Thoughts on parenting for Lina and Jon's baby shower

Zuz and I haven’t yet started our journey as parents, so I can only speculate that parenthood has some things in common with teaching. Supporting someone else’s development means unpacking your own and becoming more conscious of the fibers which have come together to create your present. Opening space for another being to grow into their own future demands getting outside your present and loosening your hold on what you know to be true. How profound to regard a being for whom the meanings of words, theory of mind, or object permanence, have not become commonplace. This kind of self-work-for-another fits bell hooks’s definition of love as “the will to extend one’s self for the the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” The educators I most respect agree that adults have at least as much to learn from children as children have to learn from adults. With so much love and best wishes to you and your child.