Man Confesses He Failed As A Father After Watching All 5 Kids Make Choices He Can’t Support

Raising children is hard. And even when you do your best, things don’t always turn out the way you hoped.

One dad went to Reddit to admit something he’s ashamed to say out loud: he isn’t proud of any of his five children. He says he poured everything he could into them, from education to hobbies, trying to help them grow into independent, ambitious adults. But in his eyes, none of them lived up to what he imagined, and now he blames himself, calling himself a failure as a father.

Read his confession below.

If you’re a parent who genuinely cares about your child, you naturally want them to do well. For a lot of people, that comes with a universal checklist: staying out of trouble, doing fine in school, maybe getting a degree, finding a solid job, building a stable future. It’s not a bad list. It’s also not the whole point.

Because the moment “doing well” turns into “proving yourself,” kids can start to feel like love and approval come with terms and conditions. And even when pressure comes from good intentions, it can still land as, I’m only worth something when I perform.

That’s one of the big takeaways Dr. Carly Claney writes about in Relational Psych: direct or indirect parental pressure can weigh on kids’ mental health and self-image, and it often backfires. For example, kids who grow up around frequent criticism or impossible expectations are more likely to internalize it, slipping into harsh self-talk that follows them long after the moment passes. And when parents comment on weight or closely police eating, research links that kind of messaging to worse body image and disordered eating risk.

Pressure can also push kids toward perfectionism, which sounds productive until it turns into chronic stress, fear of failure, and “never good enough” thinking. The American Psychological Association has pointed out that rising parental expectations and criticism are linked to higher perfectionism in students, alongside mental health concerns.

Obviously, parents set expectations out of love and concern. The problem is that while a certain amount can be healthy and grounding, once expectations cross a line, they can start doing more harm than good.

Psychologist David Braucher makes a useful point in Psychology Today: expectations can communicate to a child that what they do matters to their parents. If parents are too accepting of anything and everything, it can slip into permissiveness and signal to a child that they don’t really matter.

“Children know this because when something that matters to them goes awry, they get upset. So, it is not a leap to assume that we don’t get upset because we don’t really care,” he says.

But the balance changes when a parent’s expectations are built around a fantasy, not the child in front of them. When those hopes don’t match a kid’s interests, talents, and natural tendencies, it stops being motivating and starts crushing their confidence. For example, if a child has no musical talent but keeps being pushed to “excel” anyway, it’s not hard to see how they’d end up with a constant sense of low self-esteem.

In the case of the author of this story, we obviously don’t know what went on behind the scenes day to day, or how his kids would describe their upbringing. But even in his own post, he spends less time on their feelings and happiness than on pride, embarrassment, and how their choices make him look like a failure. So it’s fair to guess that his kids may have grown up under heavy expectations, and as adults, they stopped trying to live up to them.

To support kids without that kind of pressure, Dr. Claney suggests shifting the focus to encouragement that builds confidence. Praise effort, not only results, so kids learn that progress matters even when they don’t “win.” She also recommends being careful with appearance-based comments, even the well-meaning ones, since they can make kids feel watched and judged.

Another big one is autonomy. Let them take the lead sometimes with age-appropriate choices instead of micromanaging, and keep rules clear but open to discussion so they feel heard. And when your child pushes back or is struggling, validate their feelings first. It doesn’t mean you have to agree, but it shows them they’re safe to be honest with you.

At the end of the day, achievements come and go. What sticks is whether a child feels loved for who they are, not just what they do.