Thoughtful Thursday // How Do You Want Your Kids To Remember You?

Legacy. It's something we crave as humans. It seems like most of history is people wanting to be remembered by the world, but what if we focused on how we are remembered by the people in our lives? Specifically our kids.

I think that our legacy starts well before we have kids and that even those of us without kids should think about it. The decisions we make as single people or married but no kids form habits that will carry into the season of parenthood. Are we on our phones all the time now? Are we rushing around from task to task? Do we struggle to listen? Even if you never have kids, there will be kids in your life who watch you and look up to you and are influenced by you. So, with that in mind...

"If you ever have kids, how would you want them to remember you as a parent?" (And also, how would you want the kids in your life to remember you as a person?)

A good place to start is to think about the kind of parent/adult you wish you'd had in your life as a kid. Maybe you had great adults in your life and you want to be just like them. Take time to think about what you loved and admired about them and then try to work out what they did to be that way. If they are still in your life, you could ask them. If you had poor adult examples, you can still try to work out what happened that made them like that. This will help you know what to do in order to be the opposite.

For me, there are a few key things that I want the kids in my life to know and remember about me. I want them to feel seen and heard. This means really listening to them, not being on my phone, and being interested in what is interesting to them. It means taking their concerns seriously and not being dismissive. Because of that, I want them to feel safe coming to me with anything. I want them to know that I'm always in their corner and that even if I have to tell them something they don't want to hear, it comes from a place of love.

I also want to be remembered as someone who found joy in the little things and moments of life. Who wasn't always looking ahead to the next thing but lived presently. I want them to remember that I saw the wonder of the ordinary things in life.

These sound like lofty goals but I'm trying to work to live like that now. I may not have kids of my own, but I have kids who are watching me and are in my life so this is something that I've thought about and has become more important to me than it previously was.

Do you resonate with these things? How would you want to be remembered? Let me know in the comments!