Dear kids not yet parents,

You may feel much of the story of your parents through the ways they raise you, but you will be joining in the middle.

You won’t know the beginning.

You won’t see your parents navigating your arrival.

Their struggles of learning to be parents.

Coming head-on with everything they never knew they needed to be.

And they will try their hardest and be exhausted.

You will never know this. Any of this.

Because you will get the best of them, they will save that for you.

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And sometimes you’ll also get their ugliness, and when this happens, they will lie in bed crying and mulling over everything they wish they had done differently at that moment with you.

There will be times you are sick, and they will be scared yet never show you.

They will believe in you more than anything.

They will love you more than anything.

And you will remember them showing up at your events, and your birthday parties, all of the holidays, and as the years pass, more and more memories will come.

And then one day, when you are starting the journey of becoming a parent, you will go to them to hear “the beginning.”

You will hear all the stories you never knew to ask but do now.

They will tell you what was really happening in those first years you were born.

You will hear about the struggles and the joy—there will be several funny stories that are so real nobody can make them up. You will all laugh together.

And at this moment, you will connect as parents, finally seeing the beginning of your story.

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You will begin to understand more of the story, the story of how your parents learned to become your parents.

And you will only understand the depth of what your parents share because you are now living your own version of being a parent, knowing all that really happens behind the scenes.

You will only learn the beginning when you become parents.

And your parents will love getting to relive these memories with you, seeing you raise their grandchildren.

The circle will be complete.