How to Let Go of Past Parenting Regrets and Focus on Today With Your Kids
The faded navy U12 soccer jersey tumbled out of the back of my oldest son’s old dresser drawer last Saturday, while I was sorting clothes to donate. The grass stain on the left sleeve is still there, from the regional tournament where I chewed him out in the parking lot after he missed a penalty kick that knocked his team out. I stood there holding it for five minutes, while rain streaked the bedroom window and the dryer thumped down the hall, and that old familiar ache settled in my chest: I messed that up. Bad.
He was 12 then, had been playing soccer for six years, but halfway through that season he started coming home from practice moping, saying he’d rather be playing piano. He’d taken lessons since he was 5, loved tinkering with his own silly songs in our living room after school, but we’d cut back on lessons to make room for travel soccer practice and weekend tournaments. When he said he wanted to quit the team and go back to full-time piano, I wouldn’t let him. I told him quitters don’t get to start over, that we’d invested too much time and money to walk away, that soccer would look better on college applications anyway. He ended up quitting soccer two months later, driven off by my constant nagging and his own unhappiness, but never went back to piano. Said it didn’t feel right anymore. That regret has sat with me for seven years, through high school graduation, moving him into his dorm last fall.
Last week he was home for fall break, and we were making chocolate chip pancakes on Sunday morning, flour all over the counter, when he mentioned he’d joined a student piano group on campus. They meet in the music building basement once a week, play whatever they want, no recitals no tests. I felt that old twinge, the one that makes me start rambling about how sorry I am, how I was wrong back then, how I ruined his childhood piano career. But this time I just said, “I still feel bad I talked you out of going back when you were 12.” He flipped a pancake, shrugged, and said, “Meh. I was 12 too. I wouldn’t have practiced as much as I do now anyway. I like it better this way.” I didn’t push the apology further. I just nodded and said, “That’s cool. Can you play me something when you’re done with breakfast?” That was it. No big emotional moment, no perfect closure scene, just slightly lumpy pancakes and a shrug.
For years after that fight with Sam, I overcompensated with my younger son, Milo. I was so scared of pushing him into something he didn’t want, of repeating the same mistake, that I barely pushed him at all. When he said he wanted to learn guitar two years ago, I bought the guitar, signed him up for lessons, and then never mentioned it again. I figured if I asked him to practice, that was the same bad pushing I did with Sam. He stopped going to lessons after six months, and the guitar just sat in the corner of his room, collecting dust. I told myself that was fine, that it was his choice, but really I was just letting my old regret call the shots for my current parenting.
I’ve tried a few small things lately that have worked better than carrying that regret around. The first is: when the regret pops up, name it once, out loud if you can, then don’t rehash it. I used to lie awake at night going over that parking lot fight, changing what I said, what I should have done, but that doesn’t change anything. It just steals time from whatever I’m supposed to be doing right now. Now when that jersey tumbles out, or Sam plays a new song over FaceTime, I say the regret out loud once (to him if he’s there, to myself if he’s not) and then I turn to whatever is in front of me right now. No extra guilt, no beating myself up for a mistake I can’t fix.
The second thing is: stop letting old mistakes dictate every current choice. I realized after that pancake morning that “no pushing at all” was just as unhelpful as “pushing too hard” with Milo. I was so busy avoiding one mistake that I was making a new one: I wasn’t showing up to support the thing he said he wanted, because I was too scared of repeating the past. So I got a pack of neon pink sticky notes from the dollar store, and I put one on his guitar case that says “10 minutes if you feel like it.” I don’t nag him about it, I don’t ask him if he practiced when I see him in the evening. If the sticky note falls off, I put a new one up. That’s it. It’s a small middle ground between pushing too hard and checking out entirely, and it doesn’t let my regret about Sam ruin how I show up for Milo. Last week he came home from school, picked up the guitar, practiced for 12 minutes, and came and showed me a G chord he figured out on YouTube. That’s all it took.
I folded the soccer jersey and put it back in the drawer, instead of putting it in the donate pile. I still get that twinge sometimes. Some nights I still think about what I’d do differently if I could go back. But I can’t go back. The past is what it is. Right now, Sam plays piano every week with his friends, and he’s happy. Right now, Milo is messing around with guitar, and he’s happy. I don’t need to fix the old mistake to do okay right now. Some days are better than others. Some days I still let regret take over a little. But most days, the sticky note is on the guitar, the pancakes get burned a little, and that’s enough.
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