About a decade ago, my friend the psychologist told me that most parents end up regretting having kids by the time their offspring become young adults.
I didn’t believe her.
Now I do.
My kids are now young adults.
I adore my daughters. And I love loving them and forgiving them everything and taking care of them.
I love watching them come into themselves.
But they remind me of painful things that hurt.
They remind me I am all but obsolete.
They remind me of my defects and mistakes and plunge me into regret.
They remind me that I have so little and so much effect on them. I constantly feel I didn’t do things right, or enough. I didn’t teach them enough, help them enough. And yet, I know I gave it my all. Will that feeling that it wasn’t enough ever cease?
They remind me that all those memories we made during their childhood, that I killed myself to make with them, while holding down a 70-hour a week job, were for naught. They remember little to none of them.
My kids exhibit character traits I found intolerable in my X, their dad. If I can love them despite it, should I have tried harder with him? Was I wrong to leave him?
They remind me that there is no reward for the burden- of loneliness and fatigue- I carried as primary caregiver and breadwinner. They will never understand it.
They remind me how easy it is to reject, criticize, dismiss the values and way of life of their mother.
They remind me that our children never really know our stories, our lives, our dreams, but always know our weaknesses.
They remind me how fleeting those marathon years of the love festival of 100% attentive mothering is to them.
They remind me that my hunger for knowledge and experiences and desire to change the world ends with me.
They remind me that they have launched themselves, grown their wings, and thus, need me less and less.
They remind me that we are here but for a moment, a blink, a gesture.
Make it count.
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Previously Published on Medium
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