Why Parents Need More Support, Compassion, and Confidence Right Now

Parenting can be beautiful, meaningful, joyful, overwhelming, exhausting, emotional, and deeply uncertain — sometimes all within the same hour.

Many parents today are carrying enormous pressure while quietly wondering if they are doing enough, saying the right things, making the right decisions, or somehow getting it all wrong. Add in sleep deprivation, anxiety, overstimulation, social media comparisons, work demands, emotional stress, and the nonstop pace of modern life, and it becomes easy for parents to feel isolated, emotionally depleted, and unsure of where to turn for trusted support.

Cristina Bernardo understands those feelings personally and profoundly.

After the devastating loss of her daughter Aviva before her first birthday, Cristina and her husband Hans Kullberg transformed unimaginable grief into a mission rooted in compassion, connection, support, and helping other parents feel less alone. Together, they co-founded Avocado Health, a 24/7 text-based parenting support platform designed to provide parents with trusted guidance, resources, and reassurance during both the everyday and the most difficult moments of raising children.

At Best Ever You, we often talk about emotional wellness, resilience, mindfulness, compassion, and learning how to Pause, Breathe, Choose in life’s hardest moments. Cristina’s story is a powerful reminder that even through grief, uncertainty, overwhelm, and heartbreak, healing and purpose can still emerge.

In this deeply honest and heartfelt conversation, Cristina shares insights about parenting, perfectionism, grief, resilience, emotional overwhelm, self-compassion, asking for help, and why parents need support, connection, and kindness now more than ever.

Cristina, your story is incredibly moving. For someone hearing about your journey for the first time, what do you most want them to understand?

I would love listeners to understand and perhaps relate to the fact that terrible things happen in this life, to most of us. Everything good happens in life and everything bad happens. And when it does, life can just be so unbearably hard and that is okay and that is normal and that is expected. Yet, with some time, support, deep reflection, and ideally therapy, we can find ways to find meaning in even the hardest things that happen to us in our lives and in the lives of the wonderful people we have lost. Not in their deaths, which like ours can be so awful or even unexpected, but meaning in their lives and the impact of their lives on us. I would never for one second wish I did not lose Aviva, but I know that her life has touched Hans and I tremendously and all those around us. It has inspired us to work hard every day to make other parents' lives easier, and to be more present, kind, and loving to our own children and all those we meet. Yes, everything does happen - and we need to find a reason to keep living in honor of those we love and those we lost.

Your experience as a mother shaped everything that followed. How did navigating uncertainty with your daughter change the way you see parenting today?

Until we had Aviva, our third child, we had mostly experienced the normal difficulties and ins and outs of parenting with our first two children. Those challenges in and of themselves - of being first time parents, of navigating postpartum anxiety for me and depression for him - were tremendously difficult. Yet, when when Aviva was 9 days old and had to be rushed to the hospital with a slow heart rate, delayed breathing, and lethargy, we got to see an entirely different side of parenting - the constant frustration, stress, overwhelm, and immense sadness that we as parents experience when our children are very sick, or experiencing very difficult life challenges.

We had to face uncertainty in every minute and sometimes every second of her existence. It truly shows you how incredibly strong and resilient the human spirit can be - how life can challenge in break you in ways you didn’t even know or think were possible and how you can still, even in those incredibly difficult moments, still get up and make breakfast for those who you still love and are still with you. It gave us a much deeper understanding and perspective into just how challenging parenting can be, and how much support we need and crave in those hardest moments. Our goal at Avocado Health is to give parents more of that support and guidance in the best and often hardest moments of the parenting journey. And to show them to the right and best local resources to help carry them through. To give them community when they perhaps don’t have it or need it more.

You’ve said that confidence matters more than perfection. Why is that distinction so important for parents?

The elusive idea of perfection permeates throughout our lives, especially for those of us who identify as women and/or as mothers. With social media, these messages and ideals of perfection are literally at our fingertips every day holding up a measuring stick of motherhood or parenting that most of us feel we will never meet. Many of us attempt everyday to be the “perfect mother,” the perfect woman, the perfect employee, etc without realizing the immense pressure we are putting on ourselves and those we love to fit a mold that truly does not exist. We often end up beating ourselves up more for not “being perfect” than thanking ourselves for all of the great work we are doing in the world and for our families.

When we can find confidence in ourselves, and kindness for ourselves, we can also find confidence in our abilities as parents to rise to any moment and to be there for our kids when we are having a rough day as much as when they are. Yet, we know that this kind of confidence depends on support, support in the right moments, in the challenging moments, and in the moments when we feel we truly have nothing left to give. That is where we are trying to build -  the tools, the resources, and the community to help parents feel that they always have a Robin to their Batman, a parenting sidekick and guide to help them when their kids just won’t go to sleep, when the baby won’t stop crying, or when maybe you can’t either.

To connect them with useful local resources, weekly workshops, and monthly virtual support groups to carry them through. We want to make sure parents never feel alone like we often did with Aviva, but instead find a place where they find answers and guidance to help them feel more calm, confident, and supported.

Many parents struggle with second-guessing themselves. How can they begin to trust their instincts, especially in high-stress situations?

I actually think that it can be useful and sometimes safer to second-guess yourself during the most stressful moments. Even doctors have told me they don’t always know or have the answers when their own children are emotionally hurting or are very sick. It is completely understandable to feel scared and uncertain of what to do when your child’s fever just won’t go away or your daughter won’t stop telling you she feels or looks fat. I don’t think most of us are built or truly know all the right answers, even the specialists. As with most problems in our lives, I think in those moments it is important to look for outside, trusted guidance to help carry you through.

To ask Avocado Health and call your provider when you are scared or uncertain. To seek out a third party perspective when you and your partner disagree about how to talk to your child about death, or bullying, or about not hitting their siblings. I don’t think we as parents, or as mothers, just magically know the solution to every problem or the reason for every cry. Parenting is just like every other thing in our lives, we have to learn, we have to access trusted resources, and seek guidance from those more knowledgeable around us. I think the idea that we should just instinctively know it all or know the right thing to do, often makes it harder on us, and makes those moments more stressful. When Aviva got sick at 9 days old, I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what to do to make it better. In that very stressful moment, I turned to a neighbor to look for alternate solutions, to talk to many specialists, to debate with your partner on what the right thing is to do in the hardest moments.

Avocado Health meets parents in real-time moments of need. What are those moments typically like, and why is support in those exact moments so critical?

A common refrain that we hear when we have kids is, “kids don’t come with a user guide.” That is what we are trying to build. A user guide to help parents through all the ins and outs of trying to get pregnant, pregnancy, and then raising children. We want parents to be able to turn to us for every question, both big and small, from “my child has a 102 fever for the last 24 hours” to “how do I know if my 2 year old has a speech delay,” to “how do I get my kids to eat vegetables.” There are just so many questions we have throughout the entire journey, and we want to be there for every single one. I think the most critical moments are often when we feel the most overwhelmed or concerned and when the kids appear to be struggling the most.

Those are the moments when fear, frustration, shame, and guilt often come into play, and messaging a more anonymous but trusted platform can feel easier than even calling a friend or provider. We want to be that sidekick that helps you with second-guessing, the “I have no idea what to do,” or “I am so overwhelmed I can’t cope anymore.” We can provide trusted local resources, a direct number to a local mental health provider, or even a hotline that can support you right away. We also invite everyone to join our weekly workshops and groups that tackle the most common parenting challenges - like mom rage, boundaries, and staying regulated - with leading experts. For parents always on the move, they can also  check out our podcast, Parent Confidence Lab, to get on-the go when you need it support.

You’ve built something meaningful out of profound loss. What has that journey taught you about resilience and purpose?

Every day Aviva teaches me something new. She has changed our lives in so many beautiful ways, but the one that I am most proud of is that her love and guidance has led us to support parents in ways I could have never imagined or expected. Losing someone you love, especially a child or very close family member, shakes you to your core.

You have to spend serious time trying to re-find yourself and figuring out how to keep on living and for what purpose. For us, the purpose we found was continuing her life’s journey by supporting other parents through the best and toughest moments of parenting. Her life lives on through every mom I can help feel less alone, whether I ever meet her or not. Her legacy is helping to support families at scale with a practical and extremely useful leverage of AI technology to get parents trusted answers at their fingertips. Her life has taught us that we may never know what is coming our way, we may never know what troubles we will have to endure, but that when these awful things happen, we can find a way to keep going and we can try to help others find their own.

How has your experience with grief shaped the way you lead, both personally and professionally?

After a life changing loss like losing a child, I found that I was no longer so scared to fail. Personal and professional failure, in particular, just did not seem to hold so much weight anymore. I didn’t feel I constantly had to judge myself or others for not hitting artificial success metrics that nearly no one will ever meet. Instead, I realized that the true sadness in life is not being able to enjoy the moments we are given. Not finding  peace, and rest, and joy in the lives we are living right now. Always living for tomorrow, or judging yourself for yesterday, and never hearing the birds chirp today, or truly noticing your child’s one of a kind giggle.

Grief and loss has taught me to slow down, try to enjoy the moment, and be kind to myself and others in the process. We are all suffering through something, most of which is hidden to others. So I try to just be as kind and compassionate to myself as I am as kind and compassionate with others. We have a saying that Aviva taught us, it is “lead with love.” We both try to be leaders who focus on love and empathy first, and we try at all times to give and express love first before any other emotion that might be bubbling on the surface with co-workers, friends, or within ourselves.

You talk about “good enough” parenting. What does that actually look like in real life?

I often think the hardest thing about parenting is how hard we tend to be on ourselves. Those of us who are socialized as women and mothers often tend to be so hard on ourselves overall, but this intensity only gets higher and more intense when we become a mother. This idea of perfecting parenting and perfect mothering is all around us. So many of us are trying to constantly undo the harm or trauma we experienced as kids, and in doing so, we end up putting endless pressure on ourselves to do and say the “right things” and be the “perfect parent” or “perfect mother.” Getting older and experiencing profound loss has shown me time and time again that perfect does not exist, and often the “perfect parents” we admire or judge ourselves against or actually silently struggling or even falling apart from the weight of their own perceived “perfection”.

So I think good enough parenting means that you love your kids, you try to love yourself each day, and you repair and reconnect in the moments when maybe you had a hard time and your kids were late, you lost your temper, or your kid threw their peas in your face. Good parenting means you are always learning - both about your kids and yourself, so that you can be more aware of yourself and your own needs, and you can make space and time for them. Good enough parenting means you can find time to love your kids and love yourself, even if the pancakes are burned, your kids report card is not what you expected, or your car or home is a mess.

You’ve coached and supported many women through transition and crisis. What patterns do you see when people begin to move from overwhelm to clarity?

Peace, calm, finding space and time for themselves, often for the first time. I think often the feeling of overwhelm is usually a sign - a sign we need more support, more rest, more time for ourselves. When we are able to stop, pause, breathe, and be kind to ourselves - we usually find that we have lost sight of what our needs actually are and how others could truly help us. And often we are so scared to ask for what we need or ask for help. Yet when we start to do some personal work, we find that just by slowing down the constant barrage of negative thoughts or judgements in our own head, we can begin to find more time and space for ourselves. More kindness for our perceived shortcomings and more clarity on how we really want to live our lives.

If a parent is feeling anxious, uncertain, or alone right now, what would you want them to know?

That they are not alone and that they are not the only ones who have ever felt this way. Parenting can feel like such a lonely journey where only we are all doing it wrong. The truth is that most of us are struggling to raise our kid(s), work (in or outside the home), and make time for ourselves. Research shows that 48% of parents say their stress is completely overwhelming most days, and 77% of parents with kids under 5 have experienced at least one symptom of rage in the last month. It is completely normal to feel anxious, uncertain, and alone anywhere along the parenting journey, or even every day. Yet, there is help out there.

There is community, whether that is through us or so many other wonderful people and organizations out there. There are therapy providers on your insurance, and some therapy /support groups that are free. There are 24/7 hotlines you can call, and 24/7 texting that you can have at your fingertips. And we offer free weekly workshops and groups for all those who need it. I’d tell them that true change starts by recognizing how much you may be struggling and offering yourself just a little bit more kindness and compassion. Then when you have shown yourself some love, asking yourself what you actually need, and where you can get some help.  Then do your best to reach out to someone or something who can relate and who  can make your life a little bit easier.

At Best Ever You, we often talk about Pause, Breathe, Choose as a way to create space and move forward with intention. How can parents use simple moments like this to ground themselves in difficult situations?

Learning to regulate your body and yourself I believe is the biggest gift we can give ourselves. However, so few of us were ever taught how to do it. The Pause, Breathe, and Choose model is such a useful and meaningful tool to help us in those very difficult moments, especially as parents. The first step is to just notice when we are feeling overwhelmed and think through what might actually help us. For me, it is stepping outside. Feeling the breeze on my skin. Hearing the birds chirping. It centers me back in the moment. For others it may be a cold towel on their face, noticing their breath, paying attention to 3 things they can hear. Yet, when we learn to pause, breathe, and choose, we can create different pathways for our children and for ourselves. And all of that, I believe, starts with leading with love - for and foremost, for ourselves. Thanks for teaching me that Aviva!

---

What makes Cristina Bernardo’s perspective so powerful is not perfection — it is honesty.

Her story reminds us that parenting is not about getting every moment right. It is about showing up with love, learning through the hard moments, repairing when needed, asking for support, and continuing forward with compassion for both our children and ourselves.

Throughout this conversation, one theme continues to rise to the surface: parents were never meant to carry everything alone. Whether someone is navigating anxiety, exhaustion, grief, postpartum struggles, uncertainty, emotional overload, or simply the everyday challenges of raising children, support matters. Community matters. Kindness matters. And perhaps most importantly, self-compassion matters.

At Best Ever You, we believe meaningful change often begins with awareness.

Pause. Breathe. Choose.

Pause long enough to notice what you may need. Breathe long enough to reconnect with yourself. Choose kindness over self-judgment. Choose support over isolation. Choose love over perfection.