When I Stopped Trying to Do Everything Alone

Letting go of perfectionism, asking for help, and building a parenting community

For most of my life, I believed something very strongly.

Strong people do things alone.

As an only child, I grew up trying to be the one who made everyone proud. The one who did things right. The one who didn’t cause problems.

I wanted to please my parents. I wanted to be good enough. I wanted them to look at me and feel proud.

But somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I always felt like I fell short.

It sounds harsh to say it out loud, but it’s the truth.

And the strange thing is — I love my parents deeply. I know they never intended to make me feel that way. But feelings don’t always follow intentions.

So I did what many children do when they feel they are not quite enough.

I tried harder.

I tried to be better. To do everything perfectly. To prove that I could handle anything.

Somewhere along the way, I became what I now call a lonely wolf.

The kind of person who fights every battle alone.

The illusion of strength

Growing up, I watched my mum do everything.

She was running a household, raising a family, managing a business, and somehow still making it all work. To me, that looked like strength.

So I copied it.

I believed that if I was capable of doing something myself, then I should do it myself.

Even when I was exhausted. Even when help was right next to me.

I remember not even letting my husband help when our daughter was little.

Looking back now, I can see that something else was hiding underneath all of that.

Perfectionism.

At the time, I never would have called it that.

But if I cleaned, it had to be spotless. If I made something, it had to be perfect. If things didn’t go exactly the way I imagined, I became incredibly frustrated.

I even remember judging my husband once because he didn’t dress our daughter the way I thought she should look.

Not my proudest moment.

But perfectionism doesn’t feel like perfection from the inside.

It feels like pressure.

The moment things started to change

Things began shifting when I started therapy.

Slowly, piece by piece, things began to make sense. Life started to feel like a puzzle, and therapy helped me begin putting the pieces together.

One moment stands out clearly.

When our daughter was around two or three years old, my husband and I went away for a long weekend.

And it was… incredible.

For the first time in a a long time, we had space to talk. To breathe. To understand each other again.

And during one of those conversations, my husband said something very simple.

Something that completely changed the way I saw everything.

He said:

“We’re a team.”

It sounded obvious. But somehow I had been living as if I was the only player on the field.

He told me something else that stayed with me.

Just because I am capable of doing something alone doesn't mean I have to prove it by doing it alone.

He already knew what I was capable of.

I didn’t need to perform strength.

Learning to let go

That weekend changed something in me.

For the first time, I allowed myself to believe that asking for help wasn’t weakness.

It was trust.

It was partnership.

It was being part of a team.

I also realised something else that many parents struggle with.

It’s okay to leave your child with someone else sometimes.

Will they do things differently? Probably.

Will the rules be different? Maybe.

Will your child survive if they eat too many sweets or watch too much TV one weekend?

Of course they will.

Children are far more resilient than our fears allow us to believe.

And parents deserve space to breathe too.

The fear of failing

Another realisation came later.

I noticed something strange about myself.

I often worked on things until they were 99% finished.

And then… I stopped.

Because finishing meant risking failure.

If it wasn’t perfect, then maybe I had failed.

So instead, I stopped just before the end.

I never gave myself permission to fail.

But that’s not freedom.

That’s fear.

The question that changed everything

Then a much bigger thought hit me.

I am a role model.

My child is watching everything.

If I show her that asking for help is weakness…She will learn the same thing.

If I show her that mistakes are unacceptable…She will grow up afraid of failing.

And that’s not the life I want for her.

The moment LALO was born

Understanding these things didn’t happen overnight.

It took years.

Years of reflection. Years of uncomfortable conversations with myself. Years of slowly learning to trust other people.

But eventually, something became very clear.

We are not meant to do life alone.

And we are definitely not meant to do parenting alone.

That’s when the idea for LALO — Life After Little Ones — was born.

Not as a perfect blog, nor a polished project, just simply as a space where parents can reach out to each other.

A place where we can talk honestly about parenting, where we can share experiences.

Where we can admit that sometimes things feel overwhelming.

Maybe it becomes a place where parents meet for coffee, or someone starts a crochet club or people organise a walk, a sports group, or just a conversation where nobody has to pretend they have everything under control.

Because the truth is — most of us are just figuring things out as we go.

And maybe life becomes a little lighter when we realise something very simple:

We don't have to do it alone.