Nara Smith, the 24-year-old social media influencer widely admired for her composed, serene presence online, is pulling back the curtain on a very different emotional reality. In a candid moment that resonated with parents everywhere, Smith admitted to feeling extremely anxious and stressed, despite always seeming really calm to her followers, with her nerves peaking as she prepared to leave her husband and four children behind for a week-long work trip across the country.
The admission is important precisely because of the contrast it reveals. For millions of parents who follow Smith, her day-to-day life appears effortlessly managed. But her willingness to name the anxiety beneath that surface is something child development experts say is not only relatable — it is actually the healthiest place to start.
Why Traveling Parents Feel The Guilt So Deeply
Smith is far from alone in this experience. The emotional weight of stepping away from young children for work is something countless parents navigate, and it rarely gets easier with repetition. The anxiety tends to run in two directions at once: the parent who is leaving worries about what they are missing and whether their children will be okay, while the parent who stays behind faces the full logistical and emotional load of solo parenting. Both experiences carry their own particular kind of stress.
For the parent holding down the home front, the pressure can feel relentless. As one parent writer described the emotional and logistical reality of solo parenting while a spouse travels in Scary Mommy, the mental load compounds quickly: getting multiple children up, dressed, and out the door alone while simultaneously catastrophizing every worst-case scenario. The writer captured that dread plainly, noting that with a partner away or even out of state, she felt entirely alone as the sole adult responsible — and that if anything happened to her, there was no one else to step in for the kids. That raw honesty captures something Smith’s own admission echoes from the other side of the equation.
The same Scary Mommy piece captures how even the simplest daily tasks take on a different weight when you are the only adult in the house. School pickups, dinner, and bedtime all land on one set of shoulders, and the mental load of anticipating every possible crisis, with no backup nearby, creates a sustained, low-grade dread that is difficult to shake until the traveling parent walks back through the door.
What Experts Say About Parental Anxiety And Kids
One of the most important insights child development specialists offer traveling parents is this: your anxiety does not stay with you. It travels to your children. Child Development Specialist Dr. Siggie Cohen, PhD, argues that a parent’s emotional state directly shapes how a toddler experiences separation. Before focusing on preparing your child, she advises that you first address your own fear.
Writing for parent.com, Dr. Cohen offered a reframe that many anxious parents find genuinely useful. “Routines can be slightly broken from time to time,” Dr. Siggie told parent.com. “It’s okay because this is how children learn to navigate challenges and not be too rigid. You are letting her know that sometimes change happens and we do have the skills, and the capacity, to manage through it.”
That perspective matters for a parent like Smith, who is managing the guilt of leaving four young children while also trying to show up professionally. The expert consensus, drawn from pediatricians and child development specialists advising parents on preparing toddlers for a parent’s absence, is that children are more adaptable than their parents tend to believe. Pediatrician Dr. Kelly Fradin put it plainly in parent.com: “It’s quite likely that it’s going to be harder on you, as a parent, than it will on her.”
Practical Strategies For The Parent Who Is Leaving
Beyond managing your own mindset, experts recommend a handful of concrete approaches to help parents prepare young children for a work trip. Timing matters more than most parents realize. Because toddlers under four do not yet grasp the concept of time in the way older children do, telling them about a departure too far in advance can actually increase their anxiety rather than ease it. Dr. Fradin, writing for parent.com, advises waiting until the day before or the day of the trip to share the news.
The goodbye itself also deserves careful thought. A calm, confident tone signals safety to a young child far more effectively than a lengthy, emotional farewell. Dr. Fradin recommends keeping the goodbye short and matter-of-fact, telling parent.com: “Mommy has to go away for work. Mommy loves you. Daddy will take good care of you. And I’ll see you again soon.” Dragging out the departure, she notes, tends to amplify distress for both parent and child.
One counterintuitive piece of advice: resist the urge to video call constantly while you are away. Both Dr. Fradin and Dr. Mona Amin caution that seeing a parent on a screen without being able to reach them can be more upsetting for a toddler than not seeing them at all. For parents like Smith who are thousands of miles from home, that is a hard boundary to hold — but experts say it often serves the child better in the short term.
Resources like guidance designed specifically for parents of toddlers navigating business travel can also offer practical frameworks for families managing these transitions regularly.
Why It Matters That Smith Said This Out Loud
There is something genuinely valuable about a public figure with Smith’s reach choosing to name her anxiety rather than perform composure. Parenting culture has long rewarded the appearance of having it all together, and influencers in particular face enormous pressure to project an idealized version of family life.
When someone with millions of followers admits that the calm exterior is not the whole story, it gives other parents permission to acknowledge the same thing about themselves. The anxiety Smith describes is not a flaw in her parenting, it is evidence that she cares deeply. And according to the experts, the best thing she can do with that feeling is acknowledge it, work through it, and then let her children see a parent who trusts them enough to leave and come back.
