Letting go starts early

Being a parent is tough.You create this tiny human. This little person you suddenly feel entirely responsible for, and from the very beginning, you want to do it right. Whatever “right” means.

You bring your own childhood into it. The way you were raised. The things you promised yourself you’d do the same. The things you promised you wouldn’t. You want them to have a good life. To turn out okay. To be happy, whatever that looks like.

But very quickly, sometimes even before the baby is born, you’re hit with the first lesson: you’re not in control.

Not of the birth. Not of the timing. Not of how it all unfolds. Even if you schedule a cesarean, trust me, life finds ways to surprise you.

It’s a strange thing, realizing that something so enormous can begin with so little control. And it doesn’t end there. Because the child you get? They might not be anything like the one you imagined. They might challenge you, or confuse you, or frustrate you in completely unexpected ways. Or maybe they don’t challenge you at all, which is somehow just as disorienting.

And that’s where it begins.

Parenthood, I’ve learned, is one long, quiet exercise in learning to let go.

There’s this popular quote people like to say: that when you become a parent, it’s like a piece of your heart walks around outside your body. It’s poetic, sure, but it never quite landed for me. It makes it sound like love and loss are the whole story. But there’s more.

There’s another one: teach them how to fly so they can soar. But even that feels a little off. Because I don’t think it’s about teaching them to fly the way we know how to fly. It’s about helping them learn how to use their own wings. The ones we can’t fully control. The ones that might move in directions we didn’t expect.

They might crash a little.

Bump their heads.

Wander off course.

But that’s how it works.

That’s how it’s supposed to work.

The hardest part isn’t just the letting go. It’s doing it while loving them so fiercely you want to wrap them in bubble wrap. It’s stepping back while every instinct wants to step in.

That balance, between love and release, is the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried to learn. And no one really prepares you for it.

Letting go doesn’t start when they move out.

It starts when they take their first steps.

When they say their first stubborn no.

When they form their own opinions, pick their own clothes, make friends you don’t understand, and ask questions you’re not ready for.

Parenthood is not a story of control. It’s the slow, aching art of becoming unnecessary ... while still being everything.