Dear Readers,
When I first learned I was going to become a mother, I devoured books about parenting. At the time, a fierce debate raged between parenting philosophies, centered largely on sleep training.
One camp advocated “cry it out”—a euphemism for leaving your newborn to wail until they learn to “self-soothe” and conform to a schedule. This approach promised rest for mothers and nervous system regulation that would supposedly serve children long-term.
The opposing philosophy was attachment parenting, where infants were never left to cry themselves to sleep but instead kept close to skin and breath, comforted on demand.
Since babies cannot articulate their needs and the science remained conflicted, choosing between these approaches required pure instinct. During pregnancy, I found this deeply confusing—reading countless books that championed either method without being able to discern which was truly better. But once my son arrived, the choice became crystal clear. Letting him cry felt entirely unnatural, regardless of what other parents believed. My instinct led me toward attachment, and I never regretted following it.
Parenting is a minefield of choices. Styles cycle through generations like fashion trends—one generation spoils, the next disciplines. But both miss the essential point.
The Brine They Soak In
It matters less what we do to our children than who we are to them.
We exhaust ourselves fretting over the mechanics of child-rearing—which school, which sport, which activities—while neglecting to examine our own consciousness, the very brine our children marinate in from conception onward.
You cannot fake consciousness; it transmits with complete transparency who you truly are.
Now, close to launching my eldest son into the world, I’m surrounded by advice about what mothers are supposed to do to ensure successful launches. The college preparation industry particularly pressures parents to view teenagers as bundles of resources to be optimized rather than emerging souls to be awakened.
Amid all the pressure to find the perfect summer program to help my son excel in this extractive paradigm, I chose the opposite path.
I sent him to apprentice with different forms of masculine consciousness—to absorb their way of being rather than merely their way of doing.
Lessons from the Wild
When I was in my twenties, I fell in love with a mountain climber in Chile. He was a master of the wild, able to traverse the tundra for days without maps. My suburban self was laughably inexperienced beside him—a constant source of gentle amusement.
I didn’t know how to gather clean water, navigate terrain, pack efficiently, or even walk properly in wilderness. He taught me to trust my feet by demonstrating his absolute trust in his own.
Sometimes he would glance at me sideways, smiling, as I slid down muddy slopes with my pack threatening to topple me, as if to ask, “Don’t you know how to live?” The truth was, I didn’t. He taught me not through words but in the silence between them. In the spaciousness he created by moving with such stillness through the vast Patagonian wilderness that was his home.
I remember scaling a wind-whipped mountain for hours, passing puma caves and condor nests, when I spotted a tiny crystal in the brush. “Maybe I’m starting to get it,” I thought, because finally I could see what stillness reveals—a one-inch quartz hidden among the scrub.
He showed me that grace lives in the very way our feet meet the earth. Ever since, I’ve held at arm’s length anyone who stomps through life, anyone who has forgotten how to dance.
Spirit Over Skills
I always imagined sending my children to learn from him, but decades later, we lost touch. While our culture obsesses over internships for college applications, we’ve nearly abandoned the ancient art of apprenticeships that prepare young people to become conscious beings.
Each summer, I’ve encouraged my son to shadow different humans—sobriety coaches, healers, business leaders, investors, or simply those who are wild and awake. In each apprenticeship, I hoped he would absorb their way of being, their consciousness. It was always more about spirit than skills.
I have only one year left before my first son leaves home. The bulk of parenting lies behind me; his future belongs more to him than to me now.
If I could offer one piece of guidance to parents beginning this journey, it would be this: the quality of your consciousness will impact who your children become more than any other factor. This doesn’t require perfection—it requires the profound authenticity of showing up as your truest self and letting that light shine through, unfiltered.
The children are always soaking in the brine of who we are.
So let it be sacred. Let it be real.
In Everything We Trust,
Sylvia
