What do you wish your parents had taught you but didn’t?

[auberginefrog]

Just curious/nosy. My dad is very handy - him and my grandpa could fix just about anything but somehow this was never passed onto me…

@NaiceHamAndHugs

Confidence in myself and to be able to feel that it’s ok to show emotion.

Yes, or to actually have emotions. That it’s possible to change.

To know that I deserved to be treated with respect and didn't have to tolerate other people's crap. To have more of a sense of my own worth.

I wish I had had someone to talk to on an emotional level. Also, to see someone really stand up for me would have been so valuable to me.

That education is gateway to a good career.

How to handle money. I was useless with it for years.

How to be laid back. My family was quite uptight, always finding fault with how other people treated them or sneering at the world. I learned late in life that by nature I am quite laid back but behaved the way i had been raised for too long, and used to watch wistfully as other people had a more easy going approach to life.

I wish I'd been taught about managing money - although my parents had very little, we were always clean, well-fed, clothed, etc.

I wish my parents (or anyone really) had taught me about self-confidence

@35andThriving

That you don't need to get married

Since becoming a mother I have really noticed how much films and books, aimed at little children, really push the idea of marriage. The conditioning starts young. I have tried to teach my dc marriage is an option but not a necessity.

I think you can go too far in the direction of ‘if in doubt, don’t’ which is what my mother always said. Life is much easier when you aren’t alone. Of course when I was young, the options were assumed to be married or single. It’s a little more complicated now, but perhaps not that much and if by get married you mean find a long-term partner then I would still say that for most people it is very important, verging on a necessity. Anyway, whatever you do, the parent is always wrong.

@Automaticforthepeople

To know that I deserved to be treated with respect and didn't have to tolerate other people's crap. To have more of a sense of my own worth.

I wish I had had someone to talk to on an emotional level. Also, to see someone really stand up for me would have been so valuable to me.

This

I wish they had taught me to negotiate, not overrule me, and to talk to me not at me,nd to listen to me and discuss why there might be another viewpoint (not 'because I say so')

And if there was a disagreement, that it wasn't me at fault

My life would have been a lot better if I had seen that I could set boundaries, and thar I didn't need to be grateful for a tiny scrap of attention/affection

They did their best but they made me, and if I was so shit, did they not consider why?

Any life skills, advice about life... lovely parents but no talks or chats about life.. I'm gonna be/I am the opposite for my kids.

And why is that? Is it that generation.. don't think so as my exes mum was always imparting wisdom on him. You see it in shows and films too.. older generation sharing wise advice. I know it's fiction but its based on it happening in real life.

Always wish I'd had grandparents and parents who took me for a sit down on a wall somewhere to share some life lessons 😂

How to swim.
How to ride a bike.
They tried, like once, then completely gave up on me.
I’ve been to lessons as an adult and can now just about swim, but still can’t ride a bike.

Any kind of social skills (we weren't allowed to have friends round),

Any sort of sport (we weren't allowed except at school)

Grooming - if we were caught with makeup, nail polish, it was confiscated. I didn't own mascara until I was 18 and left home. It took 20 years before I could put makeup on in front of anyone else - fear of getting caught.

Like others have said, money management. But there was no chance of that because my mum was always in loads of debt, lurched from one crisis to another and died leaving not a single penny. I was like her for years but managed to get out of debt and now never owe more than very small interest free amounts.

• That I'm just as good and worthy as everybody else.

-To have aspirations -To swim -To love and value myself -To eat properly and take care of my health

Gosh, so many things!

Cook, my mother isn’t a great cook though-not a criticism but she doesn’t seem to have an interest in it.

Housework, managing a house

Swim, I still can’t!

To be self confident, luckily my DD seems very confident naturally.

To make things, my father is a retired carpenter and I’d have liked to have learned.

How to handle friends and relationships.

@35andThriving

That you don't need to get married

Since becoming a mother I have really noticed how much films and books, aimed at little children, really push the idea of marriage. The conditioning starts young. I have tried to teach my dc marriage is an option but not a necessity.

Women are socially conditioned and its so difficult to un learn! Argh xx

How to be financially independent...

To generally be an independent adult. My Mum didn’t teach me how to cook, clean or take care of myself financially. We were very poor growing up but my Mum somehow managed to keep us afloat and debt free by working very hard and being extremely careful with money, both of which she hid from me. I could have really used that knowledge when I first went out into the World on my own. She didn’t want me to feel deprived so she encouraged me to spend every penny I had rather than save. It took me years to figure out how to budget and save as an adult. I could cry thinking about all the money I wasted over the years.

She didn’t show me how to cook or clean and in fact worked hard to prevent me from trying which I think was a combination of her wanting a completely different childhood for me than the one she had herself and an attempt to keep me from leaving her. I had to learn it all for myself and really struggled to become independent. It’s one of the main reasons I quit university as I just couldn’t figure it out. By that point, I had such a mental block that I avoided the kitchen in my halls of residence and lost so much weight my clothes didn’t fit I’m embarrassed at how behind my peers I was.