An ordinary walk to school turned into a bigger realization for Deb Hutton, one tied to a countdown she didn't expect to be thinking about yet, and it shapes the rest of this honest conversation about raising kids.

Deb names the exact parts of early parenting she now misses most, even the ones most parents are relieved to leave behind, and explains why hindsight changes how those years look.

A family vacation to Japan may not happen again the same way, and Deb walks through why the timeline for that kind of trip together is shorter than most parents realize.

Topics: last first day of school, empty nest parenting, cherishing childhood stages, family vacation Japan, parenting milestones

Originally aired on 2026-09-03