I think number one is important. Not easy in my case as my maternal grandparents lived in the US. Had it been possible I would have asked them an endless list of questions about their early lives, and about their own parents and grandparents. They probably would have run a mile every time I visited carrying my notebook and pencil . . .

Advice I would give my 20 year old self :

Cancel your subscription to Seventeen magazine ( and all that 1960's marriage propaganda) and have faith in yourself .

Start your career and take time to discover the world .

All of these things so far are good, especially the one about Seventeen magazine, which holds true in later years for the similar magazines intended for women in each succeeding decade.

I wish I had admired my parents more. They were wonderful people, but at 20 I was easily embarrassed and their quirks made me roll my eyes. They did know I loved them deeply, but I wish they knew how much I admired them.

Rose, my younger sister has been in a wheelchair most of her life. As an adult I told my parents more than once that they did a great job of treating us equally, even though she often needed more attention than I did. I am really glad that I told them that!

Donna

Agree to both.....A few years before my maiden aunt, last surviving sister of my Mom ( who died at 42), passed away I thought to tell her how much I appreciated her loving kindnesses toward me all those years after Mom was gone and how much she honored his sister's memory by doing that. I am so glad she knew that I valued and loved her.

Never leave anything kind and uplifting unsaid.

That is such good advice, Yoyo.

Amen to that!

Something else I've learned at this point in my life :

" Unsolicited advice is never as warmly received as we imagined it would be. "

So true! I well remember my 'children' as YA's rolling their eyes and sighing with great exaggeration when I passed on my words of wisdom.

Yoyobon - To quote another wise woman (Vee), I also say "So true! So very true!"

But if we don't tell our children lessons we have learned, and then they stumble and fall, we will feel responsible.

We should not count on them actually learning from our example, though!

I am seeing myself click Like, Like, Like. These are all good! We must be very smart. Or old. ;-)

Or both, Rose.

I think that we can learn things every day......if we're paying attention ! The unfortunate part, as we've noted, is that all our life experience and knowledge seems to be of very limited interest to anyone not in our decade ! Their loss.

The following little rhyme used to be recited to us by my father when we had been cheeky or had 'showed off' (though never to him as he was way too scary . . . )

"A wise old owl sat on an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can't we be like that wise old bird?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And I should still listen more and talk less!

One of my favorites:

There's so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,

That it doesn't behoove any of us

To talk about the rest of us !

Words from the Bible and the basic precept by which we were raised, by example rather than words: Be ye kind one to another.