At 39, everything started to feel… off.

My migraines came back with a vengeance.
My hair started falling out.
My mood felt extra sensitive, short-tempered, and unpredictable.
There were long stretches where I genuinely wondered if my ADHD medication had just stopped working altogether.
And my libido? Honestly, what libido?

For nearly a year, I told myself it was just stress.
Work stress. Parenting stress. Life stress.
(Relatable?)

Every explanation made sense on the surface, and yet something still didn’t add up. My body felt different in a way I couldn’t quite name.

It wasn’t until I listened to a podcast episode about perimenopause that a quiet but persistent thought surfaced:
What if this isn’t just stress?

That question changed everything.

Discover small, creative ways parents can build community, raise kids to question authority, and find joy while engaging in social change.

When the world feels unbearably heavy, it’s tempting to numb out or doom-scroll our way through the day. But in doing so, we miss an essential human need: contribution. Just as we nurture our children’s core needs, we must remember our own—including the need to matter, to belong, and to make a difference. In filling another’s cup, we often discover our own is replenished too.

When my heart starts to crack open under the weight of the world, I come back to a simple question:
What is mine to do today?

That question doesn’t fix everything. But it reminds me that while I can’t do everything, I can do something.
And you can too.

If we reframe parenting as a leadership practice, it opens up new possibilities for growth—not just in our roles as parents, but in how we show up in our work, communities, and relationships.

We don’t have to punish ourselves, either.

Embracing Our Imperfections and Cultivating Emotional Resilience

Here are the three lessons I hope parents take from my experience.

Uncovering a values-based approach to parenting.