When you painted the nursery, you had some ideas about how things might turn out. Maybe a doctor, or a teacher like you. A house nearby. Grandkids on Sundays.
Instead, your son is a tattoo artist in Austin. Your daughter is 38, happily single, and spends her vacations hiking on her own. Your youngest moved to Scotland for a job and stayed.
It’s normal for that gap to bring up questions, and sometimes a quiet worry that you did something wrong. But how a child turns out isn’t a report card on their parent. Children are shaped by their own temperament, their friends, their luck, and a hundred choices that were never yours to make. Every parent also gets things wrong along the way.
No list can sum up years of parenting. But some things about the relationship you have now are worth noticing, especially when their lives look nothing like what you pictured.
1. They tell you about their lives, including the parts you might not like
Your son calls to say he and his girlfriend are moving in together. He knows you’d have preferred they marry first. He tells you anyway, himself, before you hear it from a cousin.
Telling a parent something they may not approve of takes some trust. It suggests ...