Perspective. Kevin Cranford is communications and engagement manager at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). The views expressed are his own.
Having a kid is the most psychedelic thing I have ever done. You meet this newborn person who cannot do much of anything, then watch as they learn to move, talk, make jokes, push your buttons and develop a personality you could never have predicted. I have had plenty of mind-expanding experiences in my life, but nothing prepared me for watching a human being become himself in real time.
I’m a Black 40-year-old father of two boys, Kevin and Noah. For many years, psychedelics have played a role in how I explore and understand myself. I began noticing that some of the habits I practiced around psychedelic experiences, including slowing down, tolerating uncertainty and paying closer attention to my own reactions, were changing the way I responded to my children.
Parenting is also brutally stressful. In a 2023 national survey conducted for the American Psychological Association, 48% of parents with children younger than 18 said their stress was completely overwhelming on most days, compared with 26% of other adults. Forty-one percent said that on most days they were so stressed they could not function, compared with 20% of other adults. The U.S. surgeon general later highlighted those findings in an advisory on parents’ mental health and well-being.
Some days I’ve lived inside those numbers. I just need to get out the door, and one of my kids is having trouble tying his shoe. I am thinking about where we need to be, how late we are and the dozen other things I need to do. He is thinking about the problem directly in front of him. He cannot tie his shoe.
I have learned to stop, take a breath and remind myself that I am dealing with a child. Then I go help him tie his shoe. Psychedelics and meditation have helped me practice that pause. It reminds me of one of my first mushroom experiences, long before most people were talking about set and setting. A friend in our group started having a hard time, fixating on the art and wallpaper in one room of the house. Getting angry at him for not pulling himself together on our schedule would not have helped. We got him out of that room, stayed calm and talked him through it until he settled. When my boys were babies and had their share of crying fits and tantrums, I leaned on the same lessons. Stay calm. Talk them through it where you can. Sometimes just move them to a different room.
Parenthood asks that of me constantly. Spaghetti falls on the floor. A room takes forever to clean. Somebody gets upset over something that seems insignificant to an adult. That’s not to say I don’t get frustrated (I do!), but I have become better at asking myself whether what just happened is really an emergency or worth getting upset about. Usually, the crisis in front of me is not really a crisis.
Research suggests that a parent’s ability to regulate their own emotions can shape how they respond to their children’s emotions. A 2024 systematic review published in Psychological Bulletin found that stronger parental self-regulation was generally associated with more supportive responses to children’s emotions. So the more I practice regulating myself, the better I get at responding to my kids when they can’t regulate themselves.
But paying attention isn’t always about managing a difficult moment. I love my phone as much as anyone, and there are moments when I have to tell myself to put it down and tap into my kids and family around me. They are only going to be this age once. Being present sounds obvious, but in the middle of work, errands and everything else competing for attention, it is a practice I’m mindful of.
Children also have an uncanny ability to show you parts of yourself you thought you had figured out or had forgotten about. I see some of my own shyness in my son, and sometimes my instinct is to push him through it. Then I have to ask what I was like at his age. I have actually called my parents to ask. As adults, we sometimes forget what our personalities were like as children. Understanding him sometimes requires remembering the kid I used to be and accepting that he does not have to move through the world exactly the way I do or would like him to.
That remembering can also be joyful. Psychedelic experiences have sometimes helped me reconnect with a more playful part of myself, the part that can be silly, draw, color, laugh uncontrollably and stop taking everything so seriously. On one mushroom trip with friends, the sidewalks looked like they were made of gold. A walk that normally takes five minutes took half an hour because we kept stopping to ooh and ahh at the shimmering pavement. I think about that walk a lot now. A five-minute walk with a child can take half an hour, because they are seeing things for the first time and have their own oohs and ahhs. Children already live closer to that world. Being able to meet them there has helped me connect with them on their terms instead of always asking them to enter mine.
For a lot of men, vulnerability is something we were taught to manage privately, if we acknowledged it at all. I grew up around familiar messages about boys and emotions. Toughen up. Get up. You’re fine.
Fatherhood has made me reconsider those instincts. When my son gets hurt, I try to get down to his level and ask what hurts, how badly it hurts and what he needs from me. When your child is scared or overwhelmed, you cannot always fix the problem. Sometimes your job is to stay with them while they experience it.
My wife has also helped me understand this more clearly. I would come home and tell her stories about patiently supporting a friend who was going through something difficult. She eventually asked why I sometimes struggled to offer our children the same patience.
That question stayed with me. I would give a friend space and would not yell at him because he was overwhelmed. Why was it sometimes harder to offer my children the same grace?
For me, being there also means creating things my children can count on. Before school starts, we camp in the backyard. We go to Myrtle Beach in the summer. They are simple traditions, but I want my kids to have memories connected to being together.
I do not think psychedelics by themselves make someone a better parent, but for me, they have sometimes created space to see myself more clearly, including how I react, where I lose patience and where my behavior does not line up with the father I want to be. An experience can give you something to examine, but insight is only a starting point. The work still has to happen afterward, through therapy, conversations with my wife, my parents and other fathers, and the choices I make in everyday life.
Fatherhood and the continued integration of psychedelic experiences have also changed how I see my own parents. I feel closer to them now than I have in many years. That’s in part because now, as a parent myself, I have a deeper understanding of them as people. My dad used to tell me that being a father was a thankless job, and I probably rolled my eyes. Now that I am older, looking back at who my father was at my age, 40, I understand him differently. I’m able to forgive him and give him grace in ways I couldn’t before having children of my own. He was a person working with the tools he had, just as I am.
Fatherhood gives me opportunities every day to see where I still have work to do. Sometimes it is something big, and sometimes it is a kid who cannot tie his shoe when I am already late. The practice is noticing what is happening in me before I make it his problem.
If you are a father carrying something you do not want to hand to your children, start by noticing it. Talk about it. Find a therapist, a friend, another father or a community where you can be honest. Fathers need that kind of village, too. We need places where we can talk about what we are carrying, instead of assuming we are supposed to figure it all out alone.
My children do not need me to have everything figured out. They need me to keep paying attention.
