The paradox of being a Highly Sensitive Parent

I was made for this & I can’t handle this

For as long as I can remember people have told me I was going to make an amazing mother. From a young age I was often the caretaker in my relationships. I was the therapist for my friends, the rock in my romantic relationships, the nurturer in any passing exchange. I often felt my job description was “empathic listener and supporter”—and I took my job very seriously. For me, being a caretaker was innately tied to my experience of being a highly sensitive person.

A term first coined by the psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron, highly sensitive people (or HSPs) are defined by their nervous systems, which are innately more responsive to sensory input. Having such a sensitive nervous system means that HSPs can easily get overwhelmed by too much stimuli—like trying to have a conversation at a party when the lights are too bright. But it also means that they can be profoundly moved by the most subtle experiences—like watching fireflies come out at night. HSPs tend to be deep thinkers, with a high degree of self-awareness and empathy. We can be as equally moved by the beauty of a sunset, as the joy, or pain, of the person we’re sharing it with.

In our culture this kind of sensitivity is often seen as a character flaw—unless you’re a mother.

Mothering is one of the only places where sensitivity is seen as a gift. In our culture, mothers are supposed to be sensitive. We’re expected to be subtlety attuned to our child’s every need, to sense even the most minute hint of danger, to be so empathically oriented towards our child we know how to take care of them in any situation.

The fact that I’m a highly sensitive person means I can often attune to the subtle shifts in my daughter’s feelings, desires, and needs. But it also means that sometimes parenthood feels like way too much.

Without realizing it, from a young age I internalized the projection that I was simply meant to be an amazing mother. That my superpowers as a sensitive and empath meant I’d sail into motherhood like a ship fully provisioned for a twenty-year voyage—no need to stop at any shoreline here.

So in postpartum when the reality hit that this was so much harder than anything I’d ever done before, I sometimes felt like a failure, and a fraud.

Wasn’t I supposed to be amazing at this?

With baby sleep troubles and near constant crying, I had moments every day where I felt like I simply couldn’t handle any more. I’d hide under the covers of my bed while her dad walked her around the house and weep, asking the mother of the Earth to hold me because I couldn’t hold anymore.

For all the gifts of having a highly sensitive nervous system—the ability to attune to beauty, to feel deeply, to experience with your entire body the profundity of a piece of music—the downside of experiencing everything in technicolor is that your nervous system can easily, quickly, get overwhelmed.

And no experience is more jam packed with consistent, constant, sensory information than being a mother.

First we have the reality of parenthood. You are on 24/7. Highly sensitive people are designed to track every aspect of their environments, and so, as parents, we never stop scanning. Even if you aren’t physically with your child, a part of your brain is always keeping tabs. Planning doctors appointments, reminding yourself to get them a new pair of shoes, figuring out what to make them for dinner. You are never not holding them.

Then, there’s the actual sensory experience of being with your child. There’s hugs and laughter and snatches of songs—inputs that can be so joyful its intense. But then there’s also screaming and food smeared on the walls. There’s temper tantrums and doors being banged and the endless rearranging of every object in the house. You take them outside and even as part of you just wants to relax, another part is constantly scanning the environment. Is that rock safe to climb on? What is that big kid holding? Did she just put something in her mouth?

Motherhood is a hyper detailed experience—one where we are hormonally and neurologically wired to pay attention to every subtlety. It’s overwhelming for anyone, but for highly sensitive people it can feel like being buried under a mountain of sensory inputs.

Before having a child, I had designed my life around tending my nervous system. I had learned by trial and error what worked for me and what didn’t. I lived up in the fold of a mountain and I only made plans to see people once or twice I week. I started my mornings in quietude, with slowly made tea and journaling. I felt most centered, most capable, and creative when I was alone—so I was by myself for vast swaths of time.

I knew all of this was going to change when I had a child—I was under no delusion there. But I also knew I wanted to be a mother more than all of this, so I took the leap and just hoped something would catch me on the other side.

And something did, the absolute wonder of being a mother.

But the fact remains—even though I love my daughter more than every quiet, sunlit morning I ever spent without her, my nervous system is still overextended most of the time.

I have trouble scheduling more than one play date on the calendar. I feel like I need weeks to recover after small trips. Sometimes we don’t leave the house for days on end. I want to be in the woods with her all the time, but we live on the side of a mountain and there’s so much to track, I often just end up sitting with her on the back porch instead. I want to go out for a movie or dancing with friends, but I have to plan wisely because I know that even if I get home early I’ll likely be so stimulated I won’t go to sleep until 2 am.

I often describe overexposure as a sensitive to the feeling of being sunburnt on the inside. When I hit a peak of overwhelm I can literally feel my nerves burning. Some days, especially when we’re going through a hard phase, I think—I don’t even know how it feels anymore to not have a slight sunburn. So I put on my sunglasses and hat and retreat from the fact that I often feel like I’m falling short of the amazing mother everyone prophesized I’d be.

But the paradox is that highly sensitive people do make amazing parents. In many ways, this is what we were designed for.

Attunement and attachment are the foundations for a healthy early childhood. A parent’s ability to accurately attune to a child’s emotional landscape, to meet them where they are and understand their needs, creates the feeling of safety and security necessary for their children’s nervous system to thrive. That safety and understanding, in turn, creates a secure attachment that will bolster them for the rest of their life.

Highly sensitive parents are brilliant at this.

Within the first few days of bringing my daughter home from the hospital, I could feel the superpower of my sensitivity come online. Even though she couldn’t yet smile or speak, I learned very quickly the subtle signs she had for hunger, for tiredness, for joy. Even now, when she can ask for things with her words, I often know what she needs before she vocalizes it. Like how I can sense she wants me to sing in the seconds before she looks up at me while nursing to ask “song?”

As sensitives we were literally designed to be powerfully attuned parents. To read the complicated currents of our children’s emotions and meet them with empathy and care. To be aware of subtle changes in the field that signal danger and navigate our children toward safety. To be able to be with them, fully with them, in their joy as we chase bubbles together across the lawn.

Having a highly sensitive parent who knows how to attune to your needs means children are free to be kids, to explore and be confident in themselves and the opportunities of the world.

But becoming a parent can also be liberating for highly sensitive people.

I remember talking to my therapist when I was considering getting pregnant. We often processed my tendency to get into caretaking relationships and overextend myself, giving until the well ran dry. I told her I worried about how exhausting being a parent might be. Then she said something that completely changed the way I thought about becoming a mother.

“For empaths, becoming a parent is often a relief. All the caretaking energy can ground, for the first time, in the place where it was always meant to be. And when it does—you’re free.”

She was right. Since becoming a parent I’ve felt a liberation and a freedom with my energy I’ve never experienced before. It’s much easier for me now to draw boundaries and say no to other demands for my time. I don’t sink into a hole of guilt every time I tell a friend I don’t have time to hang out. I’m not available anymore to be everyone’s therapist or sounding board. I protect my time as fiercely and unapologetically as a bear protects her cubs.

And this is the paradox.

I’m both more free than ever before, and more constricted in my actual time and space.

I have moments every day where I’m literally soaring on love and connection, and moments when I feel as overstuffed as my daughter’s teddy bear.

I regularly ping back and forth between the thoughts—this is the greatest joy I’ve ever known. And, I cannot handle another second. And the two go hand-in-hand.

And so I sit with the paradox, without trying to change it.

I sit with the reality of being a highly sensitive parent, I hold both in my hands…

I am an amazing mother. I struggle to be a mother.

I love this more than life itself. To feel truly alive I need to be by myself.

I want to be with her at all times. I need alone time every day.

I was made for this, and sometimes I can’t handle this.

I am a highly sensitive person, and a mother. I contain volumes, and that’s ok.

Because isn’t that the greatest gift of being sensitive? We delight in life because it’s full of volumes, and we can feel every one. The sensory experience of a fresh strawberry, a first-lit candle, a full-body hug from your child. There isn’t just one level to the experience of being alive. There isn’t just one level to the reality of being a mother. There are volumes, there are depths.

And so even on the days when I feel like I’ve failed, I try to embrace my own complexity, because I want my daughter to know depths too. To bask in the beauty of life’s volumes—and to know that she is allowed to contain volumes as well.