Time to get over blaming parents

Well I guess it depends. Some of us had awful childhood experiences, which were never acknowledged. 9/10 on the list of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) here. And my parents made very bad choices which significantly impact me today. I have also made choices that have not been right for my DC, but the big difference is that I acknowledge, hear them and try to do better. My parents died never ever having even noticed what they did.

Everyone is different. If it was so easy to let it go there wouldn’t be a need for psychologists and therapists.

I agree there is nothing so unattractive as a person who keeps on blaming their parents for something they could easily change
I have a shopaholic friend who keeps blaming her parents for not teaching her how to budget. She's 50!

Now I’m a parent I can look back on my childhood more objectively. I have massive admiration for the sacrifices my parents made for us (especially considering their circumstances) and that that raised us to be strong, smart, resilient and confident by providing a loving and secure home. They also modeled a healthy marriage and I have a real appreciation of my father’s attitude towards women and girls which was way ahead of his time. Having said that, there are certain things I am doing differently with my DC because I can see the ways my childhood could’ve been easier or provided me with more opportunities as an adult. I am overall thankful to my parents, recognizing that no parent is perfect. I read somewhere you can only blame your parents until you’re about 25, after that it’s on you to determine your destiny.

OP has already said she is not talking about abuse.

I had a from the outside a very loving stable home but inside was filled with the fear and uncertainty of alcohol from an emotionally abusive father. He was also physically abusive to my mum and sibling. My mum was very distant and left us at the home for 6 months roughly whilst we tried to carry on without knowing where she was. I thought he had killed her. I was 11. Over the years I went nc with my father and he died a few years ago alone.
I have since spoken to her about what happened and she has been responsive when talking about the guilt that she carried around with her and although I do understand why she left I cannot understand why she didn’t take us with her as I would never have left my dc with a father like that.
I promised myself I would never repeat what had happened to me to my dc’s and i can honestly say I have achieved that. Obviously have got things wrong but I am very open to discussion and to sincerely apologise for the unintended hurt I have caused from their point of view. It leaves me with a sense of love and calm that I now have in my life from a very supportive dh.
I did forgive my father and mum as I realised I was hurting myself and tbh I needed to put myself first. It wasn’t easy and I had a lot of support over the years but it definitely helped me be a better parent and person.

I don't think my parents fucked me up at all. I am grateful to them. Even though they had very high expectations and were not touchy feely like modern parents are expected to be. So grateful that I plan to take my mum into my home when she is too old to live on her own.

I agree with this I've seen it happen.

I'm a huge Larkin fan. DH and and I wrote a speech for DC's wedding and he read that poem as part of it.
Weirdly, I think MIL did more damage to DH through spoiling (he was the golden child and she would tell everyone what a wonderful mother she was), than my DP ever did through negligence. It's a minefield.
I have three adult DC, thankfully so far no blame has been pointed in my direction. There's still time though.

And I definitely don’t think we are any better than previous generations. We have a problem saying no. I’m the 80s we remember not getting the roller boots/slushie maker/girls world and decided we would not make our children feel so left out.

Except we now have far more damaging requests and are dealing with a monumental level of global corporate manipulation of society via big tech.

Parent’s sometimes definitely can’t win. I have a constant stream from one of mine about access to screens. He may say when he’s older that I should have let him have more, that denying him made it more attractive and I have set him up for an addiction or he could say I let him have too much and it was damaging to him and I set him up for a life of addiction.

My mother was very restrictive about ‘treat’ food and I sometimes think that led to me to become very overweight as a teenager. Equally she could have let me eat what I wanted and I wanted to eat so much I became very overweight as an teenager. Unfortunately we don’t get to live parallel lives.

I’m doing my best with all of them. I don’t have a crystal ball and there is no set of rules which works for every child and parent combo.

I agree with you OP. For me though, the fundamental difference is that my parents never acknowledged any wrong doings (and they did some pretty crap things verging on neglect) but made excuses instead or denied things happened. I know I made mistakes with my DC, however I have apologised for them and try to take to their views on board. Not saying I’m perfect - far from it - but if my mum had just at least acknowledged some of the things instead of responding melodramatically with wails of ‘oh I’m such a bad parent, I’ve had such a tough life, woe is me’ etc I would be more forgiving.
However, I don’t dwell on it and accept we’re none of us perfect parents.

Perhaps. Or maybe BIL is someone who likes to blame other people for his own poor decisions. He’s certainly not above tapping his parents for money, despite his substantial six figure salary, mainly because he decided to live in one of the most expensive areas of the city he moved to, among other things.

The person in all of this who did have have pretty shitty childhood is in fact FIL. Which BIL was and is fully aware of.

Both at fault in various ways. Both with agency (though BIL more than FIL I would say).

Yup my childhood was not perfect but I do know my parents (despite being able to say the actual words) love me ans tried their absolute best.

I totally agree with you op!

I started off in my twenties really resenting my mother for her parenting of me and my siblings. We had the usual benign neglect parenthood of the 1970s. There were six of us. She was strict, emotionally quite closed off and she used to hit us with a wooden spoon when we were naughty. She was intelligent but had had a pretty poor education so she was also quite angry and frustrated stuck being a housewife

She has been raised by strict religious parents and she had been a teen during the Second World War, She never seemed to have any time for frivolous reasons but our clothes was clean, our meals were wholesome and our house was spotless. Out towels had always been warmed when we got out of the bath. She nursed us impeccably through all of the usual childhood diseases. I remember her returning from the chemist with a small phial of olive oil to warm up, in which she dabbed cotton wool, to insert in our ears for when we had earache.

Forward to when I had children of my own and my attitude softened towards her somewhat as she was a great granny and I developed a lot of respect for her practical capabilities and common sense, She became more relaxed and humorous. Our relationship improved massively.

Forward to when I had teens of my own, one of whom was rather challenging, and omg at this point, not only I totally understand my mother, but I have developed much more sympathy for why she often seemed emotionally weary and depleted; but I also developed huge love and respect for her solid independent spirit, her intelligence and her emotional resilience,

Moral of this story: don’t judge your mother’s parenting skills until you have parented your own teen children. Once your children are in their twenties and are well on their way to independent life, only then can you give your mother a final objective score as it were, because only then do you fully realise what it takes to be a parent.

I had a decent childhood so can’t really comment but I do sometimes try and stand up for parents when people blame them for not having good stuff/ their parents being messy/ food not being great because they’re what I know about

Someone on the other thread said we all go through a stage of questioning everything our parents did in our twenties and then when we have children in our 30s forgiving them because we see what parenting is like.

Um I don’t think so had my first child at 16 and took till my 20s to fully realise how much my dad sucks in fact having children of my own made me appreciate that even MORE

But they do ‘fuck you up’ (no coincidence it’s one of my favourite poems) and me and my two siblings have all independently ended up in therapy due mainly to our awful mother and our father who enabled her. She held the strong belief that praising children is bad for them. Consequently our childhoods were filled with negativity and criticism. It makes even less sense because she hated her own critical mother yet was just the same. I have spent my whole life ensuring I’m nothing like her. Consequently I have a very close relationship with my 2 sons (and I’m not saying I haven’t made mistakes) and in an ideal world would be totally NC with her.

This! Just wait for it.....

My main issue with this is that my parents refuse to acknowledge the awful things they did, and have never apologised. The impact that it had on our lives therefore feels dismissed so it is not easy to move on from it because they have no remorse, particularly as this means that they continue to behave in a similar manner even now. Of course none of us are perfect and everyone will get things wrong but being defensive and dismissive about it shows a lack of respect for the other person.

I have no doubt my children will criticise some things I’ve done someday because everyone reflects on their childhood as they grow up and become parents themselves. However, I always apologise to them if I’m in the wrong and would do so if they raised any issues as adults. I’d be sad I’d upset them and listen to them, try to see it from their point of view and hope that they could forgive me, rather than try to justify myself.

I think some humility and remorse goes a long way and unfortunately many of the current generation of elderly parents of adult children respond to any attempt to discuss things with self-justification, dismissiveness and disdain.

Agreed. My DPs were typical 70s/80s DPs. They were both good and bad, but ultimately they did their best and they raised us to be independent, functioning members of society who work and pay their taxes and some of us have got married (happily) and had kids and we are, in our turn, doing our best. I have a sibling though who struggles with their MH and blames our DPs for most of their ills. IMO, sibling would be better off working on their MH and not spending so much time alone, stewing and being bitter.

When I was in my 20s I made a decision to put our DPs mistakes in a metaphorical box and stick it in the attic. It was one of the best things I ever did and I'm a much happier and more well-balanced person for doing so. We can only do our best. Our DPs loved us, they weren't always good at showing it and they made mistakes, for sure, but they did their best and still do and for that we're extremely lucky.

So true. I have to laugh at some of the smug posts " I am not like my parents". You probably are.
And again, I am not talking about abuse!

Mysogyny and the patriarchy are being challenged. Women have more access to education and contraception. It will impact parenting.

I agree all humans are learning and will make mistakes, we all need a growth mindset, a willingness to learn. Shutting down communication doesn't help.

Becoming a mum has healed so many small wounds, and amongst them is that I have a renewed feeling of grace towards my own mum. I am trying to avoid some of the things she did that made me feel guilty/ashamed etc. but also when I'm trying at my wits end and snap or raise my voice, I recognise that I am part of a global and ancestral community of women just trying (and occasionally failing) to keep their sh*t together and I am no better or worse 🤣