- Every stage of parenthood brings about very unique, specific, emotional, and spiritual challenges. For the infancy stage and the toddler hood stage there are so many spiritual lessons for the parent. Let's talk about infancy for a moment. You know, here comes this infant completely engrossed in their primal need. And, if we understand it in spiritual terms, they are devoid of intellectualization. They're completely in emotion. In their being state they are divorced from doing. They do not care about appearances or all the things that we parents are concerned about. So they kind of compel the parent to enter their own being state. And this can be a challenge for some parents. Fathers typically, research has shown, find it very hard to connect with infants because fathers typically, men typically, are primed for action, primed for doing, primed for some sort of intellectual conversation. So, just to be in that non-verbal primal state of being is a challenge. But, precisely there lies the spiritual jewel, because we are forced to enter in to this very quiet, spacious, stillness where we connect with our infant, being to being. There is no pressure or burden for performance or any sort of external anxiety. Then comes the toddler. And the toddler comes with it's own storm of chaos. You know, I don't believe there's any planet quite like toddler hood. The toddler comes with over the top emotions, unpredictability, chaos. I write in my book that there isn't a broom wide enough to sweep away the dust and grime of toddler hood. The toddler is so budding in independence, yet so helpless. The spiritual lesson for toddler hood, I think, for the parent, is to dance that fine line between holding the toddler in their helplessness, yet freeing the toddler in their autonomy. And this constant push and pull, and being able to stay in that space and doing the dance moment by moment, allowing the toddler to evolve or regress is the spiritual task of the parent.