75% of the time you’ll ever get to spend with your kids is over by the time they turn 12

[Muminthewest]

I’ve just come across this quote, which I’ve never seen before, and being in the thick of things with young children, it’s actually blown my mind a bit…
“75% of the time you’ll ever get to spend with your kids is over by the time they turn 12.
90% of your time with them is gone by the time they’re 18”

Parents with older children - is this true? If so, how do you adjust?
And most importantly, what’s the best advice you’d give to someone who suddenly feels they only have a few short years of quality time left?

Exactly! I will be fine with not reading Cressida Cowell every night and having to persuade him to eat anything green at every meal.

I see my adult DC still. DS2 takes me for a meal out each week and we chat afterwards, possibly 2 1/2 hours plus time in the car 1 hour. He pops over on Wednesday evening because I tend to make a homemade lasagne with salad on Wednesdays. He stays for 2-3 hours. DS1 lives about 2 hours away but we sometimes go up for the weekend when invited. I keep in touch with both sons with WhatsApp messages/photos and an odd phone call. We spend Xmas together each year. It's not all over when they become adults. If you are good parents it stands to reason they will want to keep in touch with you.

Also my MiL is elderly now but since FiL died DH and I go up for weekend once a month to give her company.

This certainly hasn’t been true for my partner or me with our parents. We have spent loads of time together, very often. Until illness/death changed things we would see them at least 3 times a week (out of choice)
My oldest is nearing 20 and I appreciate it might be different for her, she’s not likely to stay where we live but that’s ok. We have had so much fun together and I’m enjoying stepping back a little and watching this amazing human figure life out.

Oh I've just read your latest point and it completely demonstrates why I hate memes like this. Basically what it says is you won't be rocking your teenage children to sleep or wiping their bum. The time you get with your children gradually evolves and it is supposed to.

8 is a great age. There's lots of Social media pos, blogs etc about preschoolers but the reality is they won't remember it. What do you like to do with your daughter? What's her favourite thing to do? When are you at your best? Whilst there's a lot of pressure on the early years, I think most parents do provide what's needed and it's more useful to think about how to be a good parent to a pre-teen and a teen. But sometimes you will have to tell her off, or have a difficult conversation. You are her parent and you don't need to worry about how many summers she gets etc when you know you need to guide her into a decent person.

Memories are funny. It's not the big holidays or expensive trips often, it's just simple moments of happiness. One to one time is important, little moments of feeling special. If you have only one I think it's about taking the moments to make them feel really understood.

I've been there, shouty isn't ideal, it's not as awful as shouty mums sometimes think. I've met lots of children who need a more shouty mum 😂 Apologize if you've got it wrong, try and model not shouting but also talk about how we all get cross.

Your job isn't to enrich their childhoods. It's to treasure them and raise them to be decent adults.

I don’t think it’s true. Or at least it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not because there are different types of time. Very difficult to enjoy three hours of a screaming toddler or three hours of a colicky newborn. Three hours pottering around with a 20yo , chatting/coffee/ cooking together can be blissful 😊

I don't have adult children yet but I am 31 and my sister is 37, we see our mum almost daily. We spend a lot of time together. Probably more now than when I was 12-18. We also all live quite close to eachother and go to the same church. My brother on the other hand, he's 40 and lives abroad. They talk almost daily. Hope this helps c

Thank you @TotheAlps

I guess it feels like time is running out to create the lovely little moments and be the best I can. This is it, the time is now, I very deliberately chose to have kids (rounds of IVF), I found it so hard, but I’ve just got to get over myself and focus on making the best of this short time with them.

Apparently the inner monologue you often get in your head as an adult, i.e. how you talk to yourself, mirrors how you were spoken to as a child. So if you have a strong, kind, reassuring mum, you speak to yourself better and focus on the right things.

If I’m a parent who has not got on top of my own problems quickly enough (and as we know becoming a parent rips your problems wide open and exposes them raw for you to deal with), then I cannot be with best mum to my children. The quote made me realise that I don’t have forever and it’s scared me.

My children aren’t in poverty or some desperate situation. We have some great things in our lives and I know in some ways I’m looking at myself through a dark lense. But also, I feel I’m stating something true that I just can’t express easily to friends. And that is - “I’m scared. I’m not doing a good enough job as a parent and I’m running out of time to do it.”

I had the sudden realisation a couple of years ago that my kids were growing up quickly.

I ramped up making the 6 weeks school
holidays extra fun, booked a trip to Disneyworld (which was epic), spent a lot of time doing movie nights and in general just spend alot of time with my kids.

My daughters now 12 and yes she is more independent (which she needs to learn so I’m happy about that) but I still spend loads of time with her.

Iv stayed working part time so I can spend loads of time with them. I’m here everyday when they get home from school as I know it won’t be long as they won’t need me here.

You sound a little bit like my mum, she was stressed about not being good enough for us or that all we would remember of her from our childhoods was her being stressed out and anxious.
But she was adding to that stress at the time by being so worried how it would be remembered that she would tie herself up in knots and not be able to enjoy the moments as they came.

All the memories that were 'strong' i guess from childhood were not the ones she was trying to orchestrate to be great but just happened accidentally so she didn't have time to stress about it.

Things like when she took me out of school in year 5 to go to the dentist but she had got the day wrong, after 30 minutes of her stressing in a hot car in traffic we saw an ice cream van and so we parked and had ice cream by the lake and we chatted and it was lovely.
Or when I was 14 and overplucked one eyebrow before a school event, she flapped for a minute then because it stressed me out she pulled herself together and took me up the road, we bought a good eyebrow tool and some other bits and then she filled in my wonky eyebrow, showed me how to do good winged eyeliner and straightened my hair for me (which distracted from the eyebrow). Even though it was not great at the time, its one of my favourite memories with my mum.

You have loads of time, your kid will have good memories with you, lots of little accidental fun moments.

😂😂😂

Yes it's probably true but the great thing is that you'll be so ready for it!
One of the best bits of parenting is watching them become independent people and fly off on their own :)

For my eldest that would ring true, but my 15 year old is still pretty glued to my side. We have just been out for lunch together. So I think it depends on the child really.