Anyone who has been a parent for more than two seconds knows that parenting is not all sunshine and rainbows. Yet, parents also know that there are magical moments in parenting that make it all worth it—like getting a gummy smile from your baby or being handed a bouquet of wildflowers that your child picked just for you. Recently, there has been a movement on social media to recognize and appreciate these “glimmers,” or moments of joy. While this idea is discussed as a more general life hack on social media, it seems particularly applicable to the lives of parents, which feels like a stress-filled existence punctuated by fleeting glimmers. So can focusing on the glimmers of joy we experience as parents help us to be less stressed out and more content?

Glimmers are seemingly insignificant, fleeting moments that stimulate positive feelings or a general sense of calm, peace, or joy. Glimmers are conceptualized as the opposite of triggers, which are reminders of trauma or cues that bring up negative feelings.

Examples of glimmers in parenting can include really noticing the beauty in your child’s face, hearing your child mispronounce a word in the most adorable way, feeling your child snuggle up to you as you read them a book at night, singing a song together in the car on the way to school, your child saying “I love you” or “Thank you,” or getting a drawing your child made for you at school.

This concept is not new. Author Glennon Doyle also discussed these parenting moments in 2012 on her blog Momastery, referring to them as “Kairos time.” She explains that Kairos time occurs in “those magical moments when time stands still.” In her blog post she writes, “these kairos moments leave as fast as they come—but I mark them. I say the word kairos in my head each time…And at the end of the day, I don’t remember exactly what my kairos moments were, but I remember I had them. And that makes the pain of the daily parenting climb worth it.”

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