To feel like a very inadequate mother after reading this?

My dad inculcated me with loads of stuff about Greek mythology. I hated it so it went in one ear and out the other. It was and remains the one topic in history which I have zero interest in. Mainly because it was hammered into me at a child that I had to be interested in it.

Also because was a self important monologuer who had bo empathy and couldn’t understand that I was a different person from him.

As PPs have said, you can teach your kids about what interests you. But love, support and understanding are far more important.

I'd buy the book with that as the acknowledgement! Any working title planned?

There you go. That’s awful. I would hate for my kids to say the most stable part of childhood was various boarding schools. It doesn’t sound like her home had the basics in parenting right.

But she could have been terrible mother in other ways. That’s not the primary purpose of parenting - teaching them deeply about your own interests: I don’t have a library of classic literature, it’s not my thing. I’m doing my best to create a safe, stable, loving and encouraging home for my children.

I felt this. This is true.

My parents (thankfully) never taught me about any of those things. What they did teach me was about family history, cooking and a lifetime of wonderful memories of a fantastic and loving childhood. You sound a brilliant mum OP ❤️

My parents couldn't have taught me all that as they didn't have the benefit of education after the age of 16 or 17. Though as I could read at three and was the first person in the family to go to university and have a higher professional career I guess they got plenty right.

I read to DDs from them being babies and took them to the Hay Festival, but neither became bookworms. DD1 is very academic and is doing well at university. She does actually read for pleasure now. DD2 is less academic and has overcome many challenges, and is doing well in a vocatonal course at college, and I'm immensely proud of both of them.

DD2 surprised me yesterday by coming home with an armful of books from a charity shop. One of her mates told her reading is great and she should try it. Who knew? 😅

To be fair I didn't read much myself between the ages of 12 and 16 other than what I had to read for school, then picked it up again off my own back at 16/17 (same age as DD2), got a list of "100 best novels" from the library and started working my way through them.

you are not failing as a mother it’s embellished to make it sound grander then it is right now i speak to DS in mandarin and we have plenty of chinese baby books because my mother is from taiwan and i speak fluent mandarin he might grow up and one day write “my mother ensured i always felt connected to my culture and language” in reality i did what my mother did and just talked to him in mandarin like any parent does and maybe occasionally put on the tv in mandarin for him and watched pokemon in mandarin together

My parents taught me that, no matter what, they have my back. They have loved me above all else. Despite bad decisions, selfishness when I was younger and the crap we all have to navigate on a daily basis, they have been there. And I know they always will be. If my children are ever wavering I ask them, “have I ever let you down?” And the answer is always no. That’s what I want for my children and will endeavour to do until the day i die.

My parents weren’t educated people and taught me none of this. I was free to learn what I wished with their support.

What they did teach me was what it is to be cherished beyond measure.

If only everyone had this experience as a child.

Agree, it's a pretty cold and barbed acknowledgement. No warmth, no spontaneous effusion of strong feelings. Just a cool list of boxes ticked.
And that opening sentence, which presumably refers to mum interrupting Black Beauty or some other late Victorian children's novel to explain the likely fate of the cheerful boy characters, is utterly grim.

Stop comparing...that passage made me giggle I mean she could have done all of that with a few of those Dorling Kindersley books in the library one wet morning. Writers are the masters of spin.

You have a go at spinning what you do with your kids and you could come up with something to make the author question if they did enough with their kids- probably not because they maybe do not doubt themself. We are all doing our own version of that passage for our children to one day not acknowledge.

She taught me how to load the dishwasher, how to get stains out of tops, all the lyrics of her favorite Bob Dylan songs, how to make small talk with pompous people, how to survive on baked beans, eggs and noodles...etc...I mean honestly if that is what her mother taught her then great but in my great ranking list I place other things more highly to be honest. Never had to apply Chinese History yet.

Bring on the acknowledgements mums of the net.

I'm so sorry to read this but I applaud you for the creation of 'cuntwaffle'.

OP - authors can write all sorts of hornswoggle, but it doesn't make it legitimate or account for the entire truth. You love your kids and I bet you're doing everything you can to make their lives amazing. That's enough - they don't need to learn about Chinese culture from you to know that either xx

She's an author, you can't be sure how much artistic liberty she's taking!

I found a quote in an article about her "The daughter of American parents, she grew up in Paris, before being sent to British boarding schools from the age of eight."

She also describes her experiences :
"The most stable environment I had were these boarding schools. I know this is embarrassing, but it did remind me a bit of Harry Potter – that feeling of it being much more home to me than wherever my parents happened to move to for that year. The experience was both lonely and great.."
inews.co.uk/culture/books/alice-winn-novel-in-memorium-queer-people-voices-first-world-war-2251772

It's ridiculous to compare your parenting with her parents parenting, or her childhood with your DCs childhood.

Do your best for your children, that's all.

Everywhere we go on holiday, we go to the little, local museum. So that’s what our dc have learnt to find value and interest in.

Modern Disney film questions at school quizzes - not so much.

Only your children can tell you what they value from their childhood @Rainallnight and they can only do that with some years distance. You do your best, you live your life and everything becomes a memory.

Well that was in a pre-tiktok/ snapchat/ wtf-app world. You're being hard on yourself.

You can’t be serious!

I encourage them to read fantasy. I think that’s ‘ensuring they have a thorough grounding in graeco Roman and other early cultures mythology, and extensively developing the concept of world building and the complexity of an ecosystem’
my oldest is 10 so mostly Harry Potter so far but lots of time to expand on this already stellar education I’m giving them 😁

What mother or father teaches their children about Greek mythology, Chinese history, the lives of kings and (hopefully queens but of course they aren't mentioned in the text above).

And I love Literature and the classics, but to be fair you are comparing a memorial from an adult to their mother. It's interesting that you already compare that as a let down. Like PP said what is worrying you?

This is beautiful.

‘Love them with all your love’

I don’t know why but that’s literally just left a mark on my soul.

I’m going to write that out (or most likely store it on my phone) and read it often.

Thank you.

Like OP I have a child with additional needs and it’s challenging and I often feel I’m failing - both him and his sibling who doesn’t have additional needs.

This is what I need to remember. Some days loving them with all my love is all that I can do.

*Edited as I used the term special needs rather than additional needs.

Hmm. You're comparing apples and pears here.
Your children have additional needs, which means you are exerting additional time, additional energy and patience in getting the bare basics done.
I have children with additional needs too, and I often think...oh how shit, I haven't done x/y/z that others have managed with their similarly aged kids, but that doesn't mean that they're really doing any better. You're most likely doing all you can.

Stop looking for additional things to do, when each day is hard enough. I always used to beat myself up that DD wasn't doing the same as others her age, and felt I was letting her down, however I realised a few years ago, that actually giving DD the time, space and support she needed was much more than many parents were doing, with all the extra bits I felt bad I wasn't doing.

Signed- a mum who has just put her autistic 3 year old to bed, after listening to baby shark on repeat for 3 hours, in German. Who will be waking, to do 4 hours of driving throughout the day to get autistic DD to college and back... from the outside, I'm sure it looks like I'm scraping the barrel with my parenting capabilities, but I could've taught my kids something cool if I wasn't busy meeting their needs that are in excess of most kids of their ages. I'm sure you can see where you're spending the time and effort - it'll be with your kids in a way that your kids gain more from.

I wonder why this is particularly chiming with you OP, why it makes you feel "got at" when it's simply a daughter's reflection about her own mother. We all have doubts about our parenting and hope we do our best but if something is drawing your attention is it worth examining why? Presumably you have no burning desire to read greek mythology to your kids, or else you'd be doing it, so why does it specifically make you feel inadequate that you're not? Would you like to? There are versions suitable for children if so. Or is it more that you want to read more widely, for you, as an end in itself?

The reality is that you're doing your very best if you can take the time and effort to bestow whatever you can to your kids.

It might be that you don't have a great grasp of studying, but you teach them how to respect others, and feel love. It might be that you have a great background in science, languages, math, and you can bestow that on your children.

Maybe you teach them how to cook, clean. The reality is it really doesn't matter. So long as you teach them to be the best version of themselves that they are capable of being.

That's when you know you've succeeded as a parent.

This just sounds like the mother shared something she is interested in, which is lovely and all but I don't think the fact that it happens to be academic makes her better than any other parent. I think good parenting is loving and seeing who they are, and supporting their interests even if they are different from ours..

My parents were cuntwaffles tbh