This is What It Costs

We’ve been quoting recently from the old children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, about a toy that’s so loved by a young boy that it becomes real. This is a great metaphor for parenting in a way. Because that’s what’s happening to us. We made a decision to have kids many years ago and then for years that decision works on us, shaping, changing, transforming us. No part of that is more powerful than the love and energy of our children—whose joy, whose innocence, whose pain, whose growth is worki...