How to Write a Letter to Your Child
To write a letter to your child, decide which day it is for, then write to the adult who will read it about the child you know now: what they say and get wrong, what they are afraid of, what an ordinary day with them looks like, and what you felt but did not say at the time. Prompts follow for six moments — before the birth, the first birthday, starting school, the eighteenth birthday, leaving home and their wedding day — with what to leave out and how to make sure the letter reaches them.
Parents mean to write these and mostly do not, because the letter they imagine is a wise one, and nobody feels wise at eleven at night with a toddler asleep upstairs.
The good news is that wisdom is not what your child will be looking for. They will want to know what they were like, and what you were like, and you are the only person who can tell them.
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Write to the adult, about the child
The letter has two people in it who will never meet: the adult who reads it, and the child it describes. Your job is to introduce them.
So write up to the reader — they will be grown, and can take a straight account — and write down to the detail. The word they cannot pronounce. The thing they are convinced lives under the stairs. What they insist on wearing. By the time they read it they will have no memory of any of this, and neither, in truth, will you.
Put yourself in it too. How old you are, what you are tired from, what you are worried about that has nothing to do with them. A child grows up knowing their parents only as parents. A letter is one of the few ways to meet them as people.
Record the ordinary
The milestones are already photographed. What disappears is the texture, and it goes within months.
What they say wrong
The mispronunciations, the invented words, the name they have for their grandmother. Write them the way they sound. They last about a year, and no one remembers them afterwards.
What they are afraid of
The hoover, the dark at the top of the stairs, a particular page of a particular book. And what fixes it.
What a Tuesday looks like
Who wakes first, what breakfast is, the walk to nursery, the negotiation at bedtime. The day you would never think to describe, because you are living it on repeat.
What they are like with other people
Who they follow around, who they boss, how they stand at the door of a birthday party. The first sketch of a character they will recognise.
Which day is the letter for?
A letter written for a particular day is easier to write and better to receive. Six days that parents choose, and what each letter is for.
Before they are born
The only letter written to someone you have not met. Say what you are imagining, what you are nervous about, what the house looks like while it waits. It will be wrong about almost everything, which is what makes it worth reading.
The first birthday
A report on a year they will not remember, and that you will barely remember either. Less about them than about what happened to all of you: the nights, the first laugh, who turned up to help.
Starting school
The last point at which you know everything about their day. Describe the child who is about to walk in: what they can do, what they cannot do yet, who they are hoping to sit next to.
The eighteenth birthday
The one most parents have in mind. Written across the childhood or on the eve of the day, it says who you watched them become, and hands over a few things you have been holding for them: stories, apologies, the truth about the hamster.
Leaving home
Shorter and more practical than you expect. What you hope they take with them, what they can always come back for, and what the house is going to sound like without them.
Their wedding day, or the birth of their own child
Written years ahead, for a day you can only guess at. Say what you have learned about living with another person, or about being handed a baby, without pretending it is a manual.
You do not have to choose one. A short letter every year, all opening on the same birthday, tells the story better than a single long one written at the end.
Prompts for the early years
For the two letters written while they cannot read. Answer in full sentences: a list of facts is a form, not a letter.
Before they are born
- What do we call you at the moment, before you have a name?
- What does the room where you will sleep look like tonight?
- What am I most looking forward to doing with you?
- What am I afraid I will get wrong?
- Who is waiting for you, and what have they already bought, knitted or predicted?
- What was happening in the world the week we found out?
The first birthday
- What was the day you were born actually like, hour by hour?
- What did you do this year that made us laugh until we had to sit down?
- What were the nights like, and what finally worked?
- Who came to help, and what did they do?
- What surprised me most about being your parent?
- What can you do now that you could not do a month ago?
Prompts for the school years
For the letters written while they are busy growing up and you are busy keeping up.
Starting school
- What can you do on your own this year, and what do you still ask for help with?
- What do you say you want to be, and why?
- Who is your best friend, and what do the two of you do?
- What are you afraid of, and what do we do about it?
- What is the word you say wrong that I hope you never correct?
- What did you say on the way to the school gate that first morning?
The eighteenth birthday
- What were you like at three, at eight, at thirteen — the honest version?
- When did I first see the adult you were going to be?
- What did you teach me that I did not expect to learn from a child?
- What did I get wrong, and what would I do differently?
- What is the family story about you that you have never heard in full?
- What are you better at than I ever was?
- What do I hope you do with the next ten years, and what do I hope you ignore?
Prompts for the adult they become
For the letters written furthest ahead. Keep these short. You are guessing at the day, so say what you know rather than what you imagine.
Leaving home
- What is the house going to be like without you in it?
- What do I hope you take with you that does not fit in a box?
- What can you always come back for, no questions asked?
- What do I know about money, cooking or landlords that might save you a month?
- What was I doing at your age, and how little did I know?
- What do I want you to ring me about, even when it is small?
Their wedding day, or their own first child
- What have I learned about living with another person that nobody told me?
- What did your other parent and I argue about, and what did we stop arguing about?
- What was I like in the first weeks after you were born?
- What do I hope the person next to you knows about you?
- What did my own parents do that I only understood once you were here?
- What would I like you to forgive yourself for in advance?
If you write these early, date them clearly. A letter about marriage written when your child is six is a record of what you believed at the time, and should say so.
What to leave out
Scores to settle. If the child's other parent appears in the letter, they appear as your child's parent, not as your opponent. A letter opened at eighteen is not the place to win an argument from when they were four, however right you were.
Expectations they now have to live up to. “I know you will be a doctor” reads as a bill on the day it arrives. Say what you see in them; leave the career to them.
Anything written to be admired. If a sentence sounds like a speech, cut it. They will read this alone, probably more than once, and what they are listening for is whether it sounds like you.
And secrets that are not yours to time. A letter is a poor way to deliver news that would change how they understand their family. That is a conversation, and it should not wait for a date.
Practical choices
Four decisions that make the difference between a letter that works and one that almost did.
One letter per child
Not one for all of them. Siblings compare, and a shared letter tells each of them they were half of an audience. The letters can be short. They have to be separate.
Handwritten and typed
Your handwriting is part of what they will want, and it may also be hard to read. Write by hand, scan or photograph the pages, and keep a typed copy alongside.
A letter a year
A page on each birthday takes twenty minutes and records what no single long letter can: how they changed, and how you did. Put it in the calendar for the week before the birthday, not the day itself.
Date everything
Write the full date and their age at the top of every page. A letter that opens with “you are four and a half today” needs no other explanation.
How to make sure it reaches them
A letter in a drawer depends on you being there to hand it over, and on the drawer surviving every move in between. If it stays on paper, tell one other adult where it is and which day it is for, and keep a scan somewhere else.
A digital time capsule is the other route: the scanned pages, the typed text and any photos or recordings are sealed together and open on the date you choose — their eighteenth birthday, say. A recipient can be saved as just a name while your child has no inbox, but a name-only recipient is not emailed, so add yourself or their other parent with an address as well. After sealing, no recipient can be added, though the capsule's link can still be shared. One capsule per child, like the letters.
Eighteen years is a long time for any company, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. Our preservation page sets out where capsules are kept, what we commit to, and what we do not promise. Whatever you choose, keep your own copy of the letter.