The Parenting Choices That Matter 20 Years Later

Years from now, when childhood is a memory, what actually sticks?

I asked this on Instagram, inviting adults to look back and share reflections on their relationship with the people who raised them. The small, steady things that made them feel safe, valued, and able to come back after hard moments.

So many of us are thinking about this. Especially in the middle of the messy years, when parenting can feel reactive, exhausting, and uncertain. It’s easy to wonder which moments will fade and which ones will last. As adults, we carry our own experiences with our parents, for better or for worse. And as we parent now, many of us are quietly hoping for a relationship with our kids that lasts. One that holds up through disagreements, distance, and change. One where trust stays intact and the door always feels open.

The responses that came in were honest and emotional, and reading them felt grounding. I told my husband that I got teary-eyed because it seems so easy, yet so many of us didn’t get this. It made me think about how much of parenting is shaped quietly, in moments that might not even feel important at the time.

These themes aren’t a checklist or a set of rules. They’re reflections from adults looking back, and together they form a clear pattern of what tends to matter most in the long run, even though no parent gets it right all the time.

Theme One: Feeling Safe Came First

Again and again, people described safety as the foundation of everything else. Not just physical safety, but emotional safety. Knowing they could speak honestly. Knowing they wouldn’t be shamed, dismissed, or pushed away when things got hard. Knowing there was a place to land.

This matters because emotional safety isn’t built during the big talks, but rather in how we respond when kids are upset, messy, or not at their best.

For many, this sense of safety shaped whether they came back as adults. Whether they trusted their parents with hard conversations. Whether the relationship held through mistakes, conflict, and growing up.

Here are a few of the ways you described what that safety felt like:

Emotional safety doesn’t mean kids never hear “no.” It means the relationship can hold disappointment, anger, and mistakes without threatening connection. Kids can feel safe and still have boundaries. In fact, safety often grows because boundaries exist inside a relationship that feels steady.

Theme Two: They Showed Up, Again and Again

One thing came through clearly: being there mattered. Not in flashy ways, but in the ordinary ones like sitting in the stands, staying up late, and making time, even when life was busy or stressful.

People didn’t talk about parents who did everything. They talked about parents who showed up when it counted, over and over. Presence became proof of care. And years later, that consistency is what they remember most.

Here’s how many of you described it:

For many families, showing up didn’t look like endless availability. It looked like effort. Choosing presence when it mattered. Making kids feel like they were worth rearranging life for sometimes. That message lingers. It teaches kids they are valued, not just loved in theory but prioritized in practice.

Theme Three: Someone Who Believed in Me

So many of you wrote about having at least one adult who truly believed in you. Someone who noticed your strengths and spoke them out loud. Someone who reminded you who you were when things felt shaky.

That belief shaped confidence and risk-taking. It shaped the way people learned to talk to themselves long after childhood. To clarify, being believed in didn’t mean pressure to succeed, but it meant knowing someone was in your corner no matter the outcome.

Here’s how you described it:

For many, this belief became an internal voice. A steady message that said you can try, you can learn, you can recover from mistakes. Years later, people still carry that voice, often without realizing where it first came from.

Theme Four: Being Taken Seriously

A lot of you wrote about feeling respected. Not in a way where kids ran the household, but in a way that made you feel like an actual person. Your thoughts mattered, your questions were welcome, and your feelings weren’t brushed off just because of your age.

That respect built trust. It made hard conversations possible later. It made it easier to come back during adolescence and adulthood because the relationship had always made room for honesty.

Here’s how you described it:

For many, this respect didn’t disappear when boundaries were set. In fact, it often made boundaries easier to accept. Being taken seriously meant feeling worthy of explanation, conversation, and care. That respect is part of what allowed these relationships to deepen, not fade, over time.

Theme Five: Repair, Accountability, and Growing Together

Many of you shared that what mattered most wasn’t having a parent who got everything right. It was having a parent who could reflect, apologize, and grow. Someone willing to come back after conflict and try again.

That willingness to repair seemed to shape whether the relationship could stretch and hold over time, especially through adolescence and adulthood.

Here’s how you described it, in your own words:

What stood out is how often this kind of accountability strengthened the relationship instead of weakening it. This idea comes up a lot when we talk about repair and taking responsibility with our kids, too. Repair can teach kids that conflict is something relationships can survive and grow through.

Theme Six: Being Allowed to Be Yourself

A lot of you described how meaningful it was to grow up feeling accepted for who you were. There was room to have your own interests, personality, pace, and opinions. Guidance existed, but without constant pressure to fit a mold. With that sense of freedom, many feel more accepted, and it can make connection safer.

Here’s how you shared it:

Acceptance didn’t mean the absence of limits. Many of you described growing up with clear guidance and boundaries, but inside a relationship that felt curious instead of controlling and supportive instead of comparative. Kids were shaped and guided, but not erased in the process.

Theme Seven: Love That Didn’t Go Away

This theme showed up in so many different ways, but the message underneath was the same. Love didn’t disappear after mistakes. It didn’t depend on agreement, achievement, or behavior. It stayed.

People described how powerful it was to know the relationship itself wasn’t at risk, even in the hardest moments. That certainty shaped how safe it felt to take risks, to be honest, and to come back when things fell apart.

Here’s how you shared it:

That kind of love didn’t mean there were no consequences or hard conversations. Many of you shared stories of firm boundaries, disappointment, and repair. What stayed constant was the reassurance that the relationship itself was secure.

Years later, that’s what people carried with them. Not the absence of conflict, but the unconditional love they felt.

Final Thoughts

Reading through everything people shared, the same needs kept resurfacing. Feeling safe, respected, and connected. Across very different families and childhoods, those needs mattered more than any single parenting decision.

If you’re in a season where things feel hard, when behavior feels confusing, boundaries feel shaky, or connection feels fragile, these reflections offer something reassuring. The goal isn’t to get it right every day. It’s to build a relationship that can bend, repair, and hold.

These are also the same needs that show up when parents feel stuck. Questions about boundaries. Worries about attachment. Concerns about behavior that feels confusing or hard to understand. Underneath a lot of it, kids are asking the same question in different ways: Is this relationship secure?

No parent does this perfectly. Relationships are built in patterns, not moments. What stood out in these reflections is that closeness later didn’t come from flawless parenting. It came from steady repair, emotional safety, and a relationship that made room for kids to be fully human.

What made me feel good about the work we’re doing here at PDT, is that these exact themes came up in a podcast episode I recorded a while back. If you want to go deeper into this, I talk more about it in the podcast episode The Three Things Every Child Needs from the Grown Ups in Their Life. I walk through how kids’ need to feel safe, respected, and connected shows up in everyday parenting, and why these needs still matter as kids grow. We talk about boundaries, trust, and how relationships can hold even when things get hard.

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Ask Dr. Mona

An opportunity for YOU to ask Dr. Mona your parenting questions!

Dr. Mona will answer these questions in a future Sunday Morning Q&A email. Chances are if you have a parenting concern or question, another parent can relate. So let's figure this out together!