One of the odd bits of trivia about my family is that my first child was born on the 1st of the month, my second child was born on the 2nd of the month, and I was born on the 3rd of the month. I recently had a funny exchange with my mom where I was reminding her of this and how it made it easy to remember my kids’ birthdays. Her response was, “Oh, but wouldn’t it be perfect if you were the third child?” A pregnant pause followed. Then we both laughed and she noted, “Oh, right.” I am her third child.
Though I’ll admit I’d never thought about that particular aspect of it. I’ve just always felt, ever since my youngest was born, that a circuit got completed which allowed a steady current of love to flow unimpeded through my life. Some parents relate to their children as extensions of themselves, but I’ve always felt like it works the other way around. 1+2=3. The addition of them has made me. I am the person I am in large part because of their appearance in my life. So much of what I have been able to master, to the extent that I’ve mastered anything, is because I needed to in order to show up in the world in the way I feel like they deserve. The way I wish someone had shown up for me.
Which doesn’t mean I always get it right. I don’t. I screw up with humbling regularity, though I’ve gotten better over time. The first handful of years after my marriage to their father imploded? Those were rough, I’m not gonna lie. I’m still apologizing as necessary for choices I made during those years.
I’m also still learning, on what seems like a daily basis, how to manage both my values and emotional reactivity in the context of my relationships with them. How to allow for the ways they are separate from me, different, and sometimes confounding. How to be maximally available, flexible, and open, all while steadily letting them move further away from me.
It’s a dance in which I mostly stumble and creep forward, only sometimes finding a sense of perfect balance as time flies what feels like increasingly fast. I’ve discovered you can travel a long way mostly stumbling and creeping, though, and my kids and I have already traveled a twisty, epic road together.
Can we stay grounded in our own sense of what matters, practice our own integrity, while allowing what matters to others to dictate their direction? Can we hold our loved ones with an open hand when necessary, allowing them to expand, move away, and evolve in ways we don’t understand (that don’t, ultimately, have anything to do with us) while also holding them close in our hearts?— Minding the tether
It just so happened that my youngest was not only born on the 2nd, but also on Labor Day that year, and wow, if that didn’t feel appropriate. My labor with them was easier in some ways than my first, but that only makes it the second hardest, most painful, and most transformative experience I’ve ever had. It feels like we both should get the day off every year to commemorate it.
This year it all lines up again, Labor Day 2024 also being their seventeenth birthday. Last week I wrote about needing to change things up for the next few months to make space for working on my book. My plan being to publish new work once a month and otherwise to revisit newsletters from the archive that some of you may have missed, or will enjoy reading again.
Given how intimately my parenting and integrity practice are intertwined, I write about my kids here a lot. So, in accordance with the plan and in honor of my amazing kid’s birthday, here are a handful of the pieces I’m most proud of from the last few years. I hope you enjoy them.
Rites of Passage
On April 30, 2003, at approximately 3:00 AM, I began to pry myself open. I was 14 days shy of my due date for my first child. You would think that would have made the significance of the deep, grinding opening that had begun inside of me make sense, but it did not. Consciously, I was still under the impression that I had control over all the outcomes of…
Parenting With Integrity
I think one of the hardest things that humans do is parent children. Not just because of the unremitting work involved, but because all of us come into the whole enterprise with a laundry list of unexamined emotional and psychological histories. Even if we haven’t experienced trauma, we’ve all experienced pain, loss, sa…
Birthday Switch-Up
Hey, friends. Today being Friday, I would usually share with you all resources— podcasts, books, articles, videos— that I’m finding helpful in my own integrity practice in the hopes that they’ll be helpful to you, too. But this Friday I’m a little distracted, honestly, because the kid you see below, my baby, is turning fifteen today.
What's your story?
Last week I invited you all to a thread where I asked you what question you are living now. I didn’t know how it would go over, honestly. I grew up with the notion that sitting with unanswerable questions is sacred work, but that idea flies so completely in the face of our modern culture. Instead of unknowns, we want certainty—to believe there is an ans…
I’ll be back next week with more from the archives. Have a wonderful weekend.
XO,
Asha
Hey! Before you go, if you appreciate the conversation we’re having here, can you hit the ❤️ at the bottom or top left? It only takes a second, but helps the newsletter and offers me a huge dose of encouragement. Thank you!
Sharing the newsletter is also a tremendous gift, to me and this community. Please pass this along if you feel so moved.
Finally! Oh my gosh, do I love to hear from you all. Tell me anything! But if you have your own experiences practicing integrity as a parent, especially with teenagers and young adults, I’d really appreciate your wisdom.
I’ve shared your “story” piece with other parents who have children in the process of transitioning and I can’t tell you how much it they found it to be meaningful (as did I).
thank you my friend 💛
I relate to this beautiful post so much, Asha! With you in the stumbling and creeping! But look how far we've made it. Sending you love, as always.