I just became a grandma for the first time.
He’s going to call me Mona one day.
For now I’m just getting used to being someone’s grandma at all, and I love every second of it.
But the part that’s stuck with me most isn’t about me.
It’s watching my son and daughter in law step into parenthood and figure it out together.
Day by day, decision by decision, they’re doing an amazing job.
They had nine months to prepare. They read the books, took the classes, set up the nursery, asked the right questions ahead of time. You can tell.
But preparation only gets you to the door.
The real test starts the moment he’s actually here. That’s where I’ve watched their confidence show up.
They trust their gut, they ask for help when they need it, they adjust on the fly when the plan meets real life at three in the morning.
Most people just don’t call that confidence when it shows up in a nursery instead of a boardroom.
I’ve spent years on stages talking about what confidence looks like in leadership. Frameworks, slides, stories about boardrooms and big career moments.
Now I’m watching the same thing play out in their house with a newborn.
Preparation gives you a foundation.
Confidence comes from what you do once you’re standing on it.
A few things I keep coming back to as I watch them:
Preparation and confidence aren’t the same skill.
They read up, took the classes, did the research. They still spent the first week home figuring out things no book covers.
What time he actually wants to eat versus what the schedule says. How he likes to be held when he’s fussy. Which cry means hungry and which one means something else entirely.
None of that comes from a book. It comes from paying attention and adjusting in real time, which is exactly what they’ve done.
I’m learning from them.
I raised six kids and figured I’d seen most of it. I haven’t.
They communicate differently than I did, they divide the work differently, no rigid roles, just whoever has the bandwidth in that moment. They ask for help without the guilt I used to carry, the guilt that told me asking for help meant I wasn’t doing enough.
Leading well sometimes means watching the people coming up behind you and taking notes instead of giving them.
Confidence sounds like steadiness, not certainty.
No panic. No second guessing every decision out loud in front of each other. Just two people moving through something hard, together, dividing up the 2 a.m. feedings and the diaper changes without keeping score.
That’s the same thing I describe on stages when I talk about leadership under pressure.
Confidence isn’t having the answer. It’s making the call anyway, and trusting you’ll adjust if you need to.
This is their thing. I’m just here to help when needed.
I don’t feel any pull to take over, because it’s not mine to take over.
I have thirty plus years of parenting instincts telling me how I’d swaddle him, how I’d handle the crying, what worked for my six. Honestly, I wouldn’t do it any differently.
What matters is letting them build their own rhythm as parents, in their own way, without me weighing in unless they ask.
It’s the same thing I talk about with leaders at work. People do their best work when you let them do their own thing without judgment, when you trust them enough to figure out their own approach instead of handing them yours.
We’re quick to tell people what they should be doing when we don’t actually know the full situation they’re living in. Their day, their baby, their marriage, their exhaustion level at 3 a.m.
I only see a slice of it. That’s not enough information to start handing out advice nobody asked for.
Watching them has been one of the proudest moments of my life.
It’s gone pretty smoothly, honestly, and what gets me is how calm they are through all of it. Even the lack of sleep doesn’t rattle them, because they know that’s just part of it.
No drama, no complaining, just two people enjoying this season for exactly what it is.
That’s exactly what confidence looks like when nobody’s watching and there’s no stage lights involved.
This is the confidence I want more people to see modeled. Real preparation, paired with the steadiness to handle whatever the plan didn’t cover.
It’s the same thing I see in people right before they walk into a leadership role for the first time, step on a stage for the first time, or take a seat at a table they weren’t sure they belonged at.
They’ve done the prep work. They’ve read the reports, rehearsed the pitch, studied the data. And then the real moment arrives, and the prep work only gets them to the door.
What happens next is the same thing happening in my son’s house right now.
Trust your gut. Ask for help. Adjust in real time. Keep showing up.
You don’t need every answer before you start.
You need the willingness to stay steady while you figure out the rest.
That’s true whether you’re walking into a boardroom or walking into parenthood for the very first time.
Proud Mona over here!
