There’s a weird paradox I deal with as a parent, that nobody ever told me I would need to think about. And yet, I do constantly. It literally comes up every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. In a nutshell, it’s this: I’ve realized that while my main goal as a (hopefully) good parent is to make my kids’ lives better than my own, I have also realized that if I succeed, they will never realize how good (in my mind) they have it. Because they’ll never have known any different.

So this comes up various different ways – it can be something as angsty as committing to a gentle parenting approach, and realizing my kids won’t know what it’s like to be spanked. It can be something as ridiculous as trying to explain to them what commercials are…which I literally have to do, because they don’t know what commercials are since they stream everything on the iPad. When I told them that, not only were there no iPads when I was a kid, but that there was no way to record my favorite after-school cartoons (I just had to make sure my butt was in front of the TV at 4 PM, or miss it), they didn’t believe me.

This was most recently on my mind because I looked up this weekend and saw that my kids were blissfully eating Pop-Tarts for breakfast. And then it occurred to me that, to my kids, Pop-Tarts are just a normal pantry staple. They’re not a once-in-a-blue-moon treat, they way they were for me growing up. Hell, they’re not even a weekend treat – my kids can go to the pantry at any given point, and open one of the MULTIPLE BOXES IN DIFFERENT FLAVORS that we keep stocked, and eat a Pop-Tart for breakfast (or even a snack) on a random Tuesday.

If I were a better person, I would be so happy to know I am giving my children an experience that would have made 8-year-old me very jealous. Instead, 8-year-old me is violently angry that my kids take the luxury of unlimited Pop-Tarts so very much for granted.

It’s a weird thing, to be a parent. To strive to give my kids more than what I had at their age, to do try to always do better for them. Even if I succeed, they’ll never know it – they have no basis for comparison. All they know is that there’s an iPad they can watch, a Pop-Tart they can eat, and a serious but heartfelt talking-to that they’ll get if they screw up. It would never even occur to them to expect anything different.

That may be the truly selfless thing about being a parent – at least, for me (lord knows I can’t speak for anyone else). My kids won’t ever realize how hard I have worked to do better by them, and I have to figure out a way to be okay with that. Which sucks, because I’m a person who really likes to get credit for the work I do.

Weirdly enough, a Pop-Tart is sounding pretty good right now. I guess it’s time to go feed my inner 8-year-old.