For those with kids, have you done everything you wanted with them?

Certainly. My daughter is seventeen and I completely understand where you’re coming from.

Time does skip by and work and other commitments eat up a lot of time. Plus, I’m pretty sure my expectations are generally unrealistic.

I only have one really good video of her at age five, and a bunch of smaller snippets. But then I have hundreds of really good photos of her.

I wanted to get her more involved in activities, but she did some stuff (choir, Girl Scouts) and we did travel a bunch.

I wanted to have all her college saved for, which didn’t work out — but I did pay for a really good education from kindergarten through high school.

Whataya gonna do? I think we’ll always feel as if we fell short of expectations, but that’s parenting.

In the end, she’s a good kid and hopefully (someday) appreciates how she was raised and what she was exposed to.

I figure, it’s at least a step up from what my folks were able to do.

Great answer @cookieman ! What I’m doing certainly is a step or two up from the way I was raised. My daughter isn’t really missing out on anything as I provide her with all her necessities and some luxuries. It’s just I’m disappointed in myself for not doing more to capture memories. I’m feeling guilty and nostalgic, sorry.

No apologies. It’s a good question and I think really speaks to our own sense of worth being tied to our kids, which may not have been the case with our own parents.

Plus, media and society’s influence on what is good parenting and expected “accomplishments” (particularly in America), cannot be underestimated as fucking with your guilty Dad brain.

Good question. We did a lot of good things with our boys but I wish I had been jollier with them when they were young. I lost my temper too often particularly with the older one and that has caused problems even today. I think I was a better mother to them when they were teenagers and I was very open to communication with them but I wish I had had more patience when they were little. That being said, the demands on parents are high and it is easy to beat oneself up.

@janbb: I think that age divide is a hard one. I feel the opposite in that I was a better parent when she was younger and not so great now that she’s a teenager.

Up until now, my son is 23 & my daughter 20…yes!
Still tons more to do, they’ll always be my “kids”

@Coolhandluke

”...write down some of her funniest quotes as she was growing up.”

If you recall any of them, how about writing or recording what you do remember? Perhaps parts of what she said will occasionally come back to you, so that you might eventually have a comprehensive list.