Someone told me recently that for parents with school-aged kids, May and June are as busy as the December holiday season. We are finishing our family’s very first full school year, and the notion is true. Our calendar has been full of school performances, graduations, and ceremonies, as well as BK production and shop operations. In addition, our kids both have June birthdays, so that adds extra projects. Needless to say, life has been full, and we are so incredibly grateful.
One of the kids’ birthday traditions I started a bunch of years ago is giving a “birthday video” as a gift on the morning of their birthdays. It’s a short video that chronologically documents bits and pieces of their growing-up moments. Coco’s birthday is around the corner, and I’ve been working on her video, squeezing some midnight oils. Mind you, every year this ends up being a last-minute project. So a few days ago, I opened the file I worked on exactly a year prior to piece it together into the updated version. In a few days, she is turning 13, and watching the video of her birth in 2013 through her last birthday in 2025, along with a few additional clips from this year, made me feel sentimental and also grounded, more than in other years. The video clips throughout her childhood began with her making art with a toothbrush & paint, climbing and swinging in an avocado tree, running through a meadow with Mango in the canyon, surfing with her homeschooling friends, camping in the woods, knitting, and traveling in Japan and Europe. As she grew older, there were captures of her adventures in horseback riding, a full aerial performance she had just completed, recent acrylic paintings, and, ending with school moments with her classmates... When I finished watching the entire sequel to finalize the video, I turned to Frido and said, “I think she has had a pretty amazing childhood,” with implicit mutual acknowledgment that we are committed to keeping an emphasis on providing more opportunities for analogue and real-world moments in the second half of her childhood.
Negotiations about personal phones and device usage have definitely entered our family life over the past year, and it’s a challenge. Along the way, Frido and I made quite a few parental executive decisions to guardrail kids’ access to certain aspects of the virtual world based on the research we had combed through, which naturally led to some disagreements and upset kids. We have, and continue to, explain the research and share the possible consequences of careless use of newer technologies. Moreover, we stay calm and find other ways to connect with our kids when we are “not” talking (and disagreeing) about how we use our devices. Each season of parenting has been challenging and rewarding in its own way, and this season has been no exception. Finding intentional ways to incorporate elusive, ever-changing technologies into teens’ lives is plain difficult, and I believe it’s still so worth trying.
Frido and I are definitely buckling down for the months ahead, when the kids will be at home with us more. I am looking forward to many beautiful summer moments with them, and I am also mentally preparing to support them with extra intentions so they can build their days with embodied moments rather than on screens, and to work towards modeling how my days might look when I put my devices aside to spend time with them... For this love letter, I wanted to share this personal story in case you might be fellow parents or guardians of young ones facing a similar dilemma as you go into the summer holiday. I hope you know that you are not alone... and when things get really tough (which does happen sometimes!), remember we can always grab a pen and a notebook to digest those moments on paper (even though we might never actually express those words to our kids directly).
-wakako
always a metamorphosis in progress (especially as a mom)...
Topanga // June 4th, 2026
**This story is from the BK Love Letter for June 2026. If you would like to read the entire love letter we sent to our community, including links to featured stories and new and updated BK artifacts, you can browse it via this link.