What I Want My Child to Know When They're Older: The Power of Preserved Thoughts
The bedtime routine is finally complete. After the third glass of water, the fifth "last" question, and one more trip to the bathroom, my child is finally asleep. I pause in the doorway, watching the gentle rise and fall of their chest, their features softened in slumber. In these quiet moments, thoughts often wash over me—things I desperately want this small person to know someday.
I want them to know how their laughter was the most beautiful sound in my world.
I want them to know that their questions, even the endlessly repeated ones, fascinated me.
I want them to know that I noticed—truly noticed—their kindness, courage, and creativity, even on ordinary days when no one else was watching.
But most of all, I want them to know how it felt to be their parent during these fleeting early years—the profound love, the exquisite vulnerability, the ways they changed me in unexpected and necessary ways.
These thoughts feel too big, too important to trust to memory alone. And that's where the practice of writing letters to my child has become not just a hobby but a necessity—a way to preserve what might otherwise remain unspoken until it's too late to say it at all.
The Gap Between Feeling and Expression
There exists a curious gap in parenthood—between what we feel for our children and what we typically express to them day-to-day. The depth of parental love often goes unstated, not because it's absent but because it's assumed. The daily routine of parenting consists largely of practical interactions:
"Please put on your shoes."
"Have you finished your homework?"
"Don't forget to brush your teeth."
Even our verbalized affection often takes shorthand forms: "Love you, buddy" called out as they leave for school, or a quick "You're amazing" after a small achievement. These expressions are genuine but rarely capture the profound complexity of what we actually feel.
In the background of these ordinary exchanges lives a deeper current of thought—the private observations, realizations, hopes, and wonderings that constitute the inner experience of watching a human being grow. This inner dialogue is rich with insight and emotion that our children rarely access in full.
What Will They Remember?
Child development research tells us that most people have few, if any, reliable memories before age three. Even memories from ages three to seven tend to be fragmentary and often center around highly emotional events rather than day-to-day life.
This means that during the years when our children are developing their foundational sense of self and security, they're largely unable to retain clear memories of how they were loved, valued, and seen. The very years when they are most fully themselves—before self-consciousness and social conformity begin to shape their behavior—are years they cannot fully remember.
What will my child recall of these early years? Probably not the time they expressed a complex thought about fairness that revealed their developing moral compass. Likely not the dozens of times I sat watching them sleep, overwhelmed by love and the desire to protect. Almost certainly not the specific qualities I noticed emerging in them long before they recognized these aspects of themselves.
Without deliberate preservation, these observations and emotions remain ephemeral—experienced intensely in the moment but eventually fading or transforming as new stages of development demand our attention.
The Thoughts Worth Preserving
What specifically do I want my child to know when they're older? The list grows daily, but certain categories of thought seem particularly valuable to preserve:
Identity Observations
As parents, we have the unique privilege of witnessing our children's authentic selves before they begin curating a public persona. We see qualities emerging before they're fully conscious of them:
"Today at the playground, you noticed a younger child struggling to climb the ladder. Without hesitation, you went over and helped, offering encouragement until they reached the top. You've always had this intuitive kindness—seeing needs others miss and responding without being asked."
These observations become invaluable as children navigate the sometimes confusing journey of adolescence and young adulthood, offering confirmation of core qualities that have been part of them all along.
The Context Behind Decisions
Many parenting choices—from family traditions to boundaries to educational decisions—make sense only with context that children can't fully appreciate until they're older:
"We decided to move to a smaller house this year, even though it meant giving up some space you loved. What you couldn't understand then was how this choice would give us more time together as a family, with less pressure and stress from financial strain. Some decisions require weighing different kinds of wealth, and we wanted to prioritize the wealth of presence over possessions."
These explanations help children understand that parenting decisions, even unpopular ones, typically stem from care rather than arbitrary authority.
Parental Vulnerability and Growth
Perhaps most powerful are the honest acknowledgments of our own learning, mistakes, and evolution as parents:
"I lost my patience with you today when you spilled juice for the third time. I raised my voice and saw your face fall. What I want you to know is that my frustration had nothing to do with you and everything to do with my own exhaustion and worry about work. You deserved better in that moment. Being your parent has required me to face my own limitations and commit to growing beyond them—one of the many gifts you've given me."
This transparency helps children understand that perfection isn't the standard for parenthood (or any human relationship) and that growth through challenge is part of everyone's journey.
Love Beyond Words
Most fundamental are the expressions of love that transcend everyday interaction—the depth of feeling that might go unexpressed in daily life:
"Tonight while reading to you, you fell asleep against my shoulder. For a few minutes, I just sat there feeling your weight against me, listening to your breathing, overwhelmed by how fleeting these moments are. Sometimes the love I feel for you is so immense it seems impossible it could be contained in ordinary life—as if it should change the physical properties of the air around us or be visible as light."
These articulations of profound love create an emotional certainty that sustains children through doubts and challenges as they grow.
Beyond the Present Moment
When I write these thoughts to my child, I'm writing not just to the person they are today but to all the future versions of them—the confused adolescent, the young adult facing difficult choices, perhaps someday the new parent navigating their own journey.
I'm creating a resource they can return to at different stages of life, finding new meaning in the same words as their perspective and needs evolve. The letter that offers simple reassurance of love to a ten-year-old might later provide insight into family patterns for a twenty-five-year-old or validation of their own parenting instincts for a thirty-five-year-old.
This practice acknowledges that parenting exists both in the immediate moment and across a much longer arc of relationship—one that ideally continues to evolve and deepen long after daily caretaking ends.
The Gift of Perspective
Perhaps the greatest gift these preserved thoughts offer is perspective—the ability to see oneself through loving eyes during times of self-doubt or criticism.
We all face moments of questioning our worth, our path, or our place in the world. During these times, having access to how we were seen and valued from our earliest years provides a powerful counterbalance to inner criticism.
A child who knows they were observed with attention and delight, who has written evidence of their inherent qualities and worth, possesses an emotional resource of immeasurable value. They carry within them not just their own perspective but the perspective of someone who loved them at their most authentic and vulnerable.
Starting Today
The practice of preserving thoughts for our children doesn't require exceptional writing skills or significant amounts of time. It simply requires the commitment to transfer some of our inner dialogue onto paper regularly—creating a bridge between what we think about our children and what they'll someday know we thought.
A dedicated journal creates both the physical reminder and the inviting space to capture these reflections before they fade. Even brief entries, written consistently over time, accumulate into a profound legacy of attention and love.
The thoughts you preserve today may become the very words your child needs most at a future moment you cannot yet imagine—an anchor of certainty in what it means to be loved, valued, and truly seen.
Want to preserve your thoughts for your child's future? Our Letters to My Son/Daughter As I Watch You Grow and Letters to My Little Boy/Girl As I Watch You Grow journals provide beautiful blank pages where you can capture these important reflections. Each journal comes with our free downloadable "Ultimate Memory Journal Blueprint" guide to help inspire meaningful letters. Grandparents can also share their unique perspective with our Letters to My Grandchild journal.