The “All About My Mom” worksheet that Chrissy Powers received from her daughter, Ruby, last Mother’s Day offered some surprises.

First, that Ms. Powers was 21. (She was 42.)

Second, that Ruby’s favorite thing to do with her mother was baking.

“We’ve literally baked a cake together once,” said Ms. Powers, a family therapist in San Diego. “I didn’t realize how meaningful that was to her until I got that quote-unquote report card.” The mother of three (Ruby was 5 at the time) proceeded to “psychoanalyze” the feedback in a post on TikTok.

Dusty Stanfield, 47, works from home in Fulshear, Texas, as a marketing specialist for athletes — a job that looks like sitting on the couch to the youngest of his five children. In preschool, his son stated in a Father’s Day survey that “he basically does nothing.”

Parenting, Mr. Stanfield said, is a “work in progress.”

It is also a long game. We invest love, energy and strategy, then wait 18 to 30-plus years for the results. Until then, it can be hard to assess our progress. Yet once a year, the cards that children create for their parents — whether it’s for Mother’s Day in May or Father’s Day in June — may offer a window, or a fun-house mirror, into how we’re doing and how they perceive us.