Letter to My Child

Dear Noah,

First and most importantly, please know how much I love you. I cannot emphasize that enough. I have loved you since the very moment I knew of your existence and I have loved you every single second since. You and your brothers are the best things that have happened or will ever happen to me and nothing is more important to me than the three of you and your happiness. I want you to have a wonderful, full, authentic life full of happiness and love and inner peace.

I also want you to know that I understand the difficult position you are in. I know that it is really difficult to feel like you are stuck in the middle between two different belief systems. That’s hard. Here’s the thing though. Even within the same belief system, people have a wide range of personal beliefs and applications of those beliefs. So no matter what you choose, it will still come down to what resonates with you personally. And no one can decide any of that except for you. And that could also change over time as you go throughout your life. It did for me, and it does for many people. The point is that you have the right to believe whatever you want to believe – regardless of who else in your life believes it. You could even choose something completely different from anyone else.

The reason I feel it is so important to talk to you about these things is that you are coming to an age where you have some big life decisions to make. I don’t say that to put any kind of pressure on you, but it’s just the reality of the situation. And even though very few decisions in life are permanent, and you have the right to change your mind about things later, it is always best to make decisions with as much information as possible – particularly decisions that will affect your life in such profound ways.

Finally, I want you to know that I support your right to make whatever decision is right for you. This doesn’t necessarily mean I will always agree with your decisions. Hopefully I will, but my love for you can never be affected by what decisions you make for your own life. And I want for us to always be close regardless. However, it is not okay for you to make important decisions based on partial information. It’s important to keep an open mind, be willing to listen and learn from all sides, and then make informed choices. And always listen to yourself and trust yourself – your own inner voice can help guide you in living your own best life. While feelings are not a good way to determine external truths (more on that later!), your own feelings are a great way to determine internal truth – what is important to YOU, what resonates with YOU, how YOU feel about things, what you want for YOUR life. Listen to yourself and trust your own inner voice and be brave in following your own inner voice.

As we go through our discussions every week, please know that I have your best interest in mind. It is my job as your mom to teach you and guide you. I would never want to withhold information from you that may affect how you feel or what choices you make. Although some of these conversations might be hard for you, please know that doesn’t mean they aren’t right or important to have. The last thing I would want is for you to find out about things later in your life and then know that I knew and didn’t tell you about them. That wouldn’t be fair at all. I will try my very best to make our discussions informative but not overwhelming. But there is a lot of stuff to cover, and I do feel very passionately about all of this! So be patient with me too honey. I am doing my best and I love you so much.

Love,

Mom