Pink gets real about parenting: 'You never know if anything you're doing is working'

In parenting there’s the short game (getting their shoes on, getting them to eat vegetables) and then there’s the long game, where it might take 20 years to know if the shot you took today ever landed in goal. When it comes to teaching kids long-term life lessons there’s no immediate payoff, and according to Pink, that’s the most humbling part of parenting.

Mom to 6-year-old Willow and 1-year-old Jameson, Pink recently told People that it’s hard when you’re not sure if the morals you’re trying to instill in your children are getting through. “The thing about parenting is you never know if anything you’re doing is working,” she said. “In my head, I sound amazing and then I turn around and [Willow’s] eyes are completely glazed over.”

Pink says that while her own childhood was pretty free-range, with lots of unsupervised bike riding and running around in the woods with her brother, she’s taking a more hands-on approach then her parents did. She says she believes in letting her kids know that she’s there for them (even if they don’t always seem to be listening).

“I always tell Willow, ‘I’m going to teach you the rules so that you’ll know how and when to break them,'” shares Pink.

The singer recognizes that Willow and Jameson are going to need to learn some things for themselves, even if she drills certain lessons from her own childhood into their heads.”You can’t borrow somebody else’s knowledge, you have to buy your own. I know that too. It sucks when you’re a mom. I don’t want my kids to buy their own knowledge, I just want them to swallow mine,” she said at Apple’s premiere of On the Record: Pink: Beautiful Trauma last fall.

We all want that for our kids, and we all sometimes feel unsure if what we are doing is working. For Pink, and for all mamas, it’s important to take a deep breath and realize that something is sinking in during those eye-glazing chats.

“I have so many worries and fears as a parent. I’m such a worrier. They’re going to be fine,” she says. “They know what they’re doing. But the world, I don’t know if the world’s going to be fine, and so I pray a lot. I cry a lot. I talk to them a lot. I hope a lot. I curse a lot.”

Don’t we all.