First I would have confronted my parents about things that they did. Second when I finished college after I received my brother's life insurance I would have handled the money better. Although I could drive I did not have a license and did not think I had enough money to buy anything other than a clunker that would quickly use what money I had. Having never even looked at prices of cars I did not know at that time that I could have even had a new one and still have enough money left over. The school I finished at was one of those that "protected" their women students and did things like not allowing them to live off campus in town at first it was at any age then it was dropped to 21. With a car I could have finished at least a year early because to live in the dorms you had to be a full time student. Doing over I would never have gone to that school in the first place but at that time I knew little about money management and standing up to parental pressure.

Easy. I would've gone away to school and been a marine biologist. I had no idea about scholarships, applying, or how to get students loans. No one told me how. Not my family, not my school. You better believe I taught my son all of it. Which is all we can do-learn and teach from the mire of life.

I would have continued my college education and not caved to the pressure and guilt of working/running the family business. My brother went on to get his phd with the help and encouragement of the family. In my family, boys were treated differently. I still get upset when I think about it.

I would have pursued my dream of going to art school. There was a program I very much wanted to get into, but I was only 17 when I graduated from high school, art school was far from home and I didn't have family support. They pushed me into getting into a field that was practical, secure and had career opportunities.

But, had I done that, I wouldn't have met my husband and be living the life I am now. Photography and jewelry design now fill those creative needs and I'm very happy with how life has turned out.

I wish I would have had a better idea of how to choose a major in college. I wound up with a BS in Health Science without any real job prospects. I enjoyed working with people with disabilities and did that for 4 years. But, certainly not a career.

I then decided to get a masters and wound up with an MSW. I had a few other options, but all my friends at the time thought this was the best plan. One friend was rejected the year before and acceptance to the same school seemed even more worthy.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have done a combined nursing program that I noticed other students in my chemistry class doing. But, of course, I did not know about it at the time.

I walked to college from home. I called it CAC, college around the corner! (For my Masters, I took a train into the city, woo hoo) I would have loved to have an away experience, but this was not affordable.

I was able to have my own apartment while going to grad school and this is one experience I would not change. Loved my own place and taking care of it all myself for five years.

Maifluer, girls in my family were encouraged to go to college to meet a college man to marry. Both my sisters did. I didn't meet my DH until years later, and he did not go to college.

And interestingly enough, my brother went into the service after high school and went to college years later.

I wouldn't have to make sure that my DD had the experience of an away college as it is very uncommon in my community for kids to go local.

I would pick different parents...but would prefer to keep my sisters!

Moni

I would not have asked my friend to teach me how to smoke!!

I wish I had known that there were other alternatives after high school than just going to university. I went to an all academic high school in a well-off area and it was just assumed and presumed that everyone would go straight to university right after grade 12. After all, what else would you do? I don't know if I would have done something different or not. After all, my choices led me to here.

But at least I didn't fall into the trap (my word and my feelings) of becoming a teacher or a nurse which is what was assumed and presumed that all girls would do.

@Oklamoni- I want to keep my DH but I want a different MIL.

I would have been born male.

I would have trained better for a couple 10K races I've run over the past two years. I know I can run that distance in one hour if I train right.

I prefer not to go back and dissect my life for decisions that may not have been the best. They were decisions I made at that time, be what they are, and have shaped my life to be what it is today. I have no complaints.

I am the sum of everything that has happened to me. Had I gone back in time and changed one thing, I do believe just like in the science fiction movies that the change would have a ripple effect and that neither I nor the universe would be the same.

I'm not perfect but I am comfortable in my own skin. Be careful for what you wish for.

I would have picked a diff.town ( any would do) and parents who would have helped me with my school work, and also another school that would have not compared me with my sisters all the time, so I could have just been me.

I would have never started smoking.

I would have stayed in the Army for 20 years and been eligible to retire at age 38, then be eligible for a federal job and retire from that at 58.

OR

I would have stayed at Temple for an additional year and gotten my MBA.

OR

I would have taken the advice of a coworker and saved 10% of every paycheck and every bonus and been able to fully retire in my mid-50’s.

I would have used a condom.

Like Moni I would pick different parents.

eld I knew I was going to college as it was expected for the women in my Dad's family but not to find a man. My parents borrowed enough for the expensive 4 year college in California that I was accepted in. When I returned in the Spring I found that the money was gone. How? Where? Just gone. I was told I had spent it all at $20 every two weeks. At that time I accepted it. Years later when I knew more about personal finances I realized it was a lie but also knew that there was nothing that could be done. Now I wish I had questioned more about it and things that just did not make sense. If I had stayed in California the way I had planned although because of floaters that interfered with using a microscope I might have done something in the Marine Biology field I wanted had originally intended on doing.

I learned more about life and people through the various twisted paths I followed.

This is a really hard one for me but if I could change anything I think I would have appreciated my parents more and placed a higher value on the gift of home that they worked so hard to provide for my sisters and I. If I had, I’m sure I would have taken my career more seriously and life over all would have been a much easier road to travel.

I also don't wish to dissect my life either. The one thing I would change knowing what I know now. I would not have fixed up my house after the tax day flood, I would have sold it and moved to an area that didn't flood during Harvey. Or I would have ignored the officials telling us to stay at home and loaded up the rv and got the heck out of Houston. In either of those I would not have nearly drowned trying to evacuate. The worst thing I have ever been through.

I learned more about life and people through the various twisted paths I followed.

Best quote ever which is why my answer would be similar to Lucille's.

I wish I had run in the opposite direction when my ex came along.

I've always said I would have left home when I was 18....and joined the army. But I have always been tied to whatever horses I had at the time, and I had three horses then, and I couldn't leave them. I've always stayed in some pretty bad situations because of horses. Probably not very smart....but it doesn't matter any more....and I still am tied to horses.

I would've gone into the Air Force right after high school and stayed in until I retired. Not married the ex. Although, I love my kids, would want them but with another man-lol.

Yes my ex parents weren't good parents at all. I divorced them many years ago when I was 28. Never saw them after that. It took a long time but despite them I like me now. Would I have chosen the same path without those two being my parents I'm not sure. I would have missed having my wonderful husband and that would have been too sad. As well I too love my sisters and my deceased brother so couldn't trade them if I had different parents.

As for if I could change anything it would be that I would figure out how to earn money despite the weekly migraines and the long recovery time after each one. DH also was ill for a number of years and wasn't able to earn very much money a lot of the time. Things around money are very painful for us and if I could have figured out how to be consistently earning maybe we wouldn't have so much pain.

I would have followed my inner voice at an earlier age and kicked a toxic, abusive person to the curb years before I actually did. It was time to pick myself up by the bootstraps and walk away without looking back.

Too soon old.......too late smart.

I have regrets, but to go back and be able to change my choices would mean I wouldn't have the family I have. My children and grandchildren..I wouldn't have now...no I wouldn't change anything. It is what it is. I count my Blessings.

I'm with you, mama! My children and grandchildren remove any trace of regret.

I would have had different parents. I would not have been limited in college to study education or nursing. I would not have married at 20.

It was 1957 and I had entered the U of Illinois to finish my Junior and Senior classes for an engineering degree. After I had done a few hours of proof reading (for pay) of a long and tedious mathematical work by a professor who was deriving a solution for a government project, he encouraged me to take a computer class. At that time, the University had an experimental digital computer and were helping to develop codes and techniques. Fortran was the premier high level tool. This single computer, the Illiac, filled an entire room with racks upon racks of triode tubes. (It keep a technician busy full time checking and replacing tubes.) I already felt ploughed under with 16 to 18 semester hours of engineering classes and I declined. My eye was on the prize: Get that degree. I had no inkling what fantastic changes were to come in computing. Had I had the vision to see its potential, I would have made room for those courses, maybe dropping something else, and changed my emphasis direction in my degree work. That change would have sent me down an entirely different path and with higher pay. I couldn't foresee that; It was too science fiction to seem real to me at the time.

By 1960 as I was graduating, products with transistors began to appear. Life would never be the same! Five years later, radio and television repairmen were out of a job. Medium sized companies could afford a main frame computer, and limited capability single use computers arrived in applied research offices. The 1960, science fiction dream, of practical computers had become a reality by 1965.

Instead of moving to a little town 100 miles south of the city we lived in, I wish we would have left for Europe and stayed as long as we could.

Nickel, I wish I could "like" your post more times than 1.

nickel - your story reminds me of something I did with my mom. My parents had a lot of family furniture, much of it antiques and much of it handed down. When my mother was first diagnosed with Alzheimers I finally did something I had been putting off. I took pictures of all the furniture and had her tell me the story of each piece. She even took out some of the platters and dishes that she had and told me the stories. We spent an entire weekend reminiscing. Today she can't even name pieces of furniture. I am so glad I did it.

Nickel, Itotally agree.

As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20-20. But I wouldn’t change anything even if I could. The rewards in my life now are worth more than worrying about things I cannot ever change. I made decisions I regret, sure, but who hasn’t? We all have those woulda, coulda, shoulda things in the past.

Thistledew, I just can’t understand why your DH didn’t call out his own mother for treating you the way she did. There are many theologians who are married (in fact I would say most, except Catholic priests and other religions who prohibit marriage), so why in the world did your MiL blame you for her son not becoming a minister? Congrats on your 50 loving years together.

As others have said, I wouldn't change any of my life choices because I wouldn't be where I am right now with my husband and daughter.

But I would definitely buy $1,000 worth of stock in Apple at its ipo.

If I had stuck to my own words of "if anyone ever cheated on me, that would be it".….I think back and say I many times over that I should have just ended my marriage right then. BUT I wouldn't have my kids if I had...so I can't say it's a "regret" because I don't regret my babies :-)

It wouldn't be in my power, but I would cure my mom of cancer so that she would live to see her children grow up.

I wouldn't have believed the societal message that the only honorable thing to do when having a baby, if you were unmarried in 1969, was to place that child for adoption, so he could have a "normal" stable, two parent home.

It was not the best for him, nor was it good for me. The societal message was that it was the loving thing to do and the only way to redemption for the "sin" of pregnancy outside of marriage. That was immediately replaced by a new societal message: What kind of mother would give away her own flesh and blood? That "normal, stable" two parent adoptive couple divorced when he was 5 and he was raised by a single mother!

I knew the minute I left my baby in the hospital and returned home without him that it was a mistake. But the adoption industry ($$) was so powerful, they would have young women believe that there was no turning back, no changing your mind. All lies. They had a baby to sell and there was no hope or help to fight them.

((Olychick)) it sounds like when you and your baby were the most vulnerable and needed emotional support, others were looking out for their own best interests. I'm so sorry.

Hugs, Olychick. That makes me very sad.

I would of went to Woodstock. (And bought shares in Xerox. Who needs a copier, we have carbon paper.)

Thanks Lucille and Marilyn. Makes me sad, too, for all the mothers like me and babies like mine. The good news is he searched for me and found me over 25 years ago and he's been in my life ever since.

I am so happy to read that!

That's wonderful!!!

Some very sad and very nice posts, I was thrilled when I read Oly and her beloved son are together all these years.

I'm for the most part very happy with my life as it is. I had a great childhood. Wonderful husband and children, great job and many friends. Everyone have things they wish they could change but as others here have said, it made me who I am and where I am. I do have the MIL from hell issues though, and spent many years trying to please her. DH told me already in the beginning of our relationship that it was useless, but I kept trying. Finally he said that if I kept encouraging her, her meddling would become so unbearable he would have to cut her out of our lives completely. So that ended that. She is not really evil, just a total control freak who insist on involving herself in EVERY aspect of her children's lives 24/7, and find sneaky ways to do it. Kind of like the mother on the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond". Only worse! More intense! And she can't cook. Lol. Oh well....