If I’m honest (and I always want to be honest), my parenting experience has been more comparable to a caregiver in rubber boots, walking through six inches of muck. It’s like navigating a dark labyrinth of thick, wet soil, and sometimes, on the hardest days, the mud sucks the boot straight off my foot, and I’m left barefoot, ankle deep in that shit.

Maybe this is too honest, and maybe I’ll regret sharing it, but the joy of teaching my son to fly—however that may uniquely look for him—is often overshadowed by the needs of the moment. Parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.