Letters To My Kids

This post was not written with or by AI.

When my son turned 2, I decided to set up an email address for him. It wasn’t to secure an email address with his name. It was so I could send him notes and give them to him once he became an adult. If you’ve ever been a parent, you know too well those fleeting moments which pass you by and vanish. I wanted to capture them and I thought being able to do so in an email was a good idea.

That was in 2012. Fast forward over a decade and it turns out that my wife and I stuck with it. I checked last week and there are over 120 emails in there. Fleeting moments which we were able to capture. I’m really grateful for each one of them.

He’s 16 and I’m planning to create a hardback book of all the emails to give him when he turns 18. So I’ve been going through those emails reliving some of the richest memories of my life. Most of the emails are of fun moments but I’ve sent some rather raw ones too. A couple of emails talk about the challenges and frustrations of trying to parent well. But they all end on the same note of unconditional love. I’m most excited for him to read those. As he grows into adulthood, I think those letters will be especially meaningful to him.

Being on this side of it, 14 years later, it feels a bit surreal. 14 years of writing letters is a long time and it’s unlikely that I would have stuck with it. There were plenty of other ideas that I’m sure lasted a week or month before I got out of the habit. What made this stick was having the ability to send an email while lying in bed at night or attaching a note to a photo shortly after taking it.

I have 3 other kids and fortunately I set up email addresses for them as well. My daughter is 14 and I’m pretty excited to go through the emails I’ve sent her. I have a unique relationship with each of my kids and it comes through in these letter. My 5 year old twins will have to wait a while and we’ve sent them fewer emails. But the gratefulness I feel for having them for my older kids is plenty motivation to make up for lost letters for my younger ones.

If you have kids, I really recommend setting something like this up. It doesn’t feel like much at the start but as you approach the finish line it truly is a gift that’s hard to describe.