11 Things Your Child Will Remember About You Long After You're Gone
Make the most of your time and cherish these moments now.
Ground Picture | Shutterstock Many adult children already live their lives in a unique remembrance of their parents — influenced in their adult relationships by their childhood affection, family values and traditions, and even similar parenting styles in their own families. While losing a loved one can be deeply personal and difficult for families, every parent can seek solace knowing that these things your child will remember about you long after you're gone will be helpfully engrained into their lives already.
Nostalgia expert and professor Krystine I. Batcho argues that even for families with tough relationships, adult children can't help but remember their nostalgic, comforting, and wholly good memories in exchange for the bad. It's human nature for us to yearn for the emotional embrace of a comforting memory or connection.
Here are 11 things your child will remember about you long after you're gone
1. How you showed up for them
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According to family psychology expert Dona Matthews, the quantity and quality of time spent between families are equally important to nourishing a healthy relationship throughout childhood and into adulthood between parents and their children. Adult children remember how (and when) their parents showed up for them, helping them to feel more secure, loved, and valued in various aspects of their lives.
This kind of security plays into the attachment styles they adopt in their adult relationships as well. If you're a supportive and loving parent, chances are they're going to be constantly reminded of you in the health and well-being of their own adult relationships, even after you're gone.
2. Your laugh
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Carl Zimmer, author of "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Power, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity," argues that while there's no definite research on the genetic nature of laughter, many people tend to inherit similar sounds and gestures of joy from their parents, especially when they grow up in the same environment.
Carrying that same manifestation of joy into their own adult lives, they're not only able to mirror a similar laugh as their parents, but even after they're gone, others can recognize and find solace in it.
3. The moments you protected them
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While there's certainly a healthy balance parents should find between protecting their children and shielding them from all of life's challenges, adult children tend to remember the aura of safety their parents cultivated growing up.
From setting healthy boundaries, even if they weren't well received at the time, to praising them for their accomplishments, there's many ways parents leave a profound impact on their children simply by advocating for their best interests.
4. The way you listened to them
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It's easy for parents to fall into a toxic habit of assuming a one-sided relationship with their children, believing they should be entitled to their time, energy, and listening habits, without returning the favor. According to Bard and Didriksen Pediatrics, a truly engaged parent finds a balance — genuinely listening to, supporting, and advocating for their kids without expecting a transactional return.
However, luckily for parents of adult children, family relationships tend to flourish in adulthood when healthy boundaries like these are preserved early in life. Not only do adult children tend to carry those generational habits into their own families — remembering their parents' willingness to have open and honest conversations — they reap the benefits of having a loving parent through their daily habits, mindset, and with a comfortable self-esteem.
5. Your kind words and encouragement
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Experts from the Fairfax Department of Family Services argue that parents who commit to motivating their children with words of encouragement and praise, even amid small wins and successes, tend to cultivate a growth mindset in their kids. Into adulthood, these same adult children embody that growth mindset through their goals, daily habits, and general mindsets, that help to dismiss anxiety associated with change.
Even amid losing a parent, these adult children are influenced by this growth mindset — committed to spending time grieving, but also moving forward, fueled by their parents' old words of encouragement and comfort.
6. The way you interacted with their partner and friends
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The way that parents accept and interact with their children's friends and parents is foundation to the way they connect with others. When their parents are open-minded and welcoming, they feel safe to interact with their own friends, express affection, and speak openly with their close relationships, even in the presence of their parents.
Similarly, like a study from the journal Child Development suggests, a parent's personal friendships and relationships are equally important to crafting this comfort. When a child sees healthy relationships and friendships in action amongst their close relatives, they're more likely to raise their standards to embody a similar kind of connection — even into adulthood, when those friendships or their parents are gone.
7. Your hobbies, interests, and favorite things
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Investing into hobbies outside of work and family time is not only incredibly important for a parent's general well-being, like experts from the Harvard Business Review argue, it's also foundational for their children's health and well-being. By watching their parents invest into their own unique interests and hobbies, they'll find ways to craft their own, sometimes alongside their parents.
At the very least, when adult children start their own careers or families, they'll remember the way their parents carved out specific time for themselves, removing the stigma of taking alone time and advocating for your own needs, even when there's other people looking to you for comfort and support.
8. Your family traditions
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According to children development experts from Great Kids, family traditions don't just have the power to bond families and parents early in life, they also support a sense of genuine belonging that helps kids learn their place amid their relationships, the world, and their closest family members.
While they might seem insignificant at the time, something as coveted as a Sunday family dinner can have lasting impacts on adult children, even when their parents are gone. They may take over the tradition, evolving it to fit their own families or, at the very least, look back on the memories grateful for the quality time you spent together.
9. Surprises and celebrations you planned
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Children tend to remember unique experiences and core memories from their life, alongside smaller and more intimate parts of their relationships with their parents, even after they're gone.
According to Batcho, it's the moments where kids feel truly special that they remember into adulthood — even if it was reading a bedtime story with their parents or celebrating a birthday.
10. Your humor
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According to a study published by PLOS One, kids who grow up with funny parents have better relationships, even if they're adverse to your bad jokes or rolling their eyes at your funny body language occasionally.
The study revealed that children who grew up with parents who utilized their humor tended to have a better perspective of their parents than others. Many also noted they'd be more likely to use similar parenting techniques in their own families, acknowledging the power of humor, their unique praise, and unconditional support.
11. How you expressed your love
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Not only does parental warmth and love tend to cultivate better physical health outcomes in children, according to a study from PNAS, it also ensures children grow into their own emotional intelligence. Kids, even into adulthood, remember how they were supported and loved by their parents, whether it was positive or negative.
One of the largest fuelers for no-contact orders between adult children and their parents is the resentment cultivated by negative expressions of love and attention in childhood — they will remember how you showed it.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.