As a parent, there are countless moments when I’ve felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Times when I lost my patience, stayed late at work instead of spending time with my kids, or made choices that, in hindsight, weren’t the best. But what happens when it’s your children who seem determined to remind you of those mistakes? Maybe they’ve said it outright—blaming you for their struggles. Maybe they’ve spelled out exactly what you did wrong. Or maybe it’s their silence, their distance, that says it all.Either way, the message feels the same: you failed them.

But did you really? If you’re reading this, chances are you cared deeply, tried your best, and never set out to hurt your kids. And maybe what you need most right now is to keep these eight reminders in mind:Therefore, if you lie awake judging yourself for the mistakes of your past, especially if your adult child likes to keep them fresh in your memory, keep this in mind: you were operating with the knowledge, resources, and emotional capacity you had in that moment. We judge our past selves with today’s wisdom, forgetting that parenting advice has done a complete 180 over the decades.The same “experts” who used to insist babies sleep on their stomachs now tell us the opposite. Parents were told not to spoil children with too much affection, then later advised that connection was everything. As I grew up, it was standard procedure to be smacked into compliance, which now seems like an insane way to teach a child to manage their emotions and behavior.