Sarah Jakes Roberts

But I don't think I was as bad of a mother as I thought I was as a teenager.

Yeah.

How does that make you feel?

Thanks.

Don't do it, Emma.

Listen, girl, this is our second time talking.

I'm going in.

You're not going to have me crying.

I think the idea that as for me, the idea that I didn't want to mess it up, like so many of the choices that I made was because I didn't want to mess him up.

I didn't want to mess him up.

I think being driven by that made me show up for him in a way that kept me from messing it up.

And I feel like if it really matters to you, even if you don't know what you're doing, the fact that you're trying, I think they pick up on the effort.

Yeah.

They pick up on the trying.

And I think that that can give us consolation as we mother and navigate uncertainty.

Oh, my kids should be so happy with me.

Yeah.

I believe that.

My son's in his 20s, but if you think about it, even as we think about our parenting dynamics, like the things that we penalize our parents for the most, it's like you didn't try.

But then you can tell when they did try.