Read the first week

A gentle beginning. Start here. Take your time.

A gentle beginning

Our parents learned to love us the best way they knew how.

They were not perfect.

They raised their voices when they felt helpless. They stayed silent when emotions had no language. Sometimes they hurt us — through words, gestures, or absence. And yet, they were often doing the best they could with what they had.

They raised us in a world where children were expected to be “well-behaved” rather than understood. They did not have access to the knowledge we have today. They did not know the language of emotions. They did not know how to build the kind of closeness they themselves had often never experienced.

And although there was love, for many of us there was pain too.

Then we grow up.

And sometimes those experiences quietly return — in our own parenting.