Many of us who aren’t parents assume that the hardest part about having little humans is the actual raising of the little humans, and working to mold them into upstanding citizens who will contribute to society. However, one mom claims otherwise and is setting the record straight about parenting difficulties.
She believes that raising kids isn’t that exhausting. It’s the endless activities parents are expected to be involved in nowadays, that really make parenting so draining. In a recent TikTok videomom, Sarah Biggers-Stewart used her family vacation to Disney World to prove her theory.
Biggers-Stewart couldn’t have imagined how much effort she would have to exert just to book a family vacation to Disney with her husband and two toddlers. Planning the trip forced her to reflect on just how hard parenting has gotten — and she said it has nothing to do with the actual parenting part. It is everything else.
“The amount of participation and engagement expected of parents in literally everything to raising kids is insane,” Biggers-Stewart shared in a TikTok video. “And nothing perfectly illustrates this better than this Disney trip we’re going on next week.”
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Sixty days before her vacation, dining reservations had to be booked starting at 6 a.m. on the dot. However, since she lives on the West Coast, which is a three-hour time difference from Orlando, she was left with limited restaurant options. Disney guests are also encouraged to prebook reservations for park attractions a week ahead of their trip, which is often an entire process within itself.
“If you don’t book, you’re not gonna be able to do the things you wanna do. Things that you used to be able to do just by paying for a park ticket and showing the (expletive) up to Disney.” Even with attraction and dining reservations, Disney is not the fun family vacation it used to be for many families who were once eager to visit.
All of the planning and booking just to get on Dumbo the elephant ride has made it more like an exhausting chore than building family memories. “It doesn’t have to be this way and the end product we’re receiving has not dramatically improved,” Biggers-Stewart said.
“Zoom out, extrapolate that to literally everything to parenting, and you start to understand how big of a (expletive) lift it is,” the exhausted mom said.
She also used kids’ sports as an example. “We’re treating these seven-year-olds like they’re all gonna go pro. They can’t even go with their families for a week’s vacation during the summer break because if they miss a week, they’re shunned and benched,” Biggers-Stewart pointed out. “The seven-year-olds are talking about their protein intake, and the parents are being lectured by the coaches about their protein intake.”
Sending your kids to school is another full-time job. “School has sign-up sheets every month and ways that you have to support the classroom and show up in all the different events,” she added. “Even if you’re a working parent, you have to contribute and show up.”
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Parents also often experience double standards when it comes to raising kids. They are encouraged not to hover over them and allow them their freedom, but when their kids are spotted alone, they are labeled as neglectful. Biggers-Stewart cited an incident where a Georgia mom was arrested after her 10-year-old son walked into town on his own, despite the fact that he was familiar with the area and returned back safely.
No matter how you look at it, parents seem to need to be involved in every aspect of their children’s lives, even down to the smallest details.
Even though Biggers-Stewart knows that her family trip to Disney will be a lifetime memory for her kids, she understands why it is not so magical for parents anymore.“I’ve had multiple moments along this process of being like, ‘Was the magic just being young and not knowing how hard things were behind the scenes for my parents?’” she said.
While a portion of that is true, Biggers-Stewart’s parents claimed that booking a trip to Disney was not nearly as strenuous as it is today. You simply just bought your park ticket, booked the hotels, and showed up. “Nothing is like that in 2025. Nothing,” she noted. “Everything is the most intense version that requires the most effort and participation. That is why parents in 2025 are burnt the (expletive) out.”
A study from UC Irvine showed that modern parents are spending twice the amount of time with their kids than parents 50 years ago. Much of this time involves volunteering at their schools, attending their sports games, helping them with their homework, and planning family trips with them.
While playing such an active role in your children’s lives can be rewarding, it is equally as exhausting. A study conducted by the Ohio State University found that 57% of modern-day parents report feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.
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It is perfectly acceptable for you to take a step back if you are feeling particularly overwhelmed, in order to be the best version of yourself possible for your kids.
So if you are avoiding booking trips to Disney due to how exhausting it has become, don’t beat yourself up over it! You’re not alone. Parenting is already hard enough. We shouldn’t make it even harder by expecting to live up to these unrealistic expectations that are often forced upon us.
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Megan Quinn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on justice in the workplace, personal relationships, parenting debates, and the human experience.
