The Safe Place

Last week I asked for advice, and hundreds of you wrote back. One message, from a grandmother, stopped me in my tracks and completely changed the way I've been thinking about fatherhood. As Leo prepares to start school, this letter became a reflection on the quiet tug of war so many parents feel: building for tomorrow, whilst trying not to miss today.

Dear Leo,

A lot of people answered the letter from last week. 

Mums, dads, grandparents. People who have walked this path long before us, all writing back with their own stories of childhood/parenthood. 

A mother of three told me about her son's nursery sports day, nearly twenty years ago. He froze too. She said the memory is still hard for her to reach, even now. Her boy grew up inside a culture of team sheets and trophies and being measured, and it took him until university to rediscover the simple joy of just playing.