This may sound backwards to some, but we truly do believe in this philosophy. We live our lives as 2 people who happy to have kids; we do not live for our kids. We go out on regular date nights (yes without our kids, gasp!). We don’t let our kids sleep in our bed, but we will settle them down and put them back to bed if they wake up. We love, and kiss, and hug our kids, but we do not coddle them. We expect our kids to learn by doing, and learn to fix something by doing as well. Doing something for them doesn’t help them at all. We are raising the future adults of the world, and while they need to have fun, play, get messy, make mistakes, and all that goes with it, we need to set them up for success in life by learning how to work through things and learn the lesson. Let me make this clear, I would lay my life down for my kid in a heartbeat should it come to it, but I want them to know that my life does not revolve around them. Here is the most important way: love, hug, kiss, fight, argue, make-up, cry, and most of all respect your partner. By doing this I am giving them the best thing they can have, and that is a good role model for parents to show my kids what they should look for in life. I don’t care who they choose to spend their life with, but they better be able to do all of the above or I have failed myself as a parent.

Being as I already chose the person I want to live my life with, I want to know them. I don’t want to find in 20+ years that I’ve spent raising my kids with someone that when they move out, I won’t know my partner. I want to evolve each year that goes by to a higher understanding of each other so that when the kids go off to college and then eventually move out, I will be more in love than I’ve ever been before. This seems to be opposite to popular opinions I’ve seen, but Mr. Right and I are actually closer now and more open with each other since having kids. We have more sex, and it’s way better than it used to be. This has all come about with having an open-mind and willingness to please the other. It all comes back to communication. If you have fears, express them. If you have desires, express them. To the partner on the receiving end: don’t judge, simply listen, assess, and decide if you feel the same. No one person is perfect for you, the person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement.