Last week, I was sorting through old photo albums when my phone rang. It was my oldest calling from college, and somehow we ended up talking for over an hour about her childhood memories. After we hung up, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I needed to know more. What did my kids actually remember? What stuck with them through all those years?
So I did something that terrified me. I asked all three of my now-adult children to tell me what they remembered most about growing up. No filters, no holding back. Just honest memories.
Their answers knocked the wind out of me because what mattered to them was so different from what I thought mattered at the time. I’d been so focused on organic meals, the right schools, limiting screen time, all those parenting boxes I thought I needed to check.
But their memories? They painted a completely different picture of what actually shaped them.
1) The time I completely lost it over spilled paint
My middle child brought this up first, and I wanted to crawl under a rock.
She was maybe seven, working on an art project at our kitchen table. The entire bottle of blue paint somehow ended up on our (relatively new) hardwood floor.
I remember yelling. The kind where your voice cracks and your kids look at you like you’ve transformed into someone else.
“Mom, you cried after you yelled,” she told me on the phone. “and then you sat down on the paint-covered floor with me and we turned it into this weird floor art before cleaning it up together.”
What struck her was watching me acknowledge I’d messed up, seeing me choose connection over perfection. She said it taught her that repair is always possible, even when things feel broken.
2) Saturday morning pancakes weren’t about the pancakes
All three kids mentioned Saturday mornings, but not the way I expected. I thought they’d remember the from-scratch pancakes, the pure maple syrup, the special breakfast tradition. Nope.
“It was the only morning nobody rushed us,” my youngest said. “Dad would make those ridiculous pancake shapes and you’d drink your coffee so slowly. We could stay in our pajamas until noon.”
The pancakes were just pancakes. What mattered was the pause. The permission to just exist without an agenda.
3) When I said no to the “perfect” preschool
This one surprised me. My oldest remembered when I pulled her out of a highly-rated preschool after just two weeks. At the time, I felt like a failure. All the other parents raved about this place.
But something felt off. Too rigid. Too much pressure for three-year-olds to sit still and perform.
“You chose my happiness over what looked good to other people,” she said. “I remember you saying we’d figure it out together.”
We ended up at a small, chaotic, wonderful place where kids could be kids. She said watching me trust my gut over popular opinion taught her to do the same.
4) The summer we grew absolutely nothing in our garden
We planted this ambitious garden one spring. Tomatoes, herbs, the works. By July, everything was dead except for one stubborn zucchini plant. I was devastated. I’d envisioned teaching them about growing food, connecting with nature, all that beautiful stuff.
My son remembers it differently.
“We spent the whole summer out there anyway,” he said. “we made mud pies, built fairy houses, had water balloon fights. That dead garden was the best playground.”
The lesson wasn’t about successful gardening. It was about finding joy in the flop.
5) Reading the same book 47 nights in a row
My middle child went through a phase where she only wanted one specific book at bedtime. For six weeks straight. The same book. Every. Single. Night. I remember wanting to hide that book, maybe even “accidentally” leave it at the library.
“You never rushed through it,” she remembered. “Even on night 47, you read it like it was the first time.”
She said it made her feel heard. Respected. Like her choices mattered, even when they drove me slightly insane.
6) The time I admitted I had no idea what I was doing
During a particularly rough patch when my oldest was fifteen, we were arguing constantly. One night, mid-argument, I just stopped and said, “I don’t know how to do this. I’m figuring it out as I go, and I’m scared I’m messing it up.”
“That’s when everything changed,” she told me. “You became a real person, not just ‘mom.’ We could actually talk after that.”
Vulnerability opened doors that all my parenting strategies couldn’t budge.
7) Making “bad” dinners into adventures
I burned dinner. A lot. Despite my best intentions with meal planning and organic ingredients, I’d get distracted and suddenly smell smoke. My kids remember these disasters fondly.
“Remember breakfast for dinner,” my youngest laughed, “or when we’d just put out every leftover and call it ‘tapas night’? Those were the best dinners.”
The perfect meals I stressed over? Forgotten. The chaotic, imperfect solutions? Core memories.
8) Letting them quit
Each of my kids remembered a time I let them quit something without a lecture about commitment or finishing what they started. Soccer, piano, dance. When they were truly miserable, I let them walk away.
“You always said we could try something else,” my son recalled. “that it was making space for what fit better.”
They all found activities they loved eventually.
But first, they needed permission to let go of what they didn’t.
What actually mattered
After these conversations, I sat in my garden (now successfully growing things, thank you very much) and cried. Good tears. Healing tears.
All those years of trying so hard to get it right, and what stuck with them were the moments I was simply human. The repairs after mistakes. The slow mornings. The permission to be themselves. The times I trusted them and trusted myself, even when it went against the grain.
They remember feeling seen, feeling safe to fail, and watching me fail and get back up.
If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this: Your kids need you to be present, be real, see you mess up and make repairs, and know that love isn’t conditional on getting it right.
These conversations changed me because they freed me. I’m still parenting my two little ones, and now I know what actually matters: The messy, beautiful work of showing up as myself and letting them do the same.
