Letters to the future: what to write to your child

Start with one of these

• Today you did something I want you to know about...
• One thing I am afraid of forgetting is...
• If I could tell you what it is like being your mother (or your father) today, I would say...
• By the time you read this you will be X years old, and I wanted you to know...
• Today was a hard day, and even so...

It does not have to be beautiful

The letters that move people most are not the well written ones: they are the ones that tell something specific. "You cried all night and I cried with you at four in the morning" is worth more than any paragraph about unconditional love. Write it badly, write it short, but write it concrete.

Seal it

When you file it away, choose an opening date: her fifteenth birthday, her eighteenth. A letter she knows exists and cannot read yet is a present that lasts years before it is opened.