Joe describes raising his daughters as “the work” — the most important work he ever did for his own freedom and joy. All the spiritual and emotional development before kids was, in his words, not fully practical or real-world. You can fool yourself on a meditation pillow; you cannot fool yourself with a colicky infant screaming for five hours every night.
“You can pretend you’re at peace, you can pretend you’re awake — but yeah, how patient are you really?”
The feedback loop is immediate and honest. Kids don’t care about your spiritual credentials. They reveal exactly where you’re still defended, frustrated, or performing. This makes parenting a uniquely powerful ego-dissolution practice — not because you try to be perfect, but because the failures are impossible to hide from yourself.
Related Concepts
- Parenting as ego dissolution
- Parenting as self-development practice
- Connection is the core of parenting
- Teaching children to reference themselves builds their internal compass
- To not harm your children, love yourself