vision isn't a wish

"I want my kids to be happy."

I hear this all the time. It's the default answer when someone asks what you want for your children.

And it means nothing.

Every parent wants their kids to be happy. It tells you nothing about what you're actually building. It's not a vision. It's a wish. A nice sentiment with no edges. No specifics. No way to measure whether you're moving toward it or away from it.

Vision is different.

Vision is a picture. A detailed, specific image of who walks out of your home at 18. Not what they've achieved. Not what college they got into. Not what grades they earned or what awards they collected.

Who are they?

What do they believe about themselves?

How do they handle failure?

How do they move through the world when no one is watching?

If you can't describe that person, you're not parenting with vision. You're parenting with hope. And hope is not a strategy.

Here's what I mean by specific.

"I want them to be confident" is not specific. Confident in what situations? Confident enough to do what? Confident in their worth or confident in their performance?

"I want them to be kind" is not specific. Kind to whom? Even when it costs them something? What does your kindness look like for them to model?

"I want them to be successful" is not specific. By whose definition? Doing what? For what reason? Successful by society's metrics or by their own?

The more specific your vision, the more useful it becomes. Because vision isn't just aspirational. It's operational. It filters decisions.

Should we do this activity? Does it build toward the human we're raising?

Should we allow this? Does it align with the vision or undermine it?

Should we spend our time here? Does it move us closer to who we want them to become?

When you know who you're building, the daily decisions get clearer. When you don't, you're just reacting. Following whatever the culture or the calendar or the crowd tells you is next.

Let me tell you about our New Year's Eve tradition.

We make homemade pizzas.

That's it. Nothing elaborate. Nothing expensive. We've been doing it for seventeen years now. Started when Ole and I lived in London. Kaja was one year old that first time, though she won't remember it because she didn't get any pizza.

We've done it everywhere in the world. Bali. Mexico. Wherever we happen to be. We've only missed one year, when we were in Thailand and couldn't find the right ingredients and we didn’t have an oven. We went out for vegan grilled cheese on the beach, instead.

It's simple. It doesn't have to be big. But it's ours.

And that matters more to us than anything on a calendar.

Because here's something we decided a long time ago: we don't celebrate most of the traditional holidays. No Christmas. No Thanksgiving. No Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Before you think we're a bunch of Scrooges, let me explain.

It's not that we're cheap or joyless. I absolutely love Christmas movies. I love the smell of the spices and the decorations and all of it. But that's all I need. I don't need to go further. I don't need to participate in it to feel like I'm a member of society or part of the human race.

What we didn't vibe with was forced fun. The idea that now it's time to celebrate because the calendar says so. It just felt disruptive to how we live. Ole and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day either. Not because we don't love each other. Because we don't need a designated day to prove it.

So many things we do in society are traditions done matter-of-factly. Done because the date is telling us to. Done because everyone else is doing it and we never stopped to ask if it actually fits.

The gift I want to give my daughters is the gift of choice.

When they leave our home and start their own families, they can celebrate Christmas if they want. They can do Thanksgiving. They can create whatever traditions feel right to them. But they'll know, deeply, that these are choices. Not obligations. Not defaults. Not things you do because you've always done them.

They'll know how to ask: does this fit us? Does this align with what we value? Or are we just following a script?

That's vision. Not what holidays you celebrate. But raising humans who know the difference between choosing something and inheriting it without thinking.

Here's the part no one wants to talk about.

Every family passes down gifts.

Every family also passes down wounds.

Your vision has to include both. Not just what you want to give them. But what you don't want to pass on. The patterns you inherited. The reactions you learned. The beliefs you absorbed without ever choosing them.

Your children will unlearn something because of you.

The only question is whether you're aware of what that might be.

I'll tell you about a wound I'm determined not to pass down.

For most of my life, I've struggled with imposter syndrome. This deep belief that I'm not good enough until I prove myself. That I have to constantly create, constantly produce, constantly give value just to earn my right to be here.

Not my right to be successful. My right to exist.

I think I know where it comes from.

I was never supposed to be born. My father gave my mother money for an abortion to get rid of me. That's the story I grew up knowing. And I wonder if that knowledge planted something deep in me. This feeling that I have to justify my presence. That my living breath on this planet is something I need to earn rather than something I simply have.

It's made me an over-giver. It's made me constantly wonder: is it enough? Am I doing enough? Am I worthy yet?

That's a wound. And wounds get passed down if you're not careful.

I believe we're all here to give value to one another. That part I want to keep. But I've worked hard to make sure that for my daughters, giving value comes from a place of ownership and empowerment. Not from a place of earning the right to be alive.

And I can see the difference in them.

They create because it feels good. They experiment because they're curious. Project-based learning is huge in our home, and they dive into it with joy, not desperation. They don't seem to carry that proving energy. They're not performing their worth. They're just being themselves.

I hope it stays that way.

That's what breaking a cycle looks like. Not pretending the wound doesn't exist. Seeing it clearly. Understanding where it came from. And then doing the work to make sure it ends with you.

Here's another wound I almost passed on without realizing it.

I didn't learn how to swim until I was twenty years old. Learned in college. And for my whole childhood, that fear of water kept me from enjoying it. Still does, in some ways.

When my daughters were young, they couldn't swim either. I hadn't prioritized it for whatever reason. And one day I watched them jump into a pool. Even though it was the shallow end, they looked like they were drowning. Panicking. Flailing.

And in that moment, I thought: oh wait.

This is mine. This fear. This limitation. And I was about to hand it to them like it was theirs to carry.

I made sure they learned to swim. It took about a month before they were swimming like mermaids. Kaja went on to get scuba certified at ten years old. Ten.

But it could have gone the other way. So easily.

I know people whose parents had a fear of flying. And now they have a fear of flying. I have a friend who would rather drive twenty hours than take a two or three hour flight. Not because she's ever had a bad experience. Because her mother was afraid.

Fears are mostly things that trap us in our minds. And a lot of them have no real reason behind them. They're just inherited. Absorbed. Passed down like traditions no one questions.

We're not here for our kids to inherit our benchmarks.

We're here to raise them.

So when I think about vision, I think about four questions.

What do they believe about themselves?

Not what you've told them. What they actually believe. When they look in the mirror, when they face a challenge, when they're alone with their thoughts. What's the internal narrative?

What are they capable of doing without you?

Can they solve problems? Can they navigate discomfort? Can they figure things out when you're not there to guide them? Or have you made yourself so necessary that they're paralyzed without you?

How do they treat people who can do nothing for them?

The waiter. The janitor. The person who has no status, no power, nothing to offer. That's where character shows up.

What do they do when no one is watching?

This is the real test. Not who they are when you're observing. Who they are when they think no one will ever know.

If you can answer those four questions with specifics, with evidence, with things you're actively building toward, you have a vision.

If you can only answer them with hopes, you have work to do.

One more thing about vision.

Be careful that it's actually about them.

It's easy to project your unlived dreams onto your children. To want for them what you never got. To push them toward achievements that would have made your parents proud of you.

But your vision should be about who they become. Not what they achieve. Character over credentials. The human, not the resume.

And it should leave room for them to become themselves. Not a copy of your aspirations.

The vision is a compass, not a cage.

This is what the Vision section of The Family Launch Plan is designed to excavate.

Not what you hope for your children. What you're actively building toward.

Who walks out at 18?

What do they believe about themselves?

What gifts are you passing down on purpose?

What wounds are you working to end with you?

Because every family passes down both. The question is whether you're aware of what you're handing them.

Next week, I want to talk about culture.

Not corporate culture. Family culture.

What happens in your home when someone fails? When someone succeeds? When someone needs help?

Culture isn't what you put on the wall or discuss at a family meeting. Culture is what happens when you're not thinking about it. It's the water your children are swimming in every day.

And it's being built whether you design it or not.

More on that next week.

Azizi

P.S. We're not here for our kids to inherit our benchmarks. We're here to raise them. That's the whole job.