There’s a particular kind of guilt that settles deep in your bones when you’re a parent with a chronic illness. It’s quiet but relentless—a guilt that whispers in the background while your child laughs in the next room, that tightens its grip as you say no to yet another activity, that coils tighter every time you have to rest while others seem to have endless energy for playdates, school runs, and spontaneous adventures.
This isn’t the ordinary parental guilt—the kind that comes with the job description. This is the guilt of being a body that doesn’t always cooperate, a nervous system in constant negotiation with pain, fatigue, or flare-ups. It’s the guilt of loving your child so fiercely, and yet sometimes needing space just to breathe through the discomfort.
Recently, my husband told me that my daughter missed a time when I smiled when she got back from school. My heart broke. I try so hard not to let my multiple illnesses affect my daughter, but I have clearly failed. So, what did I do? I made sure that I smiled when she came back from school, and she seemed so much happier. But the guilt is still there.
The Invisible Weight
People often say, “Your kids just need your love.” And it’s true. But when you can’t be the parent you imagined you’d be—the one who bakes with them on rainy days, who takes them swimming, who has the energy to watch every single school assembly without silently counting the minutes until you can sit in a dark, quiet room—you feel like you’re failing them in a thousand tiny ways.
The worst part? Most of these failings aren’t visible. From the outside, you might look like any other parent. But inside, you're calculating whether you can make it through the day without a nap, or bracing yourself through a migraine as you help with homework. Chronic illness is often an invisible shadow. And parenting through that shadow is a daily act of resilience that rarely gets recognised.
The “Good Enough” Trap
Many of us grew up absorbing messages that good parenting meant doing it all. And when your body won’t let you do it all, you begin to question if you’re good enough. You wonder if your child notices that you lie down a lot. If they resent the way you cancel plans. If they’ll remember the times you said, “I’m too tired today,” more than the times you showed up in your own quiet way.
There’s a constant internal debate between pushing yourself to meet a mythical standard of parenting and protecting your health. And whichever you choose, the guilt shows up. If you rest, you feel selfish. If you push through, you risk a flare-up—and then feel guilty for being irritable or absent the next day. It’s a no-win cycle.
The Lessons They Learn (Even When You’re Resting)
But here’s something I’ve come to realise—slowly, and often reluctantly. Our children are learning from us all the time. Not just from what we do, but from how we cope.
When they see us rest, they’re learning that bodies deserve care.
When they hear us say, “I need to sit down for a bit,” they’re learning that needs are valid and worth honouring.
When they witness us asking for help, they’re learning that strength doesn’t mean doing everything alone.
This doesn’t erase the guilt. But it reframes it. Maybe parenting with chronic illness isn’t about failing to give them the life we imagined—it’s about giving them something else. Something real. A model of resilience. A lesson in self-compassion. A deeper understanding of empathy and flexibility.
Navigating the Noise
Still, the noise is hard to silence. The comparison trap looms large—especially in a world saturated with perfect-parent narratives on social media. The school WhatsApp chat, the mum who runs the PTA while also training for a marathon, the dad who volunteers for every school trip—these comparisons can make your own quiet, careful parenting feel less-than.
But chronic illness teaches you to strip away the unnecessary. To focus on what matters. And what matters, in parenting, isn’t perfection. It’s presence. It’s connection. It’s loving your child in the best way you can, from the place you’re in.
A Note to Fellow Parents with Chronic Illness
If you’re reading this with tears in your eyes or a heavy chest—please know you’re not alone. You’re not weak. You’re not failing. You are parenting through conditions that would flatten most people. You are showing up, even on days when your body is screaming for rest. And that matters.
Your child may not remember the missed sports day or the takeaways on bad pain days. But they will remember how it felt to be seen. To be loved. To be accepted.
And if that love came from a bed, a sofa, or a quiet corner where you whispered encouragement through the fog of fatigue—it still counts. You still count.
You are more than enough.
Even on your worst day.
I’m so sorry, Britni. I’ve watched my sister going through the same thing, and it breaks my heart. She’s a fierce ass warrior, but the things that stick in her head are all the ways she’s sure she’s failing her kids.
Thank you. I needed this today.