaustion meant you didn’t love your family.

• Wanting a break meant you were selfish.

• Needing help meant you were weak.

Emotional silence has a cost. When you’re taught to “just deal with it,” emotions ferment, not disappear. Resentment builds, marriages strain, and parents quietly burn out under the weight of pretending everything’s fine.

Like how new mothers wonder if what they’re feeling is just baby blues or something more serious. Those verbalized struggles may be the first indicators of post-partum depression.

The Benefits of Venting for Mental Health… and Why It Can Make Things Worse

Millennials and Gen X parents broke the silence. We saw the tension that built up and realized that pretending everything’s fine doesn’t make it fine. It raises cortisol, wrecks your mood, and leaks out later as anger or detachment.

Complaining is a release valve. It’s the quickest way to say, “This is a lot and I need a second to acknowledge it so I can keep going.” Venting lets your brain reset.

But there’s a line between venting and drowning in your own narrative.

Research shows:

• Naming a stressor lowers emotional intensity. “I’m overwhelmed” → regulated nervous system

• Ruminating on a stressor increases anxiety, anger, and depression. “Everything is terrible and I’m failing at life” → mental spiral

So, complaining can be both medicine and poison. The intent matters. Are you trying to release, or are you trying to prove how miserable you are? The first helps. The second hurts.

How to Complain in a Healthy Way

There’s an art to complaining, and most of us learned it the hard way. Crying into the group chat, unloading on the wrong friend, or spiraling into a dramatic monologue about how our entire life is crumbling because bedtime ran late. It happens.

But healthy complaining is about letting emotions move through you instead of getting trapped inside you. It’s the difference between “I’m drowning” and “This week’s been rough. I need a minute.” One shuts you down; the other opens a door.

To complain in a way that helps, not hurts:

• Be specific. Vague misery multiplies. When everything feels bad, your brain can’t separate what’s temporary from what’s real. “I’m exhausted from bedtime battles” gives your brain something to process. “Everything sucks” makes life sound unfixable, even when it’s not.

• Pick your audience. Vent to people who understand the emotional load of parenting. Not the ones who’ll say, “Oh my god that sounds awful, men are trash, children are feral, burn it all down.” You’re looking for grounding, not gasoline.

• Keep perspective. Say your piece, breathe, then move on. Don’t build a shrine to your misery. You don’t have to wrap every complaint in toxic positivity, but you also don’t have to build a monument to your misery. Say what’s hard, breathe, shift gears. Problems feel bigger the longer you stare at them.

• Use humor when you can. You don’t have to crack jokes in the middle of a meltdown, but finding something funny later — even if it’s dark humor — is a sign that you’re metabolizing the chaos. Laughing at the absurdity doesn’t minimize the struggle. It makes it survivable.

The goal is to keep your complaints from turning into your personality. Healthy complaining clears the air so you can see what’s still worth loving in the middle of the mess.