Letters To My Daughter

How to write to your kids

On Parenting will host guest bloggers most Fridays. Today, Bob Brody, a media specialist at the strategic communications firm Powell Tate and blogger at Letters to My Kids , offers advice on writing letters to your children. His personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Let’s say you’re ready to make the big leap. You’re going to record your personal family history for your kids. Good for you. Still, you might be asking yourself some questions: Where should I start? How do I say what I want to say? And so on, into infinity and beyond.

As it happens, I devoted two years to writing for both my kids, compiling more than 100 vignettes, amounting to nearly 70,000 words. In the process, I gleaned a few tips. So here goes:

1. Decide to do it. No, really. You’re either in or you’re out.  Here’s a little trick I used long ago when wondering whether to marry my then-girlfriend, Elvira. Every day for about a month I asked myself, “Should I marry her?” Day after day, the answer that came back was yes. That self-survey helped me decide. We’ve now been married 34 years.

2. Plan it out.  Do at least an outline. Even Shakespeare needed one. Call it a GPS for the flow of your thoughts. Before I jotted down a single word, I daydreamed for weeks. Then I took shorthand – “gleaned my teeming brain,” as John Keats wrote. “Caroline singing for Nanna,” one note said. “Michael going out late at night,” said another. All my recollections served as clues to the stories that ultimately came.

3. Vote for reality. Kids can smell spin from a mile away. So opt for the truth, however much it might hurt you to do so. Personally, I’m big on facts. My son Michael and I sometimes butt heads. That’s a fact. My daughter Caroline sometimes resists my advice. That’s a fact, too. All of us occasionally feel tempted to paint the past only with bright, sunny colors. But kids have an inherently keen sense of truth. Whatever you say, they will find you out.

4. Single out the highlights.  Draw only from the richest memories at your command. Even though you can write about anything, you’ll be better off writing about something — and better still, something specific, even, if possible, singular. Look to tell the story that is yours and yours alone to tell. Zero in on a single action or comment or incident or series of episodes. Capitalize on experiences that resonate as special, that matter, that mean something. Seize, above all, on moments, and therefore on the momentous, the revealing, the revelatory.

A letter to my daughter « My Life Well-Lived

Dear Anna,

In just a few days you will be 3 years old.  You were sick today, so I stayed home with you while your Daddy went to work and took your brother to daycare.  We don’t get to spend time together, just the 2 of us, very much anymore and I enjoyed having you all to myself.  You are such a fun little girl.

Each year, around your birthday, I think back to before you were born.  I think about how different my life was then and although I may have had some freedoms then that I don’t have now, I wouldn’t change a thing.  You and your brother (and your Daddy) are my whole world.  Before you were born I had spent years wishing for a baby of my own and I had almost given up hope.  It took a long time to get you here and I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant with you.  I read books about how you were growing and developing each week that you were in my belly.  I daydreamed all the time about what you would be like.  When I was a few months pregnant, I rented a fetal doppler so I could listen to your heartbeat.  Every time I heard the whooshing, galloping horses sound of your tiny hearbeat, my own heart skipped a beat.  I loved you so much even then.

3 years ago today, I was anxiously awaiting your arrival…wondering when I’d go into labor and when I’d finally get to meet you.  Your birth was difficult…and long, but I would still do it all again in a heartbeat.  I will never forget the moment your were born…I couldn’t see you at first because you were born by c-section, but I heard your very first cry and knew you were here.  Your Daddy and I looked at eachother when we heard you…the way I felt and the look on his face are forever etched in my memory.  He had tears in his eyes, and that never

Stephanie, you are such a wonderful Mom! I reminised as I read along your story and remember how excited you were to have this precious little one growing inside. I rememeber how excited I was to see you sooo excited!! She is a beautiful little tot and I think she is lucky to have you as her Mom!!! Please give her hugs and Happy Birthday wishes from me!! Love ya, Jimmie