Parents - Did your adult kids surprise you in any way when they grew up?

GQ.

I hadn’t thought of it as surprised. I’m simply astounded by what good people they are despite my problems when they were forming.

Not sure about surprised, exactly, but I am often a bit startled by the depth of our adult friendship, while still maintaining the kind of deep affection we established in a familial way.

I always hoped my kids would be happy in life and it seems they are. I thought my daughter had the intelligence and the charisma to succeed spectacularly in life and my son would be more of a plodder but my son made the most of his limited talents and now runs his own successful company while my daughter has a more mundane though still successful career.

My daughter did surprise me recently by giving me a granddaughter.

Never thought my son would’ve joined the military. When he was little he said he would never join the military and go on deployments that take him away from family. He use to miss his dad a lot. But I guess maybe that’s why he never got married. He always wanted to get married and have a family. Now he’s in the military and says he’s perfectly happy being single and no kids. I don’t think my daughter really surprised me except I thought she would go into the arts.

I was surprised how street saavy she became in LA. She had a pretty sheltered childhood.

Very much so. Some positive and some negative.

All pleasantly surprised. Seeing the independent, making great choices and “can do” attitude is wonderful to me.

Me sainted mother said she was happily surprised, when I decided to stay on the North American side of the Bering land bridge. ;-)