I

CHAPTER 7

The Challenge of a Lifetime

Infancy and the “Terrible Two’s”

n the dance of parent and child, we affect each other in complex
ways, shaping each other and imprinting ourselves on each other’s
psyche. For this reason, each of the developmental stages our
children go through provide abundant space for the evolvement of both
parent and child, offering us gateways to a more conscious experience of
ourselves as parents.
Visits to the pediatrician’s office don’t generally involve conversation
about the inner connection between parent and child. Neither do they
focus on the imperative we have as parents to become aware of our
unconsciousness and how it affects our children’s development much
more than how early they learn to read and write or which school they
attend. Even more in the shadows is the fact that just as there are
physical and intellectual milestones we want our children to attain, the
parenting journey presents us as parents with spiritual milestones we too
need to attain.
The emotional and spiritual significance of each stage of our child’s
development is often obscured by what we think of as more “practical”
concerns, such as nutrition, sleep patterns, and behavioral issues. For this
reason, to identify these milestones our eyes need to be trained to look at
each developmental stage in a manner that transcends the physical and
cognitive, instead going to the heart of the matter—the spiritual