The joy and sadness of being surpassed by your kids

My kid can do a cartwheel. Why am I so sad about it?

A girl doing a cartwheel.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Martinan/iStock, arunromkaew/iStock)

My 6-year-old learned to do a cartwheel last week. I have never been able to do a cartwheel, and I never will. For most of my preteen years, trying to spin my splayed body 360 degrees occupied most of my spare time. Yet on each attempt, without fail, my feet, knees, and hips fell shy of their intended trajectory and thudded to the floor. And with every flop, I felt my frustration soar while my self-confidence and body image shriveled a tiny bit.

But my daughter has it down. This, I'm fairly certain, is the first time one of my children has learned to do something I absolutely cannot — and it won't be the last. As I pulled out my phone to film her joyfully rotating, I was elated. I was probably more excited by her acquisition of this useless but gratifying skill than she was. But in the background, other emotions — mild sadness and inadequacy — flickered. Because as much as we want our kids to do better than us, when they go right ahead and succeed at something we desperately wanted to be good at growing up but weren't, it underlines our shortcomings. Those largely locked down feelings of failure from childhood are suddenly on a comeback tour of your brain.

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Ruth Margolis
Ruth ​Margolis is a British ​journalist living in the U.S. Her work has appeared in ​The Guardian, ​The ​Daily Telegraph and BBCAmerica.com.