“When we stop fighting against death, we are able to wake up to our lives.”

“More often than not, it’s disrespectful to them (our children) - and disrespectful to their struggle with their tasks in life- if our own anxiety as parents makes us cling to our children. It’s disrespectful is we demand more intimacy than they are willing or able to give. Too much involvement with our children is not an act of love- it’s an act of selfishness.”

“We parents are in the process of losing parts of ourselves, of waking up each morning to find ourselves changed by our children. We may fantasize that we are not really changed, that we can go back to poring over Wittgenstein, immersing ourselves in the latest movies, being beach bums- whatever it was that we were before the child or children came into our lives. But part of what we have lost is the part of our identity that is the person-without-children. The parent we are now has a life inextricably entwined not only without our past life and our private selves but also with the lives of our children.”

“When we stop fighting against death, we are able to wake up to our lives.”