GK Chesterton wrote of his father: "...His den or study was piled high with the stratified layers of about ten or twelve creative amusements; water-colour painting and modelling and photography and stained glass and fretwork and magic lanterns and mediaeval illumination...He never dreamed of turning any of these plastic talents to any mercenary account , or of using them for anything but his own private pleasure and ours.  To us he appeared to be indeed the Man with the Golden Key, a magician opening the gates of goblin castles or the sepulchres of dead heroes; and there was no incongruity in calling his lantern a magic-lantern...In everything that matters, the inside is much larger than the outside..."

I think, for me at least, and perhaps I am merely insecure, the last hope of being something better than a very average and un-notable mother was that my children would remember with some fondness, if not a small thrill, the many varied projects that so frequently interrupted our lives...I did try not to interrupt rudely, and I did try to embrace things that would enchant them...their reaction was, as I remember it, very polite...I suppose I thought it would someday be remembered a bit more warmly...Now I find that there is simply a great deal of "stuff" which is unwanted and in the way, and apparently the object of not a little derision  and aggravation. No fond memories, apparently were generated...

I think some people are really not intended to be liked and ought to be satisfied to see satisfactory results from their primary endeavor, which, for me, was raising children.  It isn't really important for them to remember me at all as long as they pray for my soul...I wish I were a better person.