They won’t remember the clothes you bought them. They won’t have any idea how much time you spent or the things you gave up for them. They won’t remember most of the advice you gave them. They won’t remember most of the things you said.

What they’ll remember, as we said recently, ​is the vibes​.

Bill Bryson, decades later, remembered a trip to Mackinac Island in Michigan with his family. They hadn’t even been there five minutes when he stepped in horse manure, he writes in ​The Lost Continent​ (​which we talked about recently​). “My mother cleaned my shoe with a twig and a Kleenex, gagging delicately,” he recalled, “and as soon as she put the shoe back on my foot, I stepped backwards into some more with my other shoe.” What stood out to him from this experience, returning to the scene all those years later, was that his mother hadn’t gotten upset at this ridiculous and frustrating scene.

“My mother never got cross,” he said. “She didn’t exactly do cartwheels you understand, but she didn’t shout or snap or look as if she were suppressing apoplexy, as I do with my children when they step in something warm and squishy, as they always do. She just looked kind of tired for a moment, and then she grinned at me and said it was a good thing she loved me.”

Of course you love them, but do you think they feel it? ​Will they remember your patience​ or your temper? Your care or your exasperation?

The vibes, you must remember, matter.