Of course, this parenting thing is hard. It’s expensive. It’s an enormous amount of work and responsibility. And yet, we are the luckiest people in the world, aren’t we?

Not just because, as we’ve said before, it took a black swan of black swans for any of us to be here, for us to even have our kids (especially those parents who struggled with fertility or adoption). We have been given an incredible gift with this opportunity to be parents.

While they are lucky to have a parent like you, you are far luckier to have children like them. Kids who do their best, who do well when they can, as we’ve said. Kids who make you laugh, who remind you what joy and fun is. Kids who have grown so much and made so much of what you have given them.

These thoughtful, wonderful, talented, funny kids who make your life better in so many ways because they keep you present. They keep you honest, and hold you accountable. They reset your priorities, and give you greater purpose. It is these things that make us the luckiest people in the world.

But the bigger question isn’t whether you realize how lucky you are, it’s whether your kids know that they make you feel this way? It’s whether they understand that they are not only not a burden, but something for which you are constantly and overwhelmingly grateful? Because they need to know. They deserve to know. Because the luck you feel now is best when it’s shared.