What I Regret About Being an Older Parent (And What I’ve Learned Along the Way)
I’m leaning against the splintered chain-link fence at my 7-year-old Mia’s 8U soccer practice, ice pack wrapped around my left knee and sticky with condensation from the car freezer, when the 32-year-old assistant coach glances at me and asks, “Is Mia’s grandma doing okay today?” I laugh and shake my head, tell him I’m her mom, I had her when I was 41. He blushes and mumbles an apology, and I wave it off like it doesn’t bother me. But by the time I’m buckling Mia into her carseat an hour later, the thought’s already niggling at the back of my brain: this is one of the things no one tells you about being an older parent. It’s not all the peaceful, patient wisdom the parenting magazines talk about. It comes with real, quiet regrets that don’t get talked about much.
Last month, Mia begged me to take her on the 2-mile loop hike at the state park a half hour from our house. All her friends had done it with their parents, she said, and she wanted to see the waterfall at the end. I agreed, even though I’d had foot surgery two years ago that still makes long walks hard. We got a quarter of the way in, and I was already winded, my foot throbbing so bad I had to sit down on a fallen log and catch my breath. Mia wanted to keep going, kept saying it was just a little further, but I wouldn’t let her go on alone. We cut the hike short, got ice cream on the way home, and she didn’t complain, but I saw her staring out the car window the whole drive, quiet. That night, I sat on the couch after she went to bed and cried a little. I regretted that I couldn’t give her that experience the way a younger mom could. I regretted that I can’t keep up when she wants to play tag at the park, that I can’t chaperone the all-night lock-in her class is having next spring because I can’t stay awake past 10 o’clock anymore. I regret that my parents are both gone, so she’ll never get to know her grandma and grandpa on my side, the way her friends’ grandparents know them. Most of all, I regret the constant, quiet fear that I won’t be here for all the big moments she has ahead: her college graduation, her wedding, the day she has her own kids. People say it’s silly to borrow trouble from the future, but when you’re an older parent, it’s impossible to avoid the math.
I used to try to push past all this, to pretend the regrets aren’t there because I wanted so badly to be a mom, and I know I’m lucky to have Mia. But pretending didn’t make them go away, so I started making small changes that have taken a lot of the pressure off. The first thing I did was stop trying to match what the younger parents are doing. When I realized I couldn’t run around the park or pull off all-day trips to the amusement park, I started leaning into the things I can do, that we both enjoy. Every Saturday morning, we go to the downtown library, pick out three graphic novels and a picture book for bedtime, then get glazed donuts from the bakery on the corner and sit on the bench by the river and read. Mia looks forward to it more than she looks forward to soccer some weeks, and it doesn’t require me to twist my knee or gasp for air. When the team needs a parent volunteer, I don’t sign up for the overnight camping trip I can’t survive. I sign up to bake post-practice snacks and organize the end-of-season team party at the ice cream shop, which fits my energy level just fine.
I also switched our homework time from 7 p.m., when I’m wiped after a full day of work and ready to collapse on the couch, to 3:30 p.m., right when we get home from school, before I start answering work emails and before my energy drains out. We do it at the kitchen table with a plate of cut up apples, and it’s done before 4:30, so the rest of the evening we can just laze around and watch an episode of her favorite cartoon if that’s what I have energy for. That small shift cut our homework fights in half, because I’m not snapping at her for daydreaming when I’m just too tired to focus.
For the big fear that I won’t be here for her later, I started a simple letter jar. It’s just a big mason jar I got at the craft store for three dollars, and every month on the 12th, the day she was born, I write her a short note about something that happened that month. Last month I wrote about how she tried to bake chocolate chip cookies by herself and burned the bottoms so bad the smoke alarm went off, but we scraped the top off and put extra frosting on them and they were still the best thing I ate that week. I wrote down how she stood up for a little girl on the playground who was being teased for having glasses. When the jar is full, I’ll put it in a storage box with extra paper, and she’ll have it when I’m gone. It’s not the same as being there, but it’s something. It’s better than just sitting around worrying about it.
I still have bad days. Last week I had a routine colonoscopy, and while I was waiting for the results, all I could think about was what happens if something is wrong, what happens to Mia. I still get that twist in my chest when someone mistakes me for her grandma, even though I act like it doesn’t bother me. I don’t have this all figured out, and the regrets don’t go away completely. But I’ve stopped beating myself up for having them. Regret doesn’t mean I don’t love Mia more than anything. It just means I’m human, and being an older parent comes with trade-offs no one talks about.
Last night, Mia crawled into my lap after her bedtime story, and she said, “You’re the coziest mom ever, because your lap is warm and soft.” I hugged her, and for a minute, the regret went away. It doesn’t fix the knee pain, or the math of the years ahead, but it’s enough for right now.
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