To be filled with regrets about my parenting choices

Ofgs.. unless ypu put your kids in a bin or treated them like shit, you've joined the millions of mothers around the world just trying our best given the circumstances we have been dealt.

I'm sure you kids will be fine ( like the vast majority of children!) Whom I lived and supported.
The rest.. well that's up to them.

But what exactly do you think you could you have done differently that would have made a difference?

Hi OP - not saying it is what you are going through, but I have been through this type of extreme regret, (verging on self loathing) on parenting and on many of my life choices due to peri menopause and hormonal imbalance on and off over the last 3 years. And i find my children (especially DC2 who is not following the path I had imagined, is neurodivergent and worries me more than the other 2 put together) crystallise those regrets - I can go in mini spirals of despair at times, but some things really help me put things back in perspective . So if you feel you're not quite yourself and know you're in that phase of life, it could be related to that and there is help at hand. Ignore if not relevant, but just thought I'd share...

Hi OP I kind of get it, but the fact you feel this way tells me that you did your best for them.

I have kids very close in age who are now young adults. When they left home, I became introspective and analysed my parenting with some regrets. What helped me was seeing that they were polar opposites! Such different personalities, academic goals and approach to life in general. Same parents!

I reckon, as long as they are given unconditional love, your children will turn out the way they were destined to. We kid ourselves a bit and think we have more influence over the final ‘result’ than we do ;-)

I wonder if there is something wider making you feel like this.
Are they heading to Uni/moving out, and you're feeling not only this guilt on choices but grief at the change of them leaving?

Mine are still relatively young but eldest is nearly a teen, and I do feel a sense of sadness that his childhood "proper" is ending and there are things I would have liked to be different. But I focus on being the best parent I can to him now, in this stage, and enjoying the new bits of parenting him as he grows.

As others have suggested it might also help to tall to your kids. Do they feel upset you didn't push them? Is that actually them defelcting their own guilt or grief at not trying for things? Perhaps they will say they are glad you didn't put too much pressure on them.

Two things which I have found help with intrusive feelings of guilt or anxiety are discussing those thoughts with a real person who can put them in perspective, or consciously focusing on a more constructive alternative narrative such as "I made mistakes but I can learn from them and show my children that it's possibly to grow and change all through their lives"

You can’t be a perfect parent. All the choices you regret not making will have their downsides.

I think it is always worth remembering that all you can ever know is that if you'd done things differently things would have been different- not necessarily better. It is human nature to assume that if we are disappointed with the outcome of any of our decisions then a different decision would have led to success. And maybe it would. But we can't ever know that. It might have led to a similar outcome or even a worse one, you simply can't know so there is no point on dwelling on it.
In the context of "pushing" a child, you can lead a horse to water...beyond a certain age the motivation has to come from within and trying to push a child too hard or in a direction that they don't want to go is often counterproductive.
You are where you are OP, move on. You can of course learn from the past but its much more important to look forwards than backwards.

The important thing here is how they feel. Are they miserable? Unfulfilled? Or just not doing as you would like them to do? Are they young adults having difficulty landing jobs? Because almost all of them are these days and that's not your fault or theirs.

I think it's important to understand how old they are and what it is you feel they've missed out on?

It's interesting because DH and I had a big argument last night, that he apologised for and pulled back from a bit, about DS. Oldest DC (16) is very much an achiever and a 'joiner-inner', strong results, motivated, sings in choir, takes music exams etc. DS (12) has adhd, very little intrinsic motivation, coasting along OK but underachieving and DH admitted he couldn't help comparing them and wanting to push DS harder.

I had a similar conversation with a friend (we both have DC in their 30s and 40s) She replied that she felt that the most important thing was to raise happy and contented adults.

You did your best with what you knew and had at the time……you show me a perfect parent and I’ll show you a liar !!!! Xx

And how do your children feel about you not doing those things?

Apparently my mum regrets not sending us to music lessons... but we didn't want to go to music lessons because it would have meant being in the same room as a horrible boy

Education doesn't end after childhood - I do lots of courses because I enjoy learning new things, but for fun and for myself, rather than to please adults.

So what would you have done differently? Sent them to 'better' schools?

You did your best with what you knew at the time. That’s all we can aim for! We only know what we know. We don’t know what we don’t know until we come across it or are pointed in the right direction.

It can't have been that bad that you didn't push them or surely you'd have done something about it at the time.

Here's the thing, OP. Your kids are their own independent people and not an extension of you. To some extent, they have to take responsibility for their own lives and outcomes.

They could have done incredibly well without any pushing from you - many kids do. And it isn't necessarily your fault if they chose not to push themselves.

Also, you have no means of knowing how things would have turned out if you had been pushier. You can't possibly know what that might have done to your relationship with your kids, their mental health etc.

It can be hard to work out where parental responsibility starts and stops and where individual responsibility kicks in. But there is no point in beating yourself up about stuff that you can no longer change.

If your kids want to turn things around for themselves, they will have that opportunity. But if they're old enough for you to be able to feel this level of regret, I'm guessing that they're at an age now where it is mainly up to them.

It's easy to say that you would do things differently with hindsight, but the reality is, you never get to see how that would have worked out in any case. If you made what you thought were the best decisions at the time, that's all you could have done. No point in wasting your energy on empty regrets. Channel that energy into supporting your kids as well as you can in the present instead, whatever stage of life they're now at.

I did a lot of extracurricular music stuff as a teenager. There were a few kids in every group who didn't enjoy their instrument and were only there because their parents insisted and they were MISERABLE. I can't imagine any of them saw any benefit from it past a line on their UCAS forms. If you've avoided being that parent, good for you.

Beating yourself up about the best you coudl do at the time is pointless. What's more important is what are you going to do now.

Life is too short for this. I regret my steely determination to make my child do all the school work during covid. I went to war against that poor 9 yr old. Utterly pointless. I forgive myself. We are very slack now. But I have just discovered that bribery is fun. I was going to give them spending money for a holiday anyway but paid them to read instead (bucks for books). I am not saying this is good parenting but it's a means to an end for us for this specific problem. They love reading, they just forgot and needed an incentive. Hopefully they will carry on reading but who knows... There's probably loads of things you do that are perfect and brilliant. You need to recognise them and tell yourself "well bloody done!"

Pushing for excellence isn't always a good parenting choice, my mam tried and I pushed back ten times harder.

You gave them your best and did what you could. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. Just be the best you can be NOW and stop worrying about things you can't change.

Look to the future.
Your DC have made choices that will have been affected by your choices but if you'd made different choices then their decisions may have been worse!
You cannot change the past, look to the future.

I pushed my boys. Both did well and have high paying jobs.
However they had to move away for work. Now I hardly see them.
Sometimes I wish I hadn't pushed and they were in normal jobs and living locally.
Don't worry, you did what was best at the time.
Ps both went to state schools.

Yabu. Parenting is hard. We're all just doing our best.

If you did your best op and put their needs before your own then I'm not sure what you need forgiveness for?

We've all made mistakes of course but I think if you can honestly say you did your best for them at the time then that's the important thing.

This. Absolutely. Be the best parent you can be from today.