What Do You Regret Giving Your Children?

There are no perfect parents ...

Growing up, I was very shy and overly dependent on my parents, especially my mother.  I also wore thick glasses, which only increased my shyness and eroded my self-confidence.

When I was a sophomore in high school, contact lenses were in the news and my parents took me to get a pair. That was when I began to come out of my shell. 

I even remember one conversation I had with Mama after I got my contacts: “Mama, will you teach me how to flirt?”

“No, Catherine. I’m sure that’s something you’ll learn all by yourself …”

I guess I did … this was a photo from my senior yearbook. My classmates voted me “class flirt”.

It wasn’t until I was married to my high school sweetheart that I found out something very important about myself.  

My husband, Doug, told me he first noticed me at school my junior year. He asked one of his buddies who I was. His friend said, “You would be wasting your time trying to get a date with her. She’s tied to her mother’s apron strings.” I was surprised and yet it didn’t surprise me at all.

A few years after Doug was killed in Vietnam, I married again. Later, we had three beautiful daughters and that was when I remembered what Doug told me years before. I knew I wanted my daughters to be more independent and less shy than I was. I also knew it would be up to me to raise them a little differently, so I started early.

• I encouraged them to be as appropriately independent as their age would allow. I taught them to politely answer the phone and when they were a little older, how to take a message, if I was busy.

• Each had their own jobs to do around the house —again, age appropriate, and like a job, they were paid. We went to the bank and I sat with them as they opened their own savings account and later, as they added to it.

• Each week, they made the decision whether to put all of their pay (we didn’t call it an allowance) in their bank account, or only part of it. It was their money. I was giving them the tools to manage it and I wanted it to be their decision whether to save, or spend it.

• When they chose to spend part of their money, they usually wanted to go to a bookstore. When it was time to pay, I encouraged them to put their book near the register and to pay the cashier themselves.

• When they were older and earning money babysitting, they already had the tools and the know-how for managing it.

They were growing up and I was proud of them. They were confident, dependable, outgoing and self-reliant, as well as excellent students. Then we can add in loving, considerate, and caring to each other and their father and me.

They’re all grown now with families of their own and they’ve given me eleven fantastic grandchildren.

If I regret anything about what I gave my girls, I would say I may have over-compensated for the dependency I was raised with.  Don’t get me wrong —I have a wonderful relationship with each of them. We’re extremely close, but they are also very independent.

We all live pretty far apart in four different states.  I don’t see them nearly as often as I would like, nor do we talk on the phone every day like I did with my mother until she passed away.

I just keep reminding myself that parents aren’t perfect. We all do the best that we can, and it’s always out of love … and I did.

I love my girls.

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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