We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.

The saying contrasts two kinds of responsibility: trying to control an uncertain world (“prepare the future”) versus equipping the next generation with resilience, skills, and character (“prepare our children”). Its force lies in acknowledging limits—economic upheaval, war, and social change can’t be fully engineered—while insisting on a practical moral duty that remains within reach: education, civic formation, and emotional readiness. The aphorism is often invoked in discussions of parenting and public policy, implying that the best safeguard against volatility is human capacity rather than prediction or control. Even when attributed to Roosevelt, it functions more broadly as a modern maxim about intergenerational stewardship.