We're Remiand Kendra.
This is why we started The House We Built.
The beginning
We met at twenty-two. Remi was a year out of college, running himself ragged at a youth nonprofit in the Bay Area. Kendra was starting her master's at Stanford, living on a stipend and leaving the library at two in the morning most nights. The first year we dated, we barely saw each other in daylight. Neither of us was thinking about a house. We were thinking about getting through the week.
We got married at twenty-four. Kemi came eighteen months later. Then Jaiye, then Sadé. Somewhere between the first and the third baby, we stopped having any system for our life beyond a shared calendar and a prayer. We did what most young parents do. We survived.
Surviving works until it doesn't. Surviving worked for us until Sadé was born and the math of three kids broke the math of our pile. We were not fighting more. We were fading more. The week would end and one of us would look up and ask, "what were we supposed to be doing this week." Neither of us could answer.
Surviving works until it doesn't. For us, Sadé was the third child who broke the math.
The kids
Our oldest is Kemi. She is eight, reads above her grade, and has the exact facial expression Remi's mother has when she is about to say something you do not want to hear. Kemi taught us that a child is not a project. She is a person, already, and our job is to notice who she is becoming and make room for that.
Our middle is Jaiye. Six. He is the funniest person in our house. Also the most stubborn. Jaiye taught us that parenting styles that work for one kid will not work for another, and that the parents who pretend otherwise are either lying or have only one child.
Our youngest is Sadé. Three. She is named after Kendra's grandmother, the one who came to this country from Lagos with three hundred dollars and a nursing certificate and never looked back. Sadé is a Sobomehin through and through. When she is done with a conversation, she leaves. We are still learning from her.
The shift
The specific moment was a Tuesday in February, two years ago. Remi had forgotten it was picture day. Kendra had known it was picture day for a week. We had a fight in the driveway that was not about picture day. It was about the mental load. It was about how Kendra was carrying a version of the house that lived only in her head, and how Remi was living in a version of the house where he only knew what he was told.
That Sunday we sat down at the kitchen table with a notebook and started writing down everything our household contained. Not what we wanted it to contain. What it actually contained. Every domain. Every responsibility. Every invisible thing.
That notebook became a framework. That framework became eleven pillars. Those eleven pillars became the thing we are now writing and speaking and building about. It all started in a driveway. Most important things do.
The work
The House We Built is two things. It is this site. Essays, a podcast, a philosophy of family, all written from our kitchen in Palo Alto. It is also a company. Trellis is the software we built for families who want the same system we run at home. It lives at trellis.family and it is the practice side of the thing you are reading.
The House We Built is the philosophy. Trellis is the tool. One without the other is fine. Both together is what we are aiming at.
What I study.
I did my PhD at Stanford in Education, with a focus on how families learn together. I have spent my adult life studying what makes children flourish and what gets in the way. When I became a mother, I realized how much of what I had been researching was unknown to the parents who needed it most.
I am the Chief Education Officer here. My job is to make sure everything we publish is honest about what we actually know, and honest about what we are still figuring out. Nothing here is going to sell you a program I would not trust my own children to.
What I build.
I have been building things for a living since I was twenty-three. Ambition Angels, the youth org I ran for eight years. Two early-stage startups. A lot of small, dumb things I built for our own kids and ended up sharing with friends.
I am the builder. My job is to make sure the house and the software are actually usable by a tired parent at nine-thirty on a Tuesday. If it does not work for our family first, we do not ship it.
Where we are now
This season is not the easiest season of our lives. It is honestly the hardest. A three-year-old, a six-year-old, an eight-year-old. A company in year two. Parents of our own we are now helping care for. Church. Community. A marriage that needs more than it used to. We are tired.
We are also, strangely, happier than we have ever been. Not happier because the season is easy. Happier because we are finally running it on purpose. The rhythms work. The marriage is solid. The kids are loud and known. The house is noisy and named. That is the thing we are sharing.
An invitation
If this resonates with you, you're the kind of family we built this for. Come in. Read. Listen. Stay a while.