What do you think or hope your DC will say about their childhood when they grow up?

[Charlavail]

Inspired by another thread when people talked about their childhood experiences.

I hope DD will grow up to feel she has been very lucky to grow up with such freedom in the countryside as I did myself.

That they knew without any doubt that they were the most important things in their parents lives and that they were loved unconditionally.

That I was always there for them

I hope their complaints about me are really banal ones, like my dancing is bad or I never bought white bread. Everyone has complaints about their parents, but I don’t want to fail on the big things and leave them with trauma like mine did.

That they were happy, loved unconditionally and supported.

Mine are adults now, and I think they would say that. I hope so.

That they know their mum always put their happiness first and loved them more than anything else.

That they felt loved, listened to and could talk to us about anything.

That their parents were fun, jokey, easygoing, affectionate and full of love. ♥️

I do think our generation of parenting is better, less stiff upper lip repressed dads, women less tied to shitty society traditions like having to have a spotless house all the time, stay with abusive husbands etc. We let kids make noise and mess. I'm 37 and feel my peers are so much more relaxed and easygoing as parents. Stuff like.. I grew up with gaming so can relate to my two boys with that. I grew up with memes so my boys and I send those to each other.
We are all encouraged to talk more and share in life now, no subject is embarrassing. Women who don't want kids can choose to abort so less terrible mums about. I just feel recent generations of kids and future kids will have more happy memories.

I'm in a different position to many of you in that my dcs are adults so I already know what they have to say about their childhood.
I know that they feel they had a good childhood - and I see that in the way they replicate some of the things we used to do and the way they continue our family traditions. We never put pressure on them to be a certain way or to do certain things, as far as possible we involved them in family decisions where they were affected by those decisions. We did lots of fun stuff, made lots of ness and noise and our home was very much full of love. We didn't have a lot of money because I was a sahp for several years but they often talk about the cheap/free things we did for fun and dc2 does a lot of those things now with dgs. And when MIL was very spiteful towards them, and devastated dh in the process, their response was to say they weren't bothered by what mil had done because they knew we loved them and we would never do to them, or our dgs, what she had done to them.
Also, despite being in my 60's, I can game and appreciate memes with the best of them!

That they were unconditionally loved and supported and had lots of fun!

If she had kids, bloody hell mum, how did you do it all!!! (Alone)

Would also like her to say 'we were always outside, there were a few kids to play with. We swam in rivers, rode our bikes, we played online when it rained and in winter but I was lucky to live in a country village even if we didn't have a lot of spare money we had plenty good times and did loads of stuff'

She is growing up in the same village, same school as I did so I have no comparison and am biased.
'Proper childhood'

That they could come to me with anything, to tell me anything, good or bad.

I hope they’ll say that they always felt loved and supported.

I also hope they’ll say that our lifestyle was fun and healthy!

That they were fully accepted, supported and loved for who they are and that we never pushed our own agenda on them.

That they felt safe enough to make mistakes and learn from them.

That we did our best considering we had no money and a pretty shitty set of childhoods ourselves.

That we heard what they said.

My teen dcs are pretty ungrateful to be honest. They are nice kids and we have always prioritised them, no trauma, always comfortable financially, a stable marriage for dh and I. However, they still remember and seem to define their childhoods by the very minor (imo) negatives. Like DD today reminisced that she never got to do cricket after school because she couldn't phone us to tell us she was staying back as she only had a PAYG phone with no credit.

She handily forgot here the gymnastics, athletics, choir, viola lessons, brownies and roller skating she used to do. We never forced her to start/stop any activities, it was always totally up to her. 💁

I find this so difficult as I grew up in real poverty with some really difficult circumstances. At times I think they could use a bit of deprivation, but then they have been through a pandemic in their adolescence so I guess that is their generation's burden to bear.

I hope as adults when they have more life experience they will be grateful and have positive memories, but I guess they don't owe us anything, and they are going to feel how they feel.

That it was obvious by my words and deeds that I love them

All of the above and a bit of www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse

I hope that they'll remember the laughter. We laugh a lot. I'm disabled so I hope they don't remember the times when mum couldn't do much, but instead the times when mum pushed herself for their enjoyment. The zoo, the beach, the aquarium, the park, the nature reserve, the fair ground, the times we'd play board games or dance in the rain outside like we did the other day. I hope they remember that mum tried her best and I hope they say "mum made our lives happy" .

I hope that, when the dc are adults, they remember the board games nights and birthday parties and christmas fun and so on, and see it for what it is - representative of my endless and boundless love for them.

I hope their biggest complaint is that I won't let them have a snack 20 seconds after finishing breakfast (junk food snack - they can have fruit!) or that I wouldn't let them eat chocolate and crisps all day.

I hope they say they know they were loved and wanted and listened to. I hope they can say that we had fun.

My son is grown up but when he was about 25 I asked him how he thought I’d been about disciplining him while he was younger. He said “ I think you got it about right mum but blimey you had some killer looks !” Then he and my husband both burst out laughing . (Rude😂!)

That he mattered. His thoughts were valid and his opinions were considered but most of all he felt all encompassing love.

That it was full of fun and affection.

I don't know why these threads always give me a lump in my throat, Im useless 🥹.

I hope our DS says he knows he was (adored) loved,absolutely and completely for just being him.
That we loved spending time with him dancing and laughing.
That his opinion was always valued.
That we installed good values in him.
We were open and honest and he could come to us with anything,

Oh god, my heart hurts with this stuff.

This is hard for me. I havent given them the childhood i wanted to. My eldest has young caring responsibilities and my youngest has autism and some severe mental health issues which have made life challenging. We dont do fun things together as a family to build memories.

I suppose i hope they see i did the best i could and it was all with love.