40es is not late. Its a good spurt of time in which you still can do things. And, just starting doing things may work - whatever you wanted to do. This also would teach the children to accommodate the goals of everyone in the family, instead of being passive takers. Which is a much better way to raise responsible, sensible adults who get by well in life and relationships than raising children who never had to consider the needs and sentiments of their parents and siblings. So you can just pick something, prepare a plan for doing it, and communicate this to the family and get their help to get things going...

Aside from that, research shows that being raised by an emotionally stable family with care, especially by a mother, is as impactful in children's lives as college education. So thinking that last 20 years were wasted could be pretty off the mark. It just appears like 'me' was not included in those last 20 years. It must be included in the next 20...