You have done the best you could with the information available to you at the time.

It is important you know it.

It is important I know it.

Even now, after so many years, I still get tied up in knots about how I could have parented better, held the family together, kept fighting to keep them all close to me.

Normally I can handle it, but sometimes it threatens to eat me up inside. I think because I haven’t had a right of reply, to explain why I appeared to be such a bad mum.

Then I remember that children have a lot of influences in their lives; that we all have a lot of influences throughout our lives. We all make choices and make the best decisions we can at the time. Nature versus nurture is an age-old dilemma.

Regrets don’t help. We don’t always get to explain our reasoning. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, no matter how much we want it to.

It’s a brand-new month, a brand-new week. It’s time to set our goals, plan our future. It’s also time to spend a few minutes being grateful for the last month, the last few months, for the years and every day of our lives.