What I Regret About Being an Older Parent: Real Lessons No One Shares
I’m leaning against the sun-warmed chain-link fence at my 10-year-old son Eli’s 5th grade field day, pressing a fist into my lower back to work out a knot that’s been there since I bent down to tie his sneakers this morning. Two spots down from me, a 30-something mom just sprinted across the outfield to catch her falling kindergartener, hoisted him onto her hip, and was laughing before he even finished wiping dirt off his jeans. I shift my weight to my good knee, and overhear her tell her friend they’re planning a two-week trip to Japan when their oldest graduates high school. She’ll be 47 then. I’ll be 70 when Eli graduates.
I had Eli when I was 38, which a lot of people now consider “older parenting.” All the articles I read while I was waiting to start our family talked about the benefits: more stable finances, more life experience, more patience to handle toddler meltdowns. That’s all true. We own our home, I don’t stress about taking time off for school events, and I rarely yell over spilled juice. What no one talks about is the quiet regret that doesn’t have anything to do with being tired by 8 p.m. (though that’s real enough).
My own dad was 43 when I was born, and he died of a sudden heart attack when I was 22, right before I graduated college. I waited to have kids because I wanted to be financially stable, to avoid the stress my parents lived with when they had me young. That was my choice, and I don’t regret choosing stability. But that choice left me with a regret I carry most days: I’m already grieving the parts of Eli’s life I’ll probably miss, and that grief leaks into how I parent him now, making me tighter, more scared, less likely to let him spread his wings when he’s ready.
Two months ago, Eli asked if he could go on a 7th grade camping trip with the science club next year. It’s three days, up in the mountains, four hours from here. Before he even finished asking, I said “I don’t know, that’s a long way, what if you get hurt?” My wife, who’s five years younger than me, just raised an eyebrow later when we were doing dishes. “You’re not scared of the camping,” she said. “You’re scared that if you let him go, you’re wasting time you could have with him now.” She was right. I’ve turned down three invitations to his friend’s birthday parties at the trampoline park because my knees can’t handle jumping, and I felt guilty about it for weeks, like I was letting him down. I’ve said no to sleepovers an hour away more times than I can count, not because I don’t trust him, but because I wake up some nights thinking what if I get hit by a car tomorrow, what if he doesn’t have enough memories of me.
It took me a while to figure out what to do with this regret, because pushing it down just made it worse. I tried a few small, concrete things that have actually helped, that I haven’t seen other older parents talk about much. First, I started keeping a cheap spiral notebook on my nightstand, and every Sunday I write down one small, stupid, specific thing that happened that week with Eli. It’s not a fancy memoir for after I’m gone. It’s just, “April 14: We got mustard on the car seat when we got hot dogs after practice, and Eli said it’s fine because ‘cars are supposed to have condiments on them.’ We laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe for a minute.” Before I started this, I was always trying to “savor every moment” which just made me stressed that I wasn’t savoring enough. Writing one line a week takes 30 seconds, and it takes the pressure off me having to remember everything myself. Eli knows about the notebook, and sometimes he adds his own line if he’s with me.
Second, I started naming my fear out loud to Eli, in simple terms that don’t dump all my baggage on him. It doesn’t have to be a big crying speech. After I turned him down for the camping trip too fast, I sat down with him that night and said, “Hey, I said no too quick to your camping trip. My dad died when I was young, so I get scared sometimes that I’ll miss too much stuff with you. That’s my stuff, not yours, and I want to talk more about what the trip looks like instead of just saying no.” That was it. He just nodded, said he gets why I’d be scared, and we worked out that I’d check in with the trip leaders every day, and that was enough. Before that, I just kept my regret to myself, so it turned into irritability or random no’s that he thought was about him.
Third, I stopped trying to keep up with the younger parents at school. I used to feel guilty that I can’t run the 5K the PTA organizes every year, or that I can’t play 90 minutes of soccer in the backyard on Saturday. Now I just tell Eli up front: “My knees hurt too much to run today, but I’ll pack us popcorn and we can watch that new space documentary you wanted to see, and then I’ll beat you at cribbage.” That’s our thing, and he doesn’t care that I don’t sprint across kickball fields.
I’m still standing here at the field day, my back still hurts, and I still lie awake some nights thinking about whether I’ll get to walk him down the aisle, or meet my grandkids. The regret doesn’t just go away. It’s part of being an older parent, the thing no one posts about on Instagram. But lately, instead of letting it make me clamp down, I just let it be there, and do the small things. Eli runs over now, holding his blue ribbon from the three-legged race, and asks me to take a photo to send to his grandma. I pull out my phone, take the photo, and he runs back to his friends to get in line for the ice cream truck. I stay leaning on the fence, and I don’t feel guilty for sitting this next race out. That’s enough, for today.
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