Dear Daniel, (advice about instincts)

On this day of travel, I find it appropriate that I've been thinking about instincts a lot lately. My sweet boy, following your instincts might just be the most important lesson you'll ever learn (over and over) in your life.

There's something in our society (or perhaps it is human nature?) that teaches us to doubt ourselves when we have a strong feeling about something. But I tell you: do not doubt! If you're talking to someone and something about them makes you have a bad feeling, you can walk away—you don't have to be polite. Trust your intuition.

I remember when I flew on planes by myself when I was a child, my mom telling me that if I ever got lost, to go to someone who "looked nice" (or someone I recognized from the plane I was on, like a flight attendant) to ask for help. I appreciate that she never said a blanket statement like, "go to someone in a uniform," because sometimes bad people dress up like police officers to get trust from children. She always emphasized that I go to someone who felt safe to me, effectively suggesting that I trust my instincts about them.

I'm finding, as a parent, my instincts are all I really have. I can read books and take in endless advice, but at the end of the day I have to be comfortable with my parenting decisions, so I follow my instincts. If I do what feels natural in a situation, instead of trying to follow someone else's prescribed parenting rules, I have fewer regrets. This was true when your pediatrician thought I was breastfeeding you wrong, and it's been true about discovering the cause of your excessive crying, and helping you through it. (It's not colic, you don't have reflux, I'm not stressing you out, and it's not just your personality—you have an actual, diagnosed wiring problem in your brain, and we're working on helping you to re-wire yourself!)

Sometimes, following your instincts is hard to do, because you have to go against what someone is telling you to do. Sometimes I might even be that person. But please let this over-shadow whatever crappy and unhelpful advice I may be giving you in that moment: I don't know you better than you know yourself.

My child, in your life, it will ultimately be beneficial to you to follow your instincts consistently, even if it doesn't always feel good in the moment.

Trust yourself, because you know yourself best.

Love,
Momma

Dear Daniel, (advice about expectations)

You don't get to choose your parents. You do, however, get to choose your friends and your lovers, your life-partner or spouse. You can choose not to partner yourself with someone, or you could choose more than one person (and good luck with that!).

There is one great thing about getting to choose who to be in intimate relationships with. You are ultimately in control of the kinds of people you allow in your life—you don't have to take crap from people who should be treating you well. (This even applies to your boss, if you have one, but that's another topic altogether.)

In college, I took a class about marriage. For this class, I had to interview a couple who had been married more than ten years and one who had been married less than five years. I asked lots of questions of these two couples, but one thing has stuck in my mind from the talk with the couple who had been married twenty years. These people are very dear to me, and very wise. I look up to them very much and seeing them together inspires me in my marriage. The bit of advice that they gave me was this: the basis for most arguments and disappointment is unmet or mismanaged expectations. Let your expectations be known, try to meet the other person's expectations as best you can, and things will go well.

This means that if you want a gift for Valentine's Day, tell the other person that you're expecting a gift. Trust me—it doesn't ruin the surprise. What it does do is keep you from being disappointed when your partner can't read your mind. When you don't make your expectations clear, and you end up seriously lacking in the flowers and chocolates department, that can really ruin your day! On the flip side of that, if your partner says to you, "I'm expecting you to take the trash out when it gets full," (provided you feel the division of labor is fair and you both have the same definition for "full") you should probably take out the trash. Things will be better all around.

Along the same lines, if someone you're in relationship with refuses to make his expectations clear, and expects you instead to read his mind or anticipate his needs...well, that's not going to be fun for either of you. You have the power to choose not to be in relationship with people who want to play games with you. You have the power to choose not to be in relationship with people who tell you they're going to do something and then don't follow through.

(I would also suggest that you try to interact with people using direct communication, and request that they also communicate back to you directly, but that is also a topic for another day.)

These are hard lessons to figure out, Little One...I'm still working at them, myself. Good thing you have so much time to learn.

Love,
Momma

Dear Daniel, (advice about parents)

You didn't get to choose your parents—not intentionally anyway. Perhaps in some cosmic sense, your spirit/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it chose your dad's and my whatever-you-want-to-call-it. But, in this concrete world, in this permutation of our existence, you didn't choose us; I didn't choose my parents and your dad didn't choose his.

Here's the thing about parents: they(we) will disappoint you. I will disappoint you, and you need to know that those moments will suck for both of us. You also need to know that I promise you, I will always try my hardest to make it better. If I hurt your feelings or if I let you down, let me know if I don't know already, and I will do everything in my power to make things right between us.

There will come a time in your life when you will get to choose whether you want to be in relationship with your parents. I hope when that time comes, we won't have given you any reason to even think about not being in our lives. But I know that sometimes (grown) children have to make the difficult decision to end communication and/or relationship with their parent(s), and I can understand how someone would come to that conclusion.

Also please know that I will not choose to end my relationship with you. I will always try to be there for you and support you in the ways that I can, and in the ways you find most helpful. (So please let me know when I'm not doing so well at it!)

In the same way, I will let you know (when it is appropriate) if you ever hurt my feelings or disappoint me. It's only fair that someday our relationship will be much more two-way, although I will always be your Momma. (As an aside, I don't want you to worry about disappointing me with the choices you make. As long as you're safe and happy, I may not understand your decisions, but I will be happy for you and I will support you in making your own decisions.)

I will disappoint you, but I hope you will forgive me. I love you tons.

Love,
Momma

Dear Daniel, (a few thoughts about road rage)

The other day we were riding in the car and some other drivers were very angry at each other and one of them started honking her horn to get her point across. I admit that I do not know all of the things that happened that provoked her to do that, but I didn't think it was an appropriate time to use the car horn.

Daniel, some day you will drive without me in the car, and I have a few things to say about road rage. Firstly, it's really not worth it. There's no where you have to be on time that is worth getting into an accident. (This applies to being in a hurry, also—ask me about the time I totaled my car.) Secondly, you getting angry inside your car doesn't necessarily have any effect on other drivers—it just harms you.

I guess this is where the horn-honking comes in. I realize that in certain parts of the country, liberal use of the horn is part of driving culture. I suppose in those cases you can follow the "When in Rome..." adage. However, generally speaking, don't angrily lay on your horn with the purpose of expressing your frustration. Reserve use of your horn for when another driver is doing something dangerous that they need to be aware of. If someone starts merging into you because you are in their blind spot, hit your brakes (first, to protect yourself) and your horn (second, to alert the other driver of your presence).

Your dad has taught me that it's far more fun for everyone to confuse other drivers than to be angry with them. For instance, when someone cuts him off in traffic, instead of honking his horn, tailgating them or giving them the finger, your dad waves at them vigorously (sometimes while grinning) as if he's saying "Thank you so much for cutting me off!" or "Hello there, old friend!" When the other driver tentatively waves back with that perplexed look on his face, we have a good laugh.

All this to say: your life is precious, and it is way more important than making any point to a bad driver or getting somewhere on time. I know you'll be a good driver but I don't know about all the other drivers out there, so while you're at it, always wear your seat belt.

Love,
Momma

Dear Daniel, (advice about advice)

I had this conversation with you while you were still in utero, but I wanted to get it down in text so you can read it someday. I also thought it would be a good preface to any future advice I have for you:

My dear child, people will be telling you what to do your whole life. Some of them know what they're talking about, and others don't. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) you will have to decide which one is which. Some people will tell you their opinions on things, and expect that you will adopt that same opinion just because they think they're smarter than you are for disagreeing with them.

Even I will give you advice and tell you what to do, and hopefully you'll listen to the valuable things that I tell you and disregard the rest. I am under no illusion that I have all the answers, and I also know that some day you will be smarter than I am, because that's just the natural way of things. But until you are old enough to make your own decisions, I will make them for you, and I know this will be a gradual process of you accepting more responsibility and control over your life and me letting go.

Ultimately, you will get to (and have to) make all of the choices about how you are going to live your life, what you believe, and how you will treat people. And I know you'll do the best you can; we all do.

Trust yourself.

Love,
Momma