The Day I Became the Mom Calling Out Instagram Parenting (And Why I Almost Didn't)
I wasn't sure I was brave enough to be the therapist mom who calls out gentle parenting (or at least the version of it we’ve been sold on social media for more then a decade).
"I'm gentle but not that kind of gentle," she said to me.
In case you're new here, I'm Kayla Huszar - a Canadian registered social worker, expressive arts therapist, and mom who helps millennial mothers rediscover themselves beyond the mental load.
I've been featured on CBC's The Current, CBC's Now or Never, Blue Sky Saskatchewan, and Maclean's magazine for my work challenging gentle parenting culture and toxic positivity in motherhood.
And lately? I've been hearing some version of that opening line a lot in my counselling studio.
I felt a change coming - a growing sense that the social-media version of "gentle parenting" wasn't working. What people call gentle parenting often looks like permissive, intensive parenting, especially when families don't have enough supports, resources, or capacity to pull it off.
When you're asked to write an article for Maclean's magazine calling out gentle parenting culture, you kind of brace yourself for impact, you know?
The email sat in my inbox for three days. It was a Tuesday morning, I was on vacation, and my youngest was asking me for the fourth time if he could have ice cream for breakfast (the answer was still no). I'm staring at my phone in my brother-in-law's kitchen in Nova Scotia, wondering if I have the guts to actually do this.
The ask was simple: Would I be interested in writing about gentle parenting, Instagram parenting culture, and the maternal mental health effects of it all? About the pressure mothers face from the endless stream of advice that seems to work for everyone except, well, real families living real lives?
I was half excited, half terrified. This was the platform every writer dreams of. But I also felt that familiar knot in my stomach that shows up whenever I'm about to do something that actually matters.
The Fear of Being "That Mom"
You know the one. The mom who suggests that maybe, just maybe, all those Instagram parenting hacks aren't the miracle solutions they claim to be. The one who points out that the gentle parenting scripts leave out crucial context - like neurodivergent kids, trauma responses, partnership dynamics, and the reality that some days you're just trying to keep everyone fed and alive.
I knew I'd become a target. Parenting influencers and their followers don't take kindly to anyone questioning the gospel of "gentle everything."
What if they were right and I was wrong?
What if I was just a bitter mom who couldn't make the "simple" strategies work?
But then I thought about the mothers sitting in my counselling studio, week after week, telling me they felt like failures because the Instagram scripts didn't work in their actual lives.
The ones who were exhausted from trying to be calm while their nervous systems were screaming.
The ones who'd lost themselves completely trying to be the "good mom" the internet told them to be.
Last month, I'm in session with a client and she's holding up her phone with tears in her eyes. "I tried exactly what she said," she tells me, scrolling through some popular parenting account. "My kid completely lost his shit. What's wrong with me?"
There it was - that question that breaks my heart every single time.
What's wrong with me?
I hear this constantly. These smart, loving mothers who've been convinced they're failing because some gentle (or other) parenting technique designed for Instagram engagement didn't magically work in their actual living room with their actual kid.
As a social worker and expressive arts therapist, I watch mothers question every instinct they have because Instagram told them their natural responses were "toxic" or "triggering."
Women literally shame themselves for raising their voice when their kid runs toward traffic, or feel guilty for setting a boundary that doesn't sound like it came straight from a parenting script.
That's when I knew I had to write it.
The next day, I had a call with an editor at Maclean's magazine.
Wait, Now I Need to Look Professional?
Then they scheduled a photo shoot - like, a real editorial photographer coming to my house to photograph me and my kids for Maclean's magazine. MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE.
My first thought? I hate my hair right now. I'm growing it out and I would never willingly get my photograph taken at this exact moment. So what does an ADHD mom do? Look up "in between hair styles (not pixie but not shoulder length)" and walk into my bathroom and cut it myself.
And then the clothes situation. I'm a pretty casual person - jeans and t-shirts every day. But this was Maclean's... surely a therapist should be wearing a blazer or some shit, right?
I had my six-year-old take photos of me in different outfits and sent them to my photographer cousin for wardrobe approval. Because apparently that's what we do now.
The photographer captured something I didn't expect in those photos - you can see a mom who was nervous but determined. Someone who'd rather risk controversy than watch another mother internalize shame for not being able to make viral parenting advice work in her real life.
The piece is called "My Misadventures in Gentle Parenting" and it came out in the October 2025 issue of Maclean's.
And Then My Phone Started Blowing Up
Honestly, I had no idea it would end up featured on Apple News as a Reader Favourite. But there it was - my face looking back at me from people's news feeds, holding my two boys.
The messages started coming in. Not just "great article" comments, but real responses from mothers who felt seen for the first time in their parenting journey.
One woman texted: "I've spent countless hours reading and practicing gentle parenting. This year I switched to a more authoritative style and everything changed for my 7 and 6 year olds. Thank you for saying what I've been too afraid to admit—that the Instagram version wasn't working."
I just sat there staring at my phone thinking - okay, maybe I didn't mess this up.
The texts I received from this gentle parenting article mothers floored me in the best possible way.
One reader sent: "I just finished reading your article, so good. In my kid-life we just did, I can't remember worrying whether it was right or wrong, kids spent so much time with other kids and their families, everybody's rules became all kids rules."
Another mom messaged: "This is sooooo good and will be not only impactful but I felt heard reading this 🙏❤️"
My father-in-law (who I'd been nervous to hear from, if I'm being honest) wrote: "You did all of that quite beautifully. Grandparents might need a little shaming. 🤔 I think the tension of generations is endemic to the conversation."
And then my mentor and music therapist, Jennifer Buchanan sent: "OMG!!!!! I just read it!!!! It is brilliant as are you!!!! So proud of you, Kayla. You are speaking the language of REAL mums everywhere. I am just so happy for you!!!!! 🎉"
That last one made me cry, not gonna lie.
The article did exactly what I hoped it would - it gave mothers permission to trust themselves again.
To stop performing gentle parenting for Instagram and start parenting their actual kids in their actual lives.
And that's the work I'll keep doing, whether it's in my Alberta counselling studio, on CBC, or in the pages of Maclean's.
Because every overwhelmed mother deserves to hear: you're not failing. You're just being sold an impossible standard.
What I Expected vs. What Actually Happened
Here's what I thought would happen: angry comments, defensive influencers, days spent in comment sections defending myself.
Here's what actually happened: this collective exhale from mothers everywhere.
Instead of pushback, I got messages from women who'd been trying so hard to do it "right" according to Instagram, feeling like failures when their real kids in real situations didn't respond to strategies designed for viral content.
The article wasn't about bashing gentle parenting as a concept - it was about calling out the impossible standards and the context-free advice that's breaking mothers down instead of building them up.
What This Means for Your Motherhood
Look, I'm not going to give you some inspirational speech about being brave or trusting yourself. You've heard that a thousand times from Instagram therapists, right?
Here's what I actually want you to know about parenting:
If you've been questioning every single parenting decision you make because some influencer said your response was "toxic"... you're not broken.
If you bought that course or program promising better behavior and it didn't work... your kid isn't broken.
If you can't make the viral strategies work in your real life with your real family... you aren't wrong.
The system is.
Instagram parenting advice is designed for engagement, not for your Tuesday afternoon when your kid is melting down in the cereal aisle. Those strategies leave out the context of your neurodivergent kid, your trauma history, your partner's work schedule, your own regulation capacity on three hours of sleep.
You already know your kid better than any content creator ever could. You already have instincts that matter more than any viral hack. The hard part isn't learning some new strategy—it's unlearning the belief that you need fixing in the first place.
Read the Full Article
The complete piece, "My Misadventures in Gentle Parenting," is available in the October 2025 issue of Maclean's and on Apple News.
What's Next?
If you're exhausted from the constant rushing, the guilt every time you sit down, and the feeling that you're always behind - Mom Time is for you.
It's a 5-session mini-course that helps you untangle your relationship with time, stop treating every moment like a crisis, and actually be present without the mental to-do list taking over. Because the problem isn't that you need better time management. It's that you're carrying patriarchal expectations about what "good mothers" are allowed to have.
[Learn more about Mom Time ($49 for instant access)]
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P.S. The best feedback I got wasn't "great article" or "so brave" - it was "I felt heard reading this." That's what I wanted. For you to feel seen in the chaos, valid in your struggles, and hopeful that there's a way forward that doesn't require perfection. You're already exactly the mother your kids need - self-cut hair, ice cream breakfast negotiations, and all.
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