Lewis HowesYour Personal 24/7 Greatness Coach

Parenting is the HARDEST Job! | Dr. Becky Kennedy

27 Sept 2024 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:58

In this opening segment of her talk, Dr. Becky Kennedy emphasizes that parenting is the most important and hardest job anyone will ever have, lasting well beyond the typical 18‑year span of childhood. She shares a striking comment she once heard that parenting is the only job people truly care about on their deathbed, underscoring its lifelong emotional weight. Kennedy points out that, unlike professions such as surgery, parents receive virtually no formal training, leaving them to navigate a high‑stakes, impactful role without preparation. She uses the analogy of an untrained surgeon to illustrate how lacking resources can lead to harmful outcomes, and suggests that recognizing this gap should motivate parents to seek out education and support.

Chapters

Parenting is the most important job in the world, and it is the hardest job. And it's probably the job we'll have for the longest number of years, because everyone knows it's more than 18 years, right? And someone said to me, I'll never forget, it's the only job you care about on your deathbed. Which I was like, okay, that's heavy. But I think that's, I mean, I wouldn't know yet, hopefully, but I think that's true. And it's also the only job that falls under very difficult, very impactful, very ongoing. that we literally get no training for. Right? And like, if my friend was a surgeon and called me and said, I'm not doing surgery, right? And I'm messing everything up and kind of messed up this person forever and I'm so bad. And then I started poking around and it turned out she never went to med school or never went to residency. I'm pretty sure I would say to her, Hey, like this is not that you're a bad surgeon. Like that's not what this is. You weren't adequately prepared and it's probably time to invest in resources.