The Psychological Gold of Parenting: How Awe and Pride Can Save Your Sanity (and Your Relationship)
Saturday, May 17, 2025. This is for my son, Daniel Gordon Hamilton.
New science says the moments when your kid leaves you speechless—or just deeply proud—aren’t just feel-good fluff. They’re emotional bedrock. And they may be doing more for your well-being than another mindfulness app.
What If the Most Meaningful Part of Parenting Isn’t What You Do, But What You Feel?
Let’s be honest: parenting often feels like logistics with love sprinkled on top—laundry, permission slips, snack negotiations, and a vague hope that your child doesn’t grow up to host a podcast about how you ruined their life.
But a fascinating new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science (Chee, Shimshock, & Le, 2025) suggests that two specific emotions—pride and awe—might be doing far more than we realized.
Not only do they brighten the often-exhausting parenting journey, but they’re deeply correlated with long-term psychological well-being.
And not just in a “feels good in the moment” way.
We’re talking about life satisfaction, reduced negative emotion, deeper meaning, and psychological richness—that elusive sense that your life isn’t just bearable but beautifully complex.
The Study: From Daily Moments to Long-Term Mental Health
Researchers at the University of Rochester wanted to understand why so many people voluntarily sign up for parenting despite its well-documented chaos. Previous studies have dug deep into burnout, financial stress, and emotional overload, but few have asked a simple question: what’s emotionally rewarding about raising a child?
To answer that, the team conducted a trio of rigorous studies:
Study 1 (n = 505 parents): Surveyed how frequently parents felt pride or awe, and how those emotions related to life satisfaction, meaning, negative emotion, and psychological richness.
Study 2 (n = 130): Followed parents for three months to see if early pride/awe predicted improvements in mental health.
Study 3 (n = 261): Used an experimental design where parents recalled pride- or awe-inducing moments, then reported how they felt.
They even ran an internal meta-analysis across all three. (For the record, that’s the research equivalent of checking your math three times before hitting “send.”)
Awe: The Emotion That Slows Down Time (Literally)
Here’s where things get beautiful. Awe—that goosebump-laced, “wow”-like reverence parents feel when witnessing their child’s wonder, kindness, or raw humanity—was consistently associated with the greatest mental health benefits. It:
Boosted life satisfaction
Deepened a sense of meaning
Increased psychological richness
Reduced negative emotional states
But more than that, awe created what researchers called a self-transcendent moment—a sense of being part of something far bigger than yourself. And yes, it even warped time perception, slowing it down in moments like watching your child take their first steps or asking their first real philosophical question.
These moments aren’t just emotionally touching. They may recalibrate our nervous system, pulling us out of stress and into savoring. As lead author Princeton Chee put it, “Awe events can be easily ‘savored’ or experienced in full and are especially powerful in enhancing well-being.”
Pride: Not Just for Trophies and Report Cards
Pride, on the other hand, brings with it a warm internal glow that says, “I helped make this possible.” Parents in the study reported pride in moments tied to:
A child’s personal growth
Overcoming adversity
Talents or acts of resilience
While pride didn’t boost psychological richness in the way awe did, it significantly reduced negative emotion and increased overall life satisfaction. In short, pride reminds you that you’re not just surviving parenthood—you’re doing something remarkably difficult and doing it well.
Why This Matters for Your Mental Health (and Your Marriage)
This research comes at a critical time.
The U.S. Surgeon General recently released a public health advisory calling for better support of parental mental health. And while systemic support is essential, this study offers an unexpected coping tool: emotional noticing.
Couples therapists see this all the time: when parents are encouraged to notice and share moments of awe and pride, it shifts the emotional weather in the home. And it doesn’t just boost personal well-being—it can heal relational fractures.
In fact, couples therapy often helps partners slow down long enough to remember these tiny emotional triumphs.
When you’ve been stuck in a loop of resentment over dishes, sleep deprivation, or school drop-off duties, a moment of shared awe—like marveling at your kid’s imagination—can feel like the first rainfall after a drought.
Parenting Meme Gold (Yes, This Is Science-Backed)
Want to distill this research into something snackable and shareable? Here are five parenting ideas with legs:
“Pride is when your kid wins the race. Awe is when they stop to help someone else.”
“No one warned me that parenting includes unexpected spiritual awakenings.”
“What if your toddler says something so profound you question your entire worldview.”
“Parenting is 90% snacks and logistics. The other 10% is awe. But that 10%…”
“Shared awe: when you and your kid watch a solar eclipse and both say ‘whoa.’”
Final Thought: The Hidden Gift of Awe and Pride
Sure, parenting is a mess of crackers in the car seat and questions about earwax at dinner. But these small moments of awe and pride? They’re not just a reward. They’re a lifeline.
They reconnect you with the person you’re trying to be. They shift the frame from “I’m drowning in chaos” to “I’m raising someone who amazes me.”
In the hands of a skilled couples therapist, these emotional moments become tools—not just for individual well-being, but for rebuilding the bridge between parents who may have grown emotionally distant.
So go ahead—feel proud when your kid gets it right. Feel awestruck when they surprise you with something beautiful. That feeling isn’t just good. It’s good for you.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Chee, P. X., Shimshock, C. J., & Le, B. M. (2025). Feeling Pride and Awe in Parenthood: The Unique Emotional Rewards of Parenting on Well-Being. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506241247852