Never Enough Time for All the Good Conversations

Some reflections on reconnecting with CBWS graduates in Phoenix

One of the unexpected pleasures of traveling for work is spending time with people I've trained over the years. And on my recent trip to Phoenix, I had the opportunity to do just that.

Between site visits, coffee, dinner, and conversations that could have easily gone on for several more hours, I had the chance to reconnect with graduates of both my Foundations course and our training for healthcare professionals.

And I have to say, I feel incredibly fortunate that this is part of what I get to do.

When you teach, particularly when much of that teaching happens online or during an intensive training, you get to know people within a particular context. You learn about their professional interests, their questions, their goals, and perhaps a little about what brought them to this work in the first place.

But there's something lovely about sitting across the table from someone months or years later and hearing what's happened since.

Over dinner and coffee, we talked about their businesses, the work they're doing in their communities, and what babywearing support looks like in the Phoenix area. We talked about opportunities, challenges, and the ways they're incorporating what they've learned into their work.

And, of course, we talked about life.

There were parenting woes, the realities of juggling professional ambitions with families and everyday responsibilities, and plenty of stories that had very little to do with baby carriers. Those are often some of my favorite conversations. I get to know the people behind the professional roles, and a little more about the lives they're building.

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But one of the most rewarding parts of this visit was watching people connect with each other.

I’ve always loved how these gatherings bring together people, in this case from the Phoenix area, who hadn't necessarily crossed paths before, despite working in overlapping communities.

Some of these professionals have been active in the babywearing world longer than I have! Others have only been involved for a few months. Some work directly with families, others in healthcare settings, some manufacture, and still others are finding their way into new areas of practice.

And there they were, sharing experiences, asking questions, listening, and genuinely opening their hearts and minds to one another. I loved that.

There's so much knowledge and experience within this broader professional community, and it's spread across people who don't always have opportunities to meet. Seeing people with such different backgrounds and lengths of experience find common ground, exchange ideas, and recognize what they might learn from one another was particularly rewarding.

And I suspect some wonderful new collaborations will come out of these conversations.

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And then, naturally, we started talking about possibilities.

What would it look like to bring The Babywearing Weekend and HELD to the Phoenix area?

It's a question I wanted to explore when I was there. But it’s always on my mind, especially when I travel. Every community has its own character, its own resources, and its own gaps in support. Listening to the people who live and work there gives me a perspective I could never get from sitting at my desk in New York.

We talked about the local babywearing community, the opportunities for interdisciplinary connections, and what an event bringing educators, healthcare professionals, and families together might look like in Phoenix.

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Of course, the trouble with these visits is that there's never enough time.

There's always one more question, another story, another idea to explore. Just as a conversation gets especially interesting, someone has to leave, or we realize we've been sitting there for hours. I invariably walk away thinking of three more things I wanted to ask.

I've spent a great deal of my professional life teaching people how to support families through infant carrying. One of the gifts of doing this work for so long is getting to see where people take that education. Sometimes it's into a private practice. Sometimes it's into a hospital or a community program. Sometimes it's simply into a deeper understanding of their own parenting experience.

And increasingly, I get to see how those individual paths begin to intersect.

People who started out as students become colleagues, collaborators, mentors, and resources for one another. Those who have been doing this work for decades sit alongside those just finding their footing, and everyone has something to contribute.

As I keep traveling, visiting hospitals, reconnecting with graduates, and exploring where The Babywearing Weekend might go next, I look forward to these gatherings more and more.

Phoenix gave me a chance to catch up with some wonderful people, hear what's happening in their corner of the world, and imagine a few possibilities for the future.