This book has been influenced by too many to name, but we can’t neglect to mention at least a few:
We want to thank our children, Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar, Betty, and Flora June. We are so grateful to have had a front-row seat to your lives.
Thank you to our agent, Meg Thompson, who helped shepherd the book proposal into a compelling idea, and who had our backs whenever we had naive author questions.
Thank you to our publisher, Lia Ronnen, who pushed us to write a parenting book and made us feel like essential voices when we felt we had no business writing about parenting.
Thank you to our editor, Maisie Tivnan. We sent Maisie the roughest rough draft of a manuscript that you can conceive of, and she went back and forth with us for many months, clarifying ideas, simplifying the structure, and shaping it into the book you are now reading.
Thank you to all the fine folks at Workman Publishing. Thanks to production editor Beth Levy, for helping us get things right. To Becky Terhune, who oversaw the layout and indulged our opinions. To Barbara Peragine, who did the typesetting and accommodated our edits. Thanks to the marketing and publicity team: Rebecca Carlisle, Moira Kerrigan, Ilana Gold, and Allison McGeehon, for helping us better see and extend a hand to potential readers. Thank you to David Schiller for the many title brainstorming sessions. We’re aware there are lots of other hands at Workman that this book passed through and who helped bring it to the world. We may not know their names, but we’re grateful for them.
Thank you to the legendary Bonnie Siegler, who created the design for this book—both the cover and the interior. It was a pleasure and a distinct honor to work with her again. We gasped when we saw the cover design and every page felt elevated by her touch.
Thank you to Lindsay Edgecombe, who we worked with for an earlier book proposal that eventually became this book and whose feedback is still manifest.
Thank you to our good friend Avi Mintz, for encouraging comments when the book was mostly an idea and for gracious feedback and insightful challenges on an early draft.
Thank you to Parenting Gonzales.
Thank you to our parents: Ben’s parents, Bob and Julia Blair, and Gabrielle’s father, Mike Stanley, have passed away, but we feel their imprint on the steps we have taken as parents and the lessons that have organized this book. And thank you to Gabrielle’s mother, Donna Stanley McEvoy, whose imprint is also throughout, and who has been, and remains, a constant giver of confidence throughout Gabrielle’s full life, and our entire married life.
Lastly, thank you to Design Mom readers who have shared your hopes and concerns for eighteen years—reflecting on what you have shared has fueled this book. And thank you to Newlane University students and teachers who have shared their experiences—especially surrounding false promises of “the reliable path to success”—and whose examples have demonstrated again and again the possibility and value of alternative paths.