Things you don't do because your mum did

[SodaSloth]

Just for fun. Because mum did these when I was growing up: I don't peel potatoes in a bowl full of cold water. I don't buy margerine. I don't have Sunday pre-roast dinner ritual whereas she listened to The Archers then watched The Waltons before potatos would go in the oven to roast.

Ooh as pp said, speak loudly. I'm very quiet/softly spoken because my mum is VERY LOUD and it always drove me bonkers 😂

I don't let my husband bully me. I refuse to apologise to a yelling man because HE dropped something and blames me when I'm not even in the same area.

My mum uses the excuse that its because her dad was abusive and it's the reason she puts up with it. I point to myself and my sister (who also takes no shit from a partner) and say, "Bullshit".

Insist that "boys don't do housework"

Wow, the amount of passive aggressive people on this thread!

I don't push my children academically whilst putting their wellbeing on the back burner.
I let my children come into my bed at night if they're ill or scared.

Watch soaps.
smoke.
stop smoking and then complain about French restraunts having a smoking area (my answer was always - but you moved my dinner to put an ashtray on the table).

Tells lies, repeatedly. Everyone who has ever gone to uni has, "got their grant / loan and spent it allready", the fact you don't get the loan/grant until you are at uni and it is paid termly didn't bother her.

Rewrite family history.

Leave the washing up until it has gone mouldy.

Discuss intimate details of my children's lives to anyone who will listen, the post man didn't need (and probably was embarassed about) to know I had heavy periods at 12.

Say "picky bits".

My DM is lovely, but so many things she did grated at me and I'm overjoyed to not do them as an adult:

Iron bedding and tea towels
Close the curtains at a set time regardless of the sun
Watch Eastenders or Holby
Read tabloids
Stop and chat to every fucker in the supermarket
Tell long rambling stories about Margaret down the road and her new kitchen/hoover
Relish of repeating stories about people I barely know that have died

Ironing sheets and tea towels for sure.

Completely overreact to tiny misdemeanours by my kids.

Tut at swearing
Tut at not getting served quickly enough in a restaurant/café, but never daring to actually complain

This has made me feel emotional.

I'm petrified of turning into my mother and destroying my children emotionally and mentally.

I’d like someone to shoot me if I ever start boring my children with long, extremely dull tales of the minutiae of the lives of people they don’t bloody know. Especially if they all begin: Did I tell you? Margaret... you know Margaret... oh, of course you do; your sister went to playgroup with her son, Alan... how can you not remember?... anyway .

It makes me positively homicidal.

I don't care too much about how my children 'look' to others ie. I don't run after them with a wet flannel.
I don't ship my DC to their grandparents every weekend and not allow them to come home- even if they've forgot a favourite toy/game and want to collect it or need books for homework.
I don't compare my children unfavourably to their friends and tell them their friends are much cleverer/prettier.

Less amusingly, I do not spend my time trying to alienate my son from his father. Yes, I think he’s a total shit, but a legacy of both parents doing their damnedest at parental alienation, plus all the guilt from every direction about contact with both of them, are not something I’d do to him.

Nor do I plan to take any opportunity to bad mouth my ex (however spurious). It’s been nearly 30 years since they separated. She’s been with my stepdad for 25 years. And still she’ll shoehorn a rant about what a bastard my dad is at any opportunity, no matter how inappropriate. I barely give my ex any thought now, other than when I need to negotiate contact arrangements, or communicate information - or when I try to take a (positive) interest in what DS has been doing when he’s with his dad (because it’s important that he knows it’s a good thing to enjoy spending time with his dad). Once DS has grown up, I plan to pretty much never think about my ex ever again.

@ElectricTonight
Your awareness means you are unlikely to. My Dm had incredibly abusive parents and set out to be the opposite and succeeded. She's not perfect, but pretty wonderful. X

Talk endlessly on the phone all day every day. I'm almost phone (speaking) phobic, not sure if it's as a result of childhood. She's still the same but thankfully she knows I don't like it so I'm not the object of her constant calls

Im not sure if my mum peeled potatoes in cold water, but I don't, but my OH does, plus he prefers to peel other veg in water even sprouts! Not that I let him in the kitchen much!

I don't get meat out of the freezer and leave it on the draining board all day for the whole family to see it sitting swimming in blood.

I don't have an appointment at 10am which is only 10 minutes away so I leave the house at 8am to make sure I get there on time.

I don't have a telephone in the hallway which is sitting on a telephone table, then when the phone rings I don't tell everybody to shut up then go in the hallway and close the door.

I don't cut loads of strips of sellotape when wrapping presents and hang it all off of the dining table.

I don't own a washing machine and then proceed to hand wash everything.

I don't get a special shell ashtray out when people come over incase they fancy a smoke.

I don't say to my DC that we "aren't having any of that foreign food in here" when referring to Lasagne, Pizza, Garlic Bread, Pasta, Fajitas etc

@ExpletiveDelighted 💚 all of these

Mines more likely the opposite - what I do that she didn't, is to openly discuss problems with my children.

Also, I used to but not now - always do a Sunday roast, which she did.

My mam was a shoddy parent, my childhood was a mess and tbh up until I was 22 and moved out it was awful. I’m happier to think about the things I do that she did now:

1. love onions in just about any dish (you were right mam)
2. adore all animals great and small, I’ll take in all the waifs and strays including a very scared pigeon.
3. have a wicked sweet tooth despite claiming that I’m more of a savoury person.
4. do crochet, it’s my passion.
5. love the valley I live in and get homesick when I nip to Cardiff.
6. have no patience for other people’s bullshittery.

I can’t bring myself to overcook a vegetable the way she did though, I have my limits.

I have never:

Forced my daughter to eat something she truly detested
Brushed her hair so hard that I ripped some off of her scalp
Whacked her with a wooden spoon
Used lard for frying/roasting
Got up at 5am Christmas morning to put a turkey in the oven.

I don't drink wine

I don't let dc let his room get into such a state it takes three days to clean. Little and often is much easier and is habit for him now. It's reasonably clean and tidy 90% of the time now and he'll pick up his toys/clothes himself sometimes if he thinks it's getting messy.

Burn incense. Smells ok when it's burning but stale incense smoke is disgusting. I'd much rather just open a window.

Not allow dc a pet that lives in a cage because 'it's cruel'. Dc I has a sweet little hamster now and we all adore him. He is very content and spoilt and his favourite spot is my dressing gown pocket with a peanut.

Ds is still very young so this hasn't been an issue yet but I will not go so engrossed in my hobby that I forget to feed him after school when he is 14 and 'old enough to cook for himself'. He will not resort to frozen pizza at half 8 at night because he's starving.

Refuse to use a mixer to make cakes, why woman? it's a million times easier!

I don't cut loads of strips of sellotape when wrapping presents and hang it all off of the dining table.

I do that! Drives DH mad but I don't know why it's annoying. H

Smoke.
Drink a lot.
Mum has been gone many many years. I miss her so much. I really wish she’d have realised that she didn’t need the crutches that controlled her life and led to her relatively early death. She was always a very kind women, to our Dad and us lot. She’d had a tough upbringing and tried to make ours as idyllic as possible.
I have never smoked and can’t stand being near anyone who is. I used to drink quite a bit and over the last 10 years I’ve cut down to almost nothing...My DB also died of smoking/drink related illness..and anything in excess just scares me that I’ll become addicted. We seem to be a family of extremes.

On a lighter note, I don’t iron the bedsheets/ undies etc which she always did.
I try to be good at gardening like she was, but I’m not.

Soak salad stuff, fruit or unwrapped sweets in Milton. Ever.
Wash the kids with a flannel soaked in neat Dettol.