We Will Probably Never Know How Well We Did

There’s something humbling and terrifying about fatherhood: we will probably never really know how we did.

In most areas of life, we’re used to feedback. We track progress at the gym. We get performance reviews at work. We know when we’ve nailed a presentation, hit a milestone, or messed something up. There are systems in place to measure and course-correct.

But parenting, especially fatherhood, doesn’t offer that same clarity. Our children—if we’re lucky—will outlive us. Most of their life, we won’t witness. Even while we’re both alive, much of their adult journey will unfold out of view. If we’ve built strong, open relationships, they may choose to share some or even most of it with us. But even then, there are whole layers we won’t access. Their inner world, their silent battles, their quiet triumphs—much of it will remain their own.

And that’s hard. Not in a self-pitying way, but in an ego-check kind of way. This is the most important job we’ll ever do, and there’s no scoreboard, no final grade, no annual report to tell us how we’re doing. That can sting—especially for those of us who are used to feedback loops, metrics, and knowing where we stand.

So if we can’t know the outcome, then it has to become about the activity itself. About how we show up, day in and day out. The conversations we start, the breakfasts we make, the stories we read even when we’re tired. It becomes about the pattern of presence we lay down—not because we’ll be judged on it, but because it’s the right thing to do.

In a world that rewards outcomes, this feels counterintuitive. But fatherhood doesn’t play by those rules. It’s not a project we can wrap up and present. It’s a relationship we keep investing in, without knowing if the return will ever be visible to us.

So maybe the work is in accepting that. Letting the result go and focusing on the moment we’re in. That’s where the meaning lives—not in some future payoff, but in how we’re choosing to love right now.

This matters for them. And it matters for the wider world. Because as the Greek proverb goes:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing great.