Crystyl
Before we had Phoenix I did a lot of inner work, my own inner work and processing. Then together Anthony and I read a lot. We talked a lot about how we wanted to be parents and what kind we wanted to be. We were very intentional about it. By the time she was born, we felt really so united in everything about our philosophy of raising her.
I have a lot more self-compassion after having a child because when you look at her as a two year old, a three year old or a five year old and then you think about what you went through at that age and how your parents were there or were not there for you, and you can see how much of an impact everything you do and say has on her. You can really have compassion for what you went through yourself in a new way because you can see how vulnerable she is. So that was very powerful for me. It continues to be. I continue to learn more about myself.
Because Anthony and I work for ourselves, we can have a flexible schedule and we both spend a lot of time with her and with each other. We live a frugal life in order to have total flexibility and to spend more time as a family. Our priorities are our relationships, independence and only working on projects we’re passionate about.
We were together eight years before we had her. We worked through a lot of stuff in our relationship. We weren’t having fights about understanding who the other person was or what they wanted from life. We’d already done all that work. That made a huge difference in what kind of parents we could be.
