Is this the reason a child doesn't feel loved?

[Linnetthebird]

I've been a mum for 15 years now and have 3 DCs. Enjoy it very much but unfortunately struggle with flashbacks/triggers from my own childhood.

My question is, do you think a child might not feel loved just because their parents never stand up for them? Even if the rest of their parenting is very, very good?

I was the firstborn DC to my parents and they really adored me: my ideas, long hair, smile, abilities, clever thoughts, handwriting.. dozens of things!. My childhood home was safe physically and my DM would read me lots of books. My DF would play with me. I often heard my DM telling me how positively our relatives, neighbours etc thought about me. I often felt like especially my DM looked at me through "idealizing glasses".

However I've been anxious since pre-teen years and still struggle with deep feelings of worthlessness. I literally felt I was not loved and that in case I would be in danger they would not necessarily "dare" to save me or help me. That they would be too submissive to fight for their DC.

How is it possible that despite a calm, encouraging, adoring home I feel this way?

I was not allowed to express temper tantrums, dislike, fear or other negative emotions. My parents are both very kind and submissive. So they would always please the authority, relatives, neighbours. So everytime I was not happy or cheery especially my DM would criticise me. If I cried while taking finger prick test DM would look at me disappointed and say "what is the problem??" DM has later explained that she thought that if her daughter behaves badly (cry, temper tantrums etc as a child) people around us would not like me anymore and she thought she should correct my behaviour to ensure I was liked. However I perceived this as my parents didn't stand up for me. That their live was conditional.

What do you think, is this the reason I didn't feel loved even tough I was greatly adored when I did behave well?

Yes, I feel similar. You are taught that expressing emotion is 'bad' and that if you're angry or sad or scared, you're not being 'good enough'. You end up feeling like you have to perfect all the time because that's what makes people love you.

I think you can overanalyse these things to be honest.

If you feel that way, then probably, yes. Something to explore with a therapist perhaps.

Your childhood sounds idyllic to lots of us who weren't so lucky..

Not everything is your parents fault

Agreed and seems to be more and more common. I don't think previous generations used to do this so much.

You are the way you are, you had parents who you know loved you and I'm sure tried their best. Nobody is a perfect parent. If you need support with your mental health now or whatever then please do seek it out.

I'd check out the Stately Homes thread in Relationships. You might get a better response there.

I do think the amount of threads on here with people getting very very introspective about their fairly normal childhoods is not indicative of anything great.

Nobody has a perfect childhood. Nobody has entirely blameless parents. Your adulthood is for figuring out how to live past your childhood experiences, not ruminating over all the ways in which your poor well-intentioned parents may have failed you.

I have a DS with special needs who was failed by the education system, and the only way for me to really work through that was to make a choice: I chose to believe that every teacher, head of year and specialist was doing the best they could with the resources they had.

That didn't stop me advocating hard for my child's needs of course, but it did help me keep things in proportion (and keep my temper!).

I wonder if some sort of reframing like that would help you? You have a perception that your parents' wouldn't stand up for you, but maybe they were just parenting the best way they could with what they had available (ie their own background/toolbox/way they were brought up (did their parents 'stand up for' them?) What would that even look like in real life? Them shouting at the nurse to not hurt you with the pinprick test?

I also had submissive, meek parents, who weren’t able to cope with the world on their own behalf, let alone their children’s, and as the eldest of a big family, I was parenting my parents as well as my younger siblings from a young age. (The difference was that it wasn’t a loving, praising home, and both of them came from very deprived backgrounds, and hadn’t been brought up lovingly themselves. )

But yes, it was a very negative aspect of my childhood. I was horrifically bullied by a teacher, which frightened them, but they didn’t do anything, and when, aged 9, I was sexually abused, it didn’t even occur to me to tell them, because they wouldn’t have acted to protect me, and it would just have stressed them out. They were, and are, terrified of authority and potential conflict.

If I bring up the most minor thing to do with that kind of conflict-avoidance now, they look blank and say ‘That’s just how it was then’.

Therapy has helped. I did get inwardly angry when I had my own child and had to role-play scenarios with them before I left him alone with them on visits.

I think that’s entirely true, @LaviniasBigBloomers — most people are doing their best, and are acting out of their own childhood scripts or at the limits of their capacities/resources. Unfortunately, in some cases, that best is totally inadequate. No nine-year-old should be going back repeatedly to a situation where they are being sexually abused because her past experience has taught her that her parents just don’t have the capacity to protect her. I’ve had a lot of therapy, and am a confident adult and a pro-active parent, but it’s left me with some unhelpful behaviours I struggle with, because I learned very early the world wasn’t safe, and that no one would stand between me and harm.

It sounds very possible, yes. I suppose you have to try and think about it from their POV - what were their childhoods like that they became parents like that? Were they genuinely doing their best, and can you recognise that they didn't know how to parent any differently? It's great for you and your children that you can take this step back and think about how it has affected you, and crucially how to parent differently yourself. But don't let it become a source of conflict with your parents. Most likely they thought they were doing the right thing and it never occurred to them/they couldn't read a parenting book/listen to a podcast etc, as we do today.

This

Your parents were loving and kind and did their best for you - that does not damage a child. Or there would be no hope for any of us, or our children, would there

As a child, when you're scared of upset are the times you need your parents' protection and comfort the most. They effectively rejected you at those times, for being too emotional.

You can be kind and do your best and still deeply damage a child by failing to protect them or meet their needs. Denying that just reinforces the harm by preventing people from getting the help they need in later years.

I disagree. I have met thousands of parents in decade of teaching. There are parents who do their best and parents who don't. if you have parents that do their best, you are lucky. There has to be very extreme issues, like severe mental health problems or similar for doing their best to not actually be good enough

Actually, no. People may do their best, and their best may still be woefully inadequate. The one doesn’t negate the other.

I know why my parents’ best efforts were woefully inadequate — they were raised by parents who were themselves from deprived, dysfunctional backgrounds, and in both cases, they lost a parent very young, and got taken out of education. They literally had no idea there was more to parenting than providing basic food and clothes because that’s all they got.

Agree. You need to wait until your own children grow up - they will think they didn't have perfect parents either.

What a very strange take on your childhood, it's sounds like you were very loved and cared for but you've managed to find fault.
It seems to be a thing now to seek out any slight and blow it into neglect/abuse etc

I am so sorry that happened to you @Logainm and that you weren't protected either before or after the event.

Thanks, @LaviniasBigBloomers — that’s kind.

Going by what you've said, it could be that you felt they prioritised the feelings of others before you. In that case, it could feel that you weren't loved enough or that love was conditional.