Raising Relationships

The conversations we never had shaped me as much as the ones we did. My mother began preparing me for relationships early, offering nuggets of wisdom I absorbed without many questions. I didn’t realize then how fortunate I was. Our first and most formative relationship is with our parents—they equip us for every connection that follows, often in ways neither of us fully recognize until years later. This truth hit home recently as I watched my 30-year-old daughter navigate her first significant relationship and the painful aftermath of its ending. Her journey illuminated both what I had given her and what I wished I’d known to share.  

The love stories that captivate us on screen often reveal profound truths about how childhood experiences shape adult relationships. It examines characters from classics like “The Notebook,” analyzing how their relationship behaviors might connect to their childhood experiences. Consider Noah from “The Notebook,” whose passionate persistence suggests he was raised in a home where emotional expressiveness was valued and where he learned that love is worth fighting for. 

These characters remind us that our earliest relationships don’t just influence our love stories—they often write the first chapters. This blog is my offering to parents seeking to prepare their children for the beautiful, complicated world of relationships—lessons learned, sometimes the hard way.