"It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us."

A father writes to his adult children:

We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth.

We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren. I wonder if you realise how we feel — we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us....

Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped — but as yet none of you is what I would confidently term properly self-supporting....

None of you has done yourself, or given to us, the basic courtesy to ask us what we think while there was still time finally to think things through. The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren. If it wasn't for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next. It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents....

More at the link, plus this story about the man (Nick Crews), the kids that have disappointed him, how his email got shared with the world, and the world's response (embrace!).

Crews has been swamped with encouraging messages from friends and former colleagues. “They’re saying, ‘I feel exactly the same about my children.’ Or, ‘You’ve said what I wish I’d said a long time ago.’”...

“I bought into the fashionable philosophy of not interfering; letting the children find themselves. When they were getting into trouble — at school, or later with their relationships — I would just bite my lip and tell myself, ‘Don’t butt in, it’s their lives.’”...

"I was trying to express my frustration at these wonderful grown-ups who had yet to make the best of what they had. They have read the criticism, but not seen the enduring love through the lines.”

He pauses: “I haven’t done well as a father, have I?”

Via Walter Russell Mead, via Instapundit.