Do you want your kids to turn out better than you?

Unless you are perfect, which none of us are, then I'm sure each of us has some things in our past that we would rather have done differently. So in that sense, yes you want your children to be better than you.

Yes I do want my kids to be better than me. I want them to go to college after high school, not in their 30's. I want them to wait to have children after marriage. I want them to be independent. I want them to be successful. I want them to be better parents that I am. So hell yeah I want them to be better than me...I don't want them to mediocre like me. I don't want to hear then fix yourself #$%$..I'm trying, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks...I want them to learn from my mistakes...come hell or high water I'm going to try my damnest for that to happen.

I think the point of wanting my children to be better than me means each generation should learn from the other's mistakes. I told my daughter it is my hope she is a better mother me just as my mother was a better mother than her mother and I better than her. There should be a natural progression in my opinion. Your child/children should be able to take the good things they learn from you and use them while the things about me that I could've been better about they should decide that wasn't the right way and create their own way.. This doesn't imply I am insecure about who I am. It implies I am self aware and require growth from both my child and myself. Seems Healthy to me. Doesn't mean I don't have goals either it just means if you reach for the clouds you should train your child to reach for the stars as a person in all things they do.

I don't know if it has really anything to do with self-esteem... as it does to have access to more opportunities. While it wasn't "bad" growing up in our house, we had more opportunities than my parents, who had more opportunities than their parents... and my children will have more opportunities than I did... That doesn't mean I loath and detest my childhood and my upbringing..

"Better" than me? What is better than ME? Nothing and no one. Is owning a mansion better than living modestly? Is being the President of the US better than being a janitor? NO and I am absolutely sick of that attitude. We are all human and we all have the same worth, no matter our origins, trials, successes, and failures.

My kids won't be better than me, they will just be different.

I don't want my kids to "have a better life than I had growing up," because I had it pretty darn good. We didn't have a lot, but we were loved and supported and had all of our basic needs met. I will make sure my kids have that too. There are a few things I hope to teach them that I was never taught, though. First, how to be responsible with money, so they won't make the same mistakes I made in my 20s. Second, to figure out what they love doing and try to make a career out of it instead of settling on a job just to make ends meet. Third, never to sacrifice any part of themselves for love. I did a lot of that in my teens and 20s, and regret not being true to myself.