Leaving It Better Than We Received It

I can't tell you how many times I've said, 'My kids have no idea how easy they had it.' If only they knew how unavailable their grandmother was. If only they knew that, when I was young, I had to find ways to support myself, including doing other people's laundry and ironing their clothes. My friends and I have had countless conversations about our children and how little they seem to understand the advantages they've been given. We talk about how they take things for granted, the lessons, the activities, the opportunities, the rides, the parents sitting in the front row at every performance or cheering from the sidelines at every game. And maybe there is some truth to that. But lately, I've been asking myself a different question: Isn't this exactly what we wanted? Wasn't the whole point to make sure our children didn't experience the hardships we did? Didn't we work so hard precisely because we wanted them to know what it felt like to have parents who showed up, who drove them to music lessons, helped them pursue their interests, and made sure they had opportunities we never had? So why are we complaining now that they don't understand the life we worked so hard to protect them from? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I've come to realize that some of my frustration isn't really about my children at all. It's about the child in me. Part of me is envious of what I was able to give them. A part that still grieves what I didn't have. When I look at the opportunities and support my children received, I sometimes wonder who I might have become if someone had given me those same things. What might I have tried? What talents might have been nurtured? What would it have felt like to have a parent sitting in the front row, watching me? Those feelings aren't really about my children's lack of gratitude. They are about my own sadness for what could have been. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. And then another thought occurred to me. Maybe my parents felt the same way. Maybe what they gave me, even what sometimes felt insufficient, was still more than what they themselves had received. Maybe they, too, were trying to leave things a little better than they found them. Perhaps this is what happens from one generation to the next. We give our children what we wished someone had given us. Then, because their lives look so different from ours, we sometimes mistake their lack of hardship for a lack of appreciation. But maybe the fact that they cannot fully understand our struggles is not evidence that we failed to teach them something. Maybe it is evidence that we succeeded in changing something. The goal was never for our children to suffer enough to appreciate what they have. The goal was to leave things better than we received them. And then hope they will do the same. Even when the 'better' we give them still isn't perfect. Even when it isn't enough. Even when the next generation looks back at us and decides there are things they want to do differently. Maybe that is exactly how it is supposed to work.