Also, I just wanted to thank you for the content of your emails, both this one and the one just before Christmas. What you are talking about in both is incredibly helpful to me as I trudge on through this often lonely process known as parenting kids "with issues." It's helpful because it 1) definitely reminds me that I am not alone on this journey and 2) stops me from just going on automatic out of exhaustion and lack of imagination.
Among the things you mentioned that resonated with me particularly (besides, frankly ALL OF WHAT YOU SAID), are the issues of telling our kids that we, too, struggled, made mistakes, were scared, tried things that worked out and other things that didn't. And the fact that you and Katie created this opportunity for moms like us to be listened to. It's different, it seems to me, than the kind of listening that happens in a therapist or psychiatrist's office. It is so healing in the atmosphere you have created because it's not a transactional kind of listening--the way it would be, frankly, when there's a co-pay involved, if you catch my drift. The way you listened to your partner, I suspect he felt that he could go on for as long as he needed to without you staying that it was time to wrap it up... or that it was now your turn. This has become incredibly rare in our society. I am incredibly lucky to have this kind of listening skill in my own family with my sisters. But the fact that the Warrior Moms has created and sustained this is very, very special.
So thank you again.
All of you are the gift that keeps giving and it is very much appreciated.