Parenting is humbling.

It can reduce successful, professional adults into a state of irritability, confusion, and self-doubt. It can trigger negative feelings in the most spiritually oriented seekers. The daily challenges can turn love and adoration into a cycle of worry and control. Parenting kicks up our deepest wounds and presents opportunities to live in our highest form of unconditional love.

To be a parent is to taste the agony and ecstasy of being human.

Before I became a parent I was considered an expert in child development and education. In graduate school I studied child psychology, age appropriate best practices and curriculum development. I trained new teachers and launched programs that inspired children to thrive as they discovered their skills and talents.

I wondered why parents didn’t do a better job of preparing their children emotionally as well as cognitively so they would meet with school success more easily. I knew that once I was a parent I would do it the ‘right’ way.