Prepare for joy - speak your truth, care for yourself, expand your knowledge, nurture your friendships, let people love you, take on new adventures, go where your heart leads you.

I believe most people are born with the potential to have same-sex and opposite-sex attractions. However, homophobia creates an internal split, locking up a natural part of a person's psyche, sometimes to the point where the person is unaware that part exists.

If I could summarize my suggestions to parents over the past twenty-five years it would be: worry less, criticize less, preach less, listen more, have more fun, be more honest with your own feelings, develop your own joys and friendships, and don't sweat the small stuff (which is nearly everything). The goal is not to be a perfect parent, because no such thing exists. The hope is to be a good enough parent so that your child leaves home a responsible adult who can take care of him or herself.

Listen to your beliefs, think about how you learned them, and realize that they are not genetic, nor are they the "only way." You are free to acquire new perspectives, to absorb new ideas, and to question everything you were taught to believe. As your mind opens to exploration and change, you'll feel a new lightness and more joy.

Whether or not you have children yourself, you are a parent to the next generation. If we can only stop thinking of children as individual property and think of them as the next generation, then we can realize we all have a role to play.

The spiritual warrior hides from nothing. We jump into the fire, we dive into the ocean. We become the sea.

A life-long blessing for children is to fill them with warm memories of times together. Happy memories become treasures in the heart to pull out on the tough days of adulthood.