Owning Our Past Allows Us To Own

All Of Us Gardeners Know That Nothing Comes Out The Way You Planned. It's A Different Garden Every Year, And It's Always Sort Of Different From What You Were Thinking When You Began. What It Really Means To Be A Good Gardener Is To Work Hard To Produce An Ecosystem That Will Have Enough Diversity, Enough Possibilities, So It's Robust, And It's Resilient, And It Can Change When The Seasons Change. And That Kind Of Robust, Unexpected, Variable, Messy System - That's What You Want To Create When You're Having Children, Too.

If Parents Are The Fixed Stars In The Childs Universe, The Vaguely Understood, Distant But Constant Celestial Spheres, Siblings Are The Dazzling, Sometimes Scorching Comets Whizzing Nearby.

People Talked About Being A Parent, Or Being A Mother Or A Father. We Don't Talk About "wiving" Our Husbands Or "friending" Our Friends, Or "childing" Our Parents. We Just Talk About Being In A Relationship With Those People. You Don't Measure Whether Your Marriage Was Good Based On Whether Or Not Your Husband Is Better Now Than He Was 10 Years Ago, Or Whether Your Friend Is Richer Than When They First Became Your Friend. The Relationships Between Parents And Children Is A Kind Of Love, Rather Than A Kind Of Work.

The Brain Knows The Real Secret Of Seduction, More Effective Than Even Music And Martinis. Just Keep Whispering, 'gee, You Are Really Special' To That Sack Of Water And Protein That Is A Body, And You Can Get It To Do Practically Anything.

There Is A Tension Between Our Desire To Get Our Kids To Turn Out A Particular Way Versus Letting Them Develop To Be Their Own Person. If There Were A Pill That Would Make My Child Turn Out The Way I Wanted, I'm Not Sure I'd Take It.