When the boy my partner and I raised unexpectedly first came into our home, we had so many theoretical or philosophical conversations about him. Now was our chance to be the kind of parents we always swore we would be!

Of course we would not make the mistakes our own parents had. We would not be controlling, we would always be affirming and loving. He would thrive under our care because our ideologies were GOOD, well thought out, and would be carefully implemented.

Then we began to parent an actual human being who obviously did not come into the world with our perspectives and experiences, did not fit neatly into our ideas about how things should be.

It’s a trite thing to say we learned as much from him as he did from us. But there’s some truth to that. A lot of what my partner and I talked about early on went out the window. When a human being you love fiercely cannot adapt to your ideas, your ideas have to change.

Maybe that’s important in many other ways than parenting.