It’s very difficult to go through life with absolutely no regrets. We are all human, after all, and therefore, we will make mistakes and do things we wish we’d never done.
As a parent of three kids who are adults now with their careers and families, I have many regrets of things I could have and should have done differently, but there are some things that my husband and I did that we do NOT regret:
We do not regret raising our children to love Jesus. From the very beginning, we introduced faith into our children’s lives. It wasn’t just about going to church for us; it was about living out our faith on a daily basis. Following Jesus was one of our core values.
We do not regret prioritizing family. Both extended and immediate family times were important to us. We made every effort to spend time with each other and be involved with family events. We wanted our kids to know uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. Some of them were very close to our kids and had a big influence on their lives.
We do not regret letting them be totally engrossed in sports. Having three kids play sports all the way through college, I am well aware of the demands and sacrifices that sports parents make. But I would do it all over again. The lessons our kids learned in sports made a huge impact on their lives and they are who they are today because of those years they played. And along with that, we do not regret letting them learn to fight their own battles. It truly developed strong character in all three of them.
We do not regret prioritizing our marriage. We believed, from the beginning, that one of the best things we could do for our kids was to have a good marriage. So we worked hard at communicating, having date nights and praying together as a couple. Today, 43 years later, we are still going strong and I don’t know if that would be the case if we’d let our children’s busy lives push our marriage to the backburner.
We do not regret going against the flow. Sometimes, our family values didn’t align with the people around us. When our kids’ friends were allowed to do something we didn’t feel was wise, we had to parent upstream and go against the flow. We had to stand up for what we believed in, be consistent, and not cave in just because everyone else was doing it. That included things like movie and music choices, our stand on drinking, and most importantly, the priority we placed on our faith in Jesus.
The regrets I DO have, like getting upset at my kids too much, or not listening to them as much as I should–there are days when those regrets make me sad. I don’t think about them much any more because, thankfully, our kids turned out way more than all right despite our mistakes.
If you are in the trenches of parenting, I encourage you to take stock of things you are doing now that you may regret later. It’s not too late to change.
“If I could do it all over, I would have played more with them down at their level. I would have joined them in the pool, played hide and seek, played more board games, and laughed with them.” Anonymous
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