Managing Family Expectations: When Your Parents Want Different Things for Your Kids
There is a particular tension that arises when you become a parent and suddenly your parents have opinions about how you should raise your children. They have ideas about feeding and sleeping and discipline and education. They have traditions they expect you to continue. They have judgments about your choices that they may or may […]
Regaining Intimacy After Kids: When You’re More Co-Parents Than Lovers
There is a transformation that happens slowly, almost imperceptibly, in the years after children arrive. You start as lovers who become parents. You end as parents who used to be lovers. The shift is so gradual that you might not notice it happening until you realize you have not touched each other with desire in […]
Aligning Parenting Styles: When You Approach Discipline Differently
There comes a moment in every parenting partnership when you realize you are not on the same page. Maybe it is when your toddler throws a tantrum in the grocery store and one of you wants to ignore it while the other wants to leave immediately. Maybe it is when your child refuses to do […]
When Arguments Happen in Front of the Kids: How to Repair and Reconnect
Every parent knows the moment. You are tired, stressed, stretched thin. Your partner says something that hits a nerve. You respond with more irritation than the comment deserved. They defend themselves. You escalate. Before you know it, you are arguing in front of your children, and you cannot seem to stop. Afterward, you feel guilty. […]
When One Parent Is the ‘Default’: Breaking the Invisible Labor Divide
There is a pattern that emerges in many homes after the baby arrives. It is subtle at first, barely noticeable. One parent becomes the keeper of all the information. They know when the doctor appointments are scheduled. They know what size diapers to buy. They know which foods the toddler will actually eat. They are […]
Becoming Parents for the First Time: Questions That Ease the Transition
There is a particular kind of disorientation that comes with becoming a parent for the first-time parents. You have spent your entire life as someone’s child, someone’s friend, someone’s partner. You have known who you are and what your life looks like. Then, in a single moment, everything changes. You are still all those things, […]
50 Conversations Every Couple Must Have Before Trying to Conceive
There is a moment that comes for many couples, a moment when the abstract idea of having a baby becomes a concrete possibility. Maybe it is when you finish graduate school. Maybe it is when you buy a house. Maybe it is when you look at each other and realize you are ready for the […]
When You’re Running on Empty: Staying a Team Through Sleep Deprivation
There is a particular kind of desperation that comes from months of broken sleep. It is not just fatigue. It is something deeper, something that erodes your patience, your compassion, your ability to see your partner as someone you love rather than someone who is failing to help enough. When you are running on empty, […]
What Kind of Parents Do We Want to Be? 40 Questions for Your Vision
There is a peculiar kind of amnesia that sets in after you become parents. You forget who you were before. You forget what you wanted. You forget the vision you had for your family. You get swept up in the daily chaos of feeding and sleeping and surviving, and suddenly years have passed and you […]
When You Grew Up Differently: Aligning Your Parenting Philosophies
There is a particular kind of tension that emerges in the quiet moments after the baby arrives. It is the tension of realizing that the person you love most in the world grew up in a completely different universe than you did. Their normal was not your normal. Their family’s way of doing things feels […]
