It's My Birthday, and I'm Parenting in Hard Mode

The Raising Gen Alpha newsletter is now Parenting in Hard Mode; a virtual village for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent parents who are raising Gen Alpha kids.

Today is a special post about how the Raising Gen Alpha newsletter is being renamed Parenting in Hard Mode. This is still a virtual village for progressive families unapologetically raising social justice-minded Generation Alpha kids (born 2010-2024) but now with a focus on BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent parents who are raising Gen Alpha kids and nurturing social justice-minded families—all while taking care of our mental health. Allies welcome, too. I hope you’ll read this and choose to stay—and to connect with like-minded parents through empathy and compassion. Please subscribe to join our community.

Have you ever been in a place where you feel the need to change, but it’s so overwhelming and scary that you stare into space, paralyzed and doing nothing? Yeah, me too.

Sometimes, this happens to me when I’m trying to organize my child’s playroom. There are too many toys, too many things, and not enough space for them all. As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD after becoming a mom, I especially get impacted if things don’t have “a place” because this now takes 10x the mental load to not only figure out to put The Thing away but also where the fuck to put The Thing away. If it doesn’t have a spot, I’m less likely to clean it up—and so the mess piles on days after days and weeks after weeks and, yes, even sometimes months after months. (Okay, so a couple of things also years after years.)

Other times, this happens to me when I’m avoiding something because it’s too tedious or boring, or because it takes making a decision that I just don’t have the energy to make.

Lately, this has been happening to me with my career, identity outside of motherhood, and this here newsletter.

When I first discovered that this current cohort of kids being born is called Generation Alpha, I was super excited to share the news. Nobody was talking about it!

At the time, back in July 2022, I had recently started an exciting new job as theSkimm’s first-ever Parenting Editor, and I was so freaking excited about the work. I told my bosses, learned as much as I could, and created info sheets and presentations… but, whomp whomp, nobody cared all that much. And then I was unceremoniously impacted by mass layoffs in January 2023—so eventually I came up with the idea of instead taking my knowledge and interest about the generation of kids that my own child was born into and Raising Gen Alpha was born.

And then life happened. Or rather, I started to experience symptoms of depression and it took me a while to realize it was happening and even longer to realize it was due to unending burnout.

As it usually goes with depression—even if it’s primarily situational depression—I stopped doing the things I loved (writing) until I was finally able to get the words out and talk about parenting while depressed.

I got my mental health medication adjusted, too, which helped a lot. And after finally finding a therapist that actually worked for me (something that I highly recommend to everyone, especially if you’re from a marginalized group) after 8 years of therapy, I started to dig deeper into some of the deepest parts of myself only to discover that I have C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) due to childhood trauma.

But it’s cool, it’s fine. I’m dealing with it in therapy (really!) and, besides, it doesn’t impact my day-to-day all that much. …Right?

Except, actually, it does. Well, duh!

It especially manifests in parental anxiety for me—something that I know we all experience but we all experience it differently.

And it also manifests in my work. Or rather, in my ability to handle work. And as an immigrant who came to the U.S. at age 8, someone who has always considered myself ambitious, and a person who can no longer live in the city where 90% of my industry works, it’s been really tough to recover and heal from the burnout, depression, anxiety, and everything else. It’s partially why I was out of work for 11 months last year—a fact that has dramatically impacted our family’s financial reality and plunged me further into, yes, more burnout, depression, and anxiety.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Well, because today is my 38th birthday (YAY!) and I’m making a change in my life that impacts me—but it also might impact you a little bit, too. My grand idea for a newsletter called Raising Gen Alpha was a great one, but the name hasn’t felt quite right for a while now. I’ve been back and forth on this a dozen times, talking ad nauseum to friends who have better things to deal with, and just overthinking this all to death. But when something isn’t quite right, I can’t get it out of my head.

And so today, which is not an important day to anyone else but me, this publication is now called Parenting in Hard Mode: A virtual village for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent parents who are raising Gen Alpha kids and nurturing social justice-minded families—all while taking care of our mental health. Allies welcome, too. 

Why the pivot?

Well, for over a month, I haven’t been writing here. That’s partially because a few people I super duper admire subscribed and I’ve been intimidated to write because WHAT IF I SUCK AND NOBODY LIKES ME ANYMORE.

The other part is because I’ve found myself gravitating more toward writing about the experience of being a parent more so than the experience of parenting.

I still want to—and plan to—write about raising Gen Alpha kids, but even more I want to connect with fellow parents about the emotional and mental journey we go through during this stage of life.

I want to write more on topics like Are Grandparents Destroying the Child-Raising "Village" Parents Need? and Five Days Stuck Indoors with a Sick Kiddo Feels *SO* Damn Long and definitely even more stories like The Words Every (Neurodivergent) Parent Needs to Hear and I'm Struggling Being a Bisexual Mom in a Straight Marriage.

Basically, I want to write about the intersection of parenting and mental health—and especially for parents who are BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or neurodivergent. Or, like me, all of the above! (Yes, hello, my name is Irina and I am a bisexual Latina mom with ADHD.)

Of course, allies are welcome, too—and really any parent who has mental health struggles or is differently abled or just “different” or “weird” or feels like they live outside the cultural and societal “norm.” Sometimes that’s because of your identity and sometimes that’s because of your beliefs, values, and point of view.

Whoever you are, you’re welcome here in this virtual village of parents who are raising Gen Alpha kids and nurturing social justice-minded families—all while taking care of our mental health.

I truly hope you’ll choose read all of this and I very much hope you’ll choose to stay—and to connect with like-minded parents through empathy and compassion.

Abrazos,

Your friendly neighborhood bisexual Latina mom with ADHD raising a Gen Alpha kid