I was sorting through old photos the other day while Ellie colored beside me at the kitchen table, and I came across pictures from my own childhood.
What struck me wasn’t the background details or what we were wearing.
It was the feeling each image brought back: the warmth of my dad’s rare smile, the safety of my mom’s predictable routines, the freedom of long summer afternoons.
Milo climbed into my lap and pointed at a blurry shot of me and my younger sister covered in mud. “Mama messy!” he giggled.
And that’s when it really hit me. Our kids won’t remember the pristine house or the expensive toys.
They’ll remember how we made them feel. The moments of connection. The ordinary magic of being together.
As Maya Angelou reminds us, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
So what do kids actually carry with them into adulthood? Here are nine things that stick, and not one of them costs a thing.
1) How you responded when they came to you upset
Every parent has those moments when your child melts down over something that seems trivial. The wrong color cup. A broken cracker. A friendship squabble at the playground.
How we respond in those moments matters more than we realize.
When Ellie gets overwhelmed, she needs me to sit with her, not fix it. I’ve learned to say, “Tell me more about what’s happening,” and then just listen. Sometimes she cries for ten minutes about her tower falling down, and I sit there feeling like we should be “moving on” already.
But we’re not moving on. We’re building trust.
Kids remember whether we made space for their big feelings or rushed them to be “fine.” As Daniel J. Siegel explains, “Helping children name their feelings (‘name it to tame it’) helps them calm down and learn emotional regulation.”
They don’t need us to make everything better. They need to know their feelings are valid, and we’re safe to come to.
2) Whether you kept your promises
This one is simple but not always easy.
When you say you’ll read that extra story, play that game after dinner, or take them to the park on Saturday, do you follow through?
I’ve slipped up here more times than I’d like to admit. The exhaustion of parenting two little ones sometimes means I overpromise. But I’ve noticed how Ellie’s face falls when I forget something I said we’d do. And I’ve also seen how her eyes light up when I remember the small things, like bringing home the special crackers I mentioned at breakfast.
Kids are keeping score in their own way. Not to punish us, but because consistency builds security. When we keep our word, we show them they matter. We teach them that people can be trusted.
And when we mess up? Repair matters just as much. A simple, “I said we’d do that and I didn’t. I’m sorry. Can we do it now?” goes a long way.
3) The rituals you created together
Matt makes pancakes every Saturday morning. It’s his thing with the kids, and they know it’s coming. Ellie helps measure the flour. Milo “stirs” with his toy spoon and gets batter everywhere.
It’s chaotic and takes three times longer than if Matt just made them himself. But it’s theirs.
These rituals don’t have to be elaborate. Bedtime stories with the same worn books. Tuesday night tacos. The way you always stop to look at the sunset together.
What kids remember is the predictability, the shared experience, the sense that “this is what we do.” These moments become the framework of their childhood, the memories they’ll carry and maybe recreate with their own families someday.
4) How you talked about other people
Children are always listening, even when we think they’re absorbed in play.
The way we speak about our partner, our neighbors, the cashier at the grocery store, people who are different from us. All of it gets absorbed.
I caught myself recently complaining about another mom’s parenting choices to Matt while the kids played nearby. Later, Ellie asked me, “Is Emma’s mama doing it wrong?”
That stopped me cold. I hadn’t been criticizing out loud, but my tone said everything.
Kids learn how to view the world through our lens. If we speak with kindness, curiosity, and respect, even when we disagree with someone, we teach them to do the same. If we gossip, judge, or speak harshly, that becomes their normal too.
It’s humbling, honestly. But it’s also an opportunity to model the kind of human we hope they’ll become.
5) Your willingness to be silly and playful
There’s a collage table in our kitchen where we create together. Sometimes it’s planned, painting or cutting shapes. But the best times are when someone starts being ridiculous and we all lean in.
Last week, Milo dumped a basket of fabric scraps on the floor and announced it was “soup.” Instead of redirecting him to clean up, I grabbed a wooden spoon and “tasted” it. Ellie added leaves from outside as “seasoning.” We spent an hour making increasingly absurd pretend meals.
Was it productive? Not in the traditional sense. Was it memorable? Absolutely.
Kids don’t need us to be Pinterest-perfect parents. They need us to get down on the floor, make silly voices, dance in the kitchen, build couch cushion forts. They need to see us let go of being the “responsible adult” for a few minutes and just be with them.
The laughter we share becomes the soundtrack of their childhood.
6) Whether you admitted when you were wrong
I lost my patience with Ellie a few months ago over something small. She’d spilled water, and I snapped about being more careful. But she had been careful. It was an accident, and I overreacted because I was overwhelmed.
I saw her little face crumple, and I immediately knew I’d messed up.
So I sat down with her, got eye level, and said, “I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. That wasn’t fair. You didn’t do anything wrong. Mama was having a hard moment, and I took it out on you. That’s not okay.”
She hugged me and whispered, “It’s okay, Mama.”
Apologizing to our kids doesn’t weaken our authority. It strengthens their understanding that everyone makes mistakes, and what matters is making it right. They learn that relationships can be repaired. That saying sorry isn’t weakness, it’s courage.
They’ll remember that we were human, flawed, and willing to own it.
7) How much you actually listened
This is hard when you’re tired and your five-year-old is telling you a meandering story about a butterfly she saw that reminded her of a book character who has a dog that looks like her friend’s dog who also has a trampoline.
But here’s what I’ve learned: when I stop what I’m doing, turn toward her, and really listen, something shifts. She feels seen. Valued. Important.
Laura Phillips, a neuropsychologist, notes, “Just exposure to words is the single most important thing that you can do to help build the language pathways in your child’s brain.”
But it’s not just about brain development. It’s about connection.
Kids remember whether we put down our phones when they needed us. Whether we asked follow-up questions or gave distracted “uh-huhs.” Whether we made eye contact or multitasked through their stories.
Full presence, even for five minutes, matters more than hours of half-attention.
8) The way you handled stress and challenges
Our vegetable garden had a rough summer last year. Something got to the tomatoes, the lettuce bolted in the heat, and I felt defeated looking at the scraggly plants.
Ellie watched me that whole season. She saw me frustrated but also saw me problem-solve. We researched what went wrong. We tried again with fall crops. We composted the failures and started fresh.
I didn’t hide my disappointment, but I also didn’t give up. And now when something doesn’t work for her, she’ll say, “Maybe we can try a different way, like with the garden.”
Kids are watching how we navigate disappointment, financial stress, conflict, unexpected challenges. They’re learning their coping strategies from us.
Do we fall apart? Blame others? Give up? Or do we take a breath, adjust, and keep going?
This actually ties into something I read recently in Rudá Iandê’s book Laughing in the Face of Chaos. One insight that stayed with me was this: “Anxiety is not merely a problem to be solved but a gateway to a richer, more real way of being.”
When we stop resisting the hard moments and instead lean into them with curiosity and resilience, we model for our children that challenges aren’t something to fear. They’re part of being human. And we can handle them.
9) That you chose them, again and again
Some days I’m touched out. Milo wants to be held constantly, and Ellie needs help with every little thing, and I just want ten minutes alone.
But even on those days, I try to have at least one moment where I choose them fully. Where I scoop Milo up even though my back aches. Where I stop washing dishes to help Ellie with her puzzle. Where I sit on the floor and give them my whole attention, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Because what kids remember most is whether they felt chosen. Whether they knew, deep in their bones, that they were wanted. That out of everything else demanding our time and energy, we picked them.
Not because we had to. Because we wanted to.
That’s the memory that shapes everything else.
Conclusion
None of this is about being a perfect parent.
I mess up daily. I get impatient, distracted, overwhelmed. I forget things and lose my temper and wish I’d handled moments differently.
But what I’m learning is that our kids don’t need perfect.
They need present. They need real. They need to feel loved, heard, and safe.
The memories they’ll carry aren’t about what we bought them or how clean the house was or whether we did everything “right.”
They’re about the feeling of being home with us. The safety of knowing we’d always show up. The warmth of being chosen.
And honestly? That takes the pressure off.
We don’t have to be everything. We just have to be there, doing our imperfect best, showing up with love even when it’s messy.
That’s what they’ll remember. And that’s more than enough.
