During the school year, mom Cyndy Gatewood was looking forward to the summer, a time for her three children to take a proper break from their hectic lives.
But this summer, the 43-year-old realized it would be a different season than their past summers as her kids grow out of their young childhood years and transition into their preteen and teenage years.
Gatewood opened up about her feelings of "summer guilt" in a TikTok video that is quickly going viral and picked up 745,000 views since she first shared it last week.
"You know what's not talked about enough?" Gatewood began. "The guilt that comes when you have teens and preteens during the summer, and you're home with them, but it's like, they're too old to go to a playground everyday … and it's like, should I be doing something? Should I be taking them somewhere everyday? But when I ask them … they don't want to."
Gatewood, who lives in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area with her husband Matt and their three kids, said she has now come to the realization that this period of transition has also unexpectedly become a period of grief for her as a parent.
"When they were little, they wanted to be by my side all day long, and it didn't matter what we were doing as long as we were together. And that was satisfying," Gatewood explained to "Good Morning America." "Now, as they're older, they'll come home, they get their food, and they want to just hang out in their room, or they want to be with their friends or they're doing their sports."
"It was just that realization that, 'Wow, they're not little anymore. They don't need me as much as they did,'" she continued. "This was the first summer that it really struck me."
Gatewood's kids are now 14, 13 and 11, and she said although she and her kids are close, they have had to make a conscious effort to stay connected and adapt to their changing lifestyles.
"I think it has opened that door of communication with me and my kids more, because they're seeing, like -- well, I'm not making them feel bad about it, but they're like, 'Oh, well, Mom wants to hang out with us. So, let's try to find certain days that we do stuff,'" said Gatewood.
Gatewood said she has heard from many parents after opening up on social media, even making a few new friends among fellow parents.
"I've had people comment and say, 'I have been feeling this feeling and I had no idea what it was. Thank you so much for putting this into words. This is exactly what it is. I'm grieving the loss of them being little,'" Gatewood said. "It makes me emotional, because it really is such a beautiful thing when we can open up about our struggles, especially as parents, and find out that we're not alone in these feelings."
For other parents grappling with the reality of their children's lives changing, Gatewood suggested keeping communication channels with kids open.
"I think communicating with your teens is important without making them feel guilty, because they're not doing anything wrong," she said. "This is typical teenager stuff, but I also would tell mothers or fathers who have younger kids to cherish this time with them, because it really does go by so fast."
"It's a beautiful thing to watch your your kids grow up. But we have to evolve with that. And that's what I'm learning right now," Gatewood added.
