We only have two duties as parents. Therapy required, regardless.

Being a Good Parent looks different for everyone. With all of the parenting advice out there, it’s hard to cut through the noise. But it really only comes down to two things.

Level One of Parenting: Keep them dressed, fed, and help them avoid blunt force trauma.

Level Two of Parenting: Help them feel seen and heard in their full authenticity. Nurture their DGAF attitude.

Achieve level one, and you’ll go far. You’ll have a physically thriving child who may also thrive emotionally.

Achieve level two and through reparenting yourself, you’ll repair your own childhood emotional damage.

In case you were worried about damaging your children—don’t worry, you will. It’s inevitable. You’ll still end up being the villain in their story in many ways. Some of the things you’ll say to them will scar them for life, resulting in hours of expensive therapy in adulthood. That’s just of the risks you take on when you make the loving decision to become a parent and bring a human being in this world. And because I don’t want you to be like, “Hey, no one ever talks about this!” or “No one warned me about this part of parenting!” I’m telling you here and now.

As a left-winged Millennial, I try to be as woke as possible and instill feminist principles in my kids. I encourage my sons to play with Barbie and watch lovingly as they wake her up to get ready, put her into her purple convertible, and push her off into the distance so she can work in her high-powered leadership role.

But, I’m not perfect. Far from it. (If I ever claim otherwise, please check my temperature and glucose levels.)

In preparing for my older son Beans’ first year of full-day school, we faced the exciting task of picking out his very first insulated lunchbox so that his salami wouldn’t ferment and stink too much by the time he sat down to eat his lunch. This was already a big concession for me, as the environmentally conscious person inside screamed that these cheap lunchboxes from Amazon were filled with BPAs and phthalates and would cause him metabolic damage.

Mom guilt flooded me for not doing my research weeks in advance and ordering him the best sustainable lunchbox possible. But Momma and Beans sat down the weekend before school started, and Momma needed that lunchbox to appear magically on our doorstep with Prime shipping.

To help the shopping experience, I narrowed it down to a style that would work for both boys. (Because you can’t get one something without getting the other something.) I pre-selected a green pixelated camo one pre-selected, thinking it’d be a no-brainer for Beans, as he lives and breathes the video game Minecraft.

I watched him hover over the colors to enlarge the previews. My heart rate increased and my pupils dilated as he chose a pink lunchbox. I smiled on the outside.

Inside? Panicked, I screamed “You’re woke!” to myself over and over again until I hit the order button.

Here I am, staring at the Amazon Recent Orders page, grappling with my 1990’s concepts of masculinity and femininity. Boys get blue and girls get pink. Boys don’t get pink without being made fun of, beaten up, or stolen from. I thought to myself, “In the name of Level One of Parenting, I must fabricate an excuse for him not to have a bright pink lunchbox, lest a bully uses his salami to hit him on the head to take the girly-ness out of him.”

10 minutes later, I say, “Baby, we can’t get you the lunchbox you wanted after all. It was backordered, and we won’t receive it in time for school to start. How about we pick out another one?”

His mild disappointment was a relief to me, and I watched as he picked out a teal lunchbox as a replacement. When it arrived, I came to terms with my outdated fears and embroidered his name on it in hot pink.

Bonus Level Three of Parenting: Encourage your child to pursue a career in psychology. There’s money there.

Cover photo by Kelly Sikkema.