The Life We Didn't Plan: What Parenting, Advocacy & Partnership Have Taught Us

There are so many moments in parenting when you realize you're standing somewhere you never expected to be.

Sometimes those moments are beautiful.

Sometimes they're incredibly hard.

And sometimes they're both.

When I became a mom at 20, I certainly didn't have a five-, ten-, or fifteen-year plan for what my life would look like. My oldest son, Jacob, was born deaf, and his diagnosis opened the door to a world I knew absolutely nothing about.

At the time, I couldn't have imagined how much that one little person would change the trajectory of my life.

He wouldn't just change my understanding of parenting.

He would ultimately influence my career, my advocacy work, the communities I became part of, and the work I now do with other families.

And then there was Dillon.

Dillon wasn't there from the beginning. We met when Jacob was one, which meant that he wasn't simply entering a relationship with me.

He was entering a family.

And nearly 17 years later, we're still figuring it out.

This year, as we celebrate 15 years of marriage, we decided to have a conversation about what those years have actually looked like.

Not the polished version.

The real version.

The version that includes parenting, advocacy, neurodivergence, difficult seasons, marriage, mistakes, growth, and a whole lot of figuring things out as we go.

Parenting doesn't come with a rulebook

One of the things that stood out to me most during our conversation was how much parenting has evolved for both of us.

Early on, Dillon joked that he essentially followed my lead.

I was the one immersed in the world of parenting, deaf education, advocacy, and eventually speech-language pathology.

But over time, we've learned that parenting isn't black and white.

There aren't always clear rules.

There are different seasons where one parent may take the lead while the other focuses on something else.

And that's okay.

I think sometimes we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to have perfectly equal roles.

But equal doesn't always mean identical.

Sometimes one person carries more of one thing while the other carries more of something else.

The goal isn't necessarily to divide everything down the middle.

The goal is to build a team where both people feel valued and where the family gets what it needs.

Know your strengths and use them

One of the things that makes Dillon and me work well as a parenting team is that we are very different.

I'm much more of a big-picture person.

Dillon is the data person.

When we're dealing with school, advocacy, or a complicated situation, I may be thinking about the bigger themes and what needs to happen next.

Dillon is happy to dig into the details.

He'll research.

He'll find the information.

He'll gather the data.

He'll make the phone call.

He'll figure out the facts.

And that has been incredibly valuable.

Because advocacy doesn't require one person to know everything.

It requires people to bring different strengths to the table.

Maybe you're the person who understands your child's needs best.

Maybe your partner is the person who is comfortable asking difficult questions.

Maybe one of you keeps track of appointments while the other researches services.

Maybe one person communicates with the school while the other organizes the documentation.

There is no one “right” way to divide those responsibilities.

The important thing is that you're functioning as a team.

The invisible work behind “well-behaved” kids

One of the most important points Dillon made during our conversation was about the work people don't see.

People might look at your child and think:

“They're so well behaved.”

And maybe they are.

But what they don't see is everything that happened before that moment.

They don't see the conversations.

The teaching.

The preparation.

The boundaries.

The emotional regulation.

The discussions afterward.

The countless times you've practiced what to do in a particular situation.

They see the outcome.

They don't see the work.

And this is especially important for parents of children with additional needs.

A child can look like they're “doing fine” from the outside while a tremendous amount of work is happening behind the scenes.

That doesn't mean we should excuse every behavior.

It means we should be careful about assuming that what we see in a five-minute interaction tells us everything about a child's needs or a parent's effort.

Our children don't need perfect parents

This was another theme that came up repeatedly during our conversation.

Neither of us believes we're perfect parents.

We aren't.

We've snapped.

We've forgotten things.

We've gotten frustrated.

We've handled situations poorly.

And we've had to apologize.

One of the things we've tried to be intentional about is allowing our kids to see that we're human.

If I snap at one of my kids, I can come back and say:

“I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I'm sorry.”

If Dillon forgets something he promised to do, he can acknowledge it.

We want our kids to know that mistakes don't automatically mean the relationship is broken.

Repair is possible.

I think that's something many of us didn't necessarily experience growing up.

Our parents weren't bad parents.

But many of us grew up in families where adults were placed on a pedestal.

They were the adults.

They were right.

And if you were upset, you were often left to assume that you were the problem.

I don't want that for my kids.

I want them to know that respect goes both ways.

Adults can be wrong.

Kids can be wrong.

And everyone can learn how to repair.

We're all parenting with our own baggage

Something else we discussed was how much our own childhood experiences influence the way we parent.

We don't enter parenthood as blank slates.

We bring our experiences with us.

The way we were disciplined.

The way emotions were handled.

The things our parents did really well.

The things we wish had been different.

And sometimes we repeat patterns without realizing it.

That's why intentional parenting matters so much to me.

We can decide:

This worked really well for me, and I want to continue it.

Or:

This didn't work for me, and I want to do something different.

But we can't make those choices if we never stop to examine the patterns we're carrying.

Protect your relationship, too

Parenting can consume your relationship if you let it.

And we've experienced that ourselves.

There was a period when we became more like roommates than partners.

The kids needed things.

Life was busy.

Schedules were complicated.

Finding childcare was hard.

And somewhere along the way, we stopped making our relationship a priority.

Thankfully, we recognized it.

And we started making intentional time for each other again.

Now that our boys are older, that might look like a date night.

Sometimes it's going out for a drink or appetizers in the middle of the week.

When your kids are younger, it may look completely different.

Maybe it's watching a show together after bedtime.

Maybe it's sitting on the couch for 30 minutes without discussing logistics.

Maybe it's playing a game.

It doesn't have to be elaborate.

But I do think it has to be intentional.

Because you aren't only parents.

You're people.

And you're partners.

Your relationship deserves space, too.

Your life may not look the way you planned

This may have been my favorite part of our entire conversation.

Because Dillon said something that I think so many parents need to hear:

Your life might not look the way you planned and it can still become something really beautiful.

Neither of us could have predicted this life.

I couldn't have predicted becoming a speech-language pathologist.

Dillon couldn't have predicted going back to college in his thirties.

We couldn't have predicted all of the people we would meet, the communities we would become part of, or the experiences that would shape our family.

And none of it happened according to some perfect master plan.

But looking back, I don't think either of us would trade it.

That's not because everything was easy.

It wasn't.

There were difficult seasons.

There were moments when we questioned what we were doing.

There were moments when life felt incredibly heavy.

But sometimes a difficult path opens doors that you never would have found on the easier one.

If you're in the thick of it right now

If you're parenting a child with additional needs and you're currently looking at your life thinking:

This isn't what I imagined.

I want you to know that you're allowed to grieve the expectations you had.

You're allowed to acknowledge that something is hard.

You're allowed to be tired.

You're allowed to wish some things were easier.

And you're also allowed to discover that the life you're building can be beautiful in ways you couldn't have predicted.

Those things can coexist.

You don't have to pretend the hard parts aren't hard in order to appreciate the good parts.

And maybe that's one of the biggest lessons the last 15 years have taught me.

We don't get to control every part of the story.

But we do get to decide how intentionally we show up for it.

We can choose our team.

We can choose how we communicate.

We can choose what patterns we carry forward.

We can choose what patterns we leave behind.

We can choose to advocate.

We can choose to listen.

We can choose to repair.

And sometimes, we can choose to keep going long enough to discover that the life we didn't plan is actually a life we love.

Listen to the conversation

This week on Parenthood Unscripted, I'm sitting down with my husband, Dillon, for a very personal conversation about nearly 17 years together and 15 years of marriage.

We talk about parenting a deaf child, neurodivergence, advocacy, the invisible work of parenting, unsolicited opinions, marriage, personal growth, and what happens when your life takes a completely different path than you expected. The episode drops September 4th.