do you think bruce dreaded the day he'd outlive his parents?
like, imagine bruce wayne waking up on his birthday. freshly thirty years old. and he can't help but think about the fact that if his parents stood in front of him now, would he be taller than them? if he were to talk to them, would he be wiser than they were? he's already stronger than his father was, and he's healthier than his mother.
in a handful of years, there's even a chance he might look a photo of them and think of how young they looked. and that's the moment he truly would feel like he had grown. not when he became batman, not when he had his first child, but when he realized that if his parents saw him now, they wouldn't be able to recognize their son.
(they would, but you could never convince him of that.)
