The strongest start they can have is the two of you.
You are already doing it — in the small hours, in the supermarket queue, in the tea made before it was asked for. This gives it a name, and eight evenings to grow in.
Someone is on their way who has never existed before.
They already know your voices.
Becoming a parent asks more of you than any love you have known.
Whatever brought you here, the two of you are this child's first world.
I made the father of my children practise a nappy on a teddy bear.
He thought I was being ridiculous.
Then our baby came, and he said: I am so glad you made me do that.
This part, you can prepare for.
So you begin with each other.Months before the day comes.
A vow to someone not yet born.
Yours to give them, when you choose.
You walk out with five other couples.
Their children arrive the same month as yours. You will know their names before any of you has seen your own child's face — and at three in the morning, when you are certain you are getting it wrong, one of them is awake too.
The evenings end. What you built between you keeps going.
First birthdays in somebody's backyard. The school gate. And the same philosophy under all of it, chosen on purpose rather than picked up along the way — so your child grows up among children being raised the way you are raising yours.
Imagine her at fourteen, telling you the truth.
Telling you before she has worked out how you will take it, because she has never once had to. That girl is made in ten thousand ordinary minutes, and the first of them happen before she can speak.
Have a go at this one together.
One screen between you, seven questions, about ten minutes. You make it together, and you come away with the two of you as you are right now — which is the first world your child is born into. Some of it you say out loud rather than type.
AMAE · 甘え
Eight evenings, together, before your child arrives.
- Eight evenings, the two of you, before they arrive
- The work on each other first, because that is the work on your child
- A vow in your own words, said out loud on the last night
- Five other couples who become the people you telephone at midnight
- $400 for the two of you
In a room
Six couples, together, carrying what you are carrying. You say your vow out loud on the last evening in front of people who understand exactly what it costs to mean it — and you keep them long after.
Take Your PlacePlaces are held for two, and a room opens once its couples are gathered.
Wherever you are
The same eight evenings and the same vow, the two of you, at your own pace, anywhere in the world. For every couple a room in Melbourne is never going to reach.
Take Your PlaceThe same $400, because it is the same work.
Giving this to somebody you love? Hold a place for them
Ask us anything at all, and a person answers: wepromise@itoshigo.family
Every child arrives carrying a wonder that belongs to no other person who has ever lived.
Paige Lamoureux
itoshigo.family