Reconciling your own 'teen' years as you parent your own child.

[Bluestar23]

I am in my 40s and grew up in NW London and now live up north.
I was an oldest child in a middle class family but a bit confused and way too much freedom and lack of guidance.
Lots of my experiences between 12 years and 16 years involve being very drunk, hitchhiking, being taken advantage of, inappropriate sexual situations, fast cars and generally being out of my depth.
My Dad was at work and I genuinely don't think my Mum had a clue of the possibilities. I wasn't street smart and would honestly say I'm relieved I got through that time of my life alive in retrospect . Things got better as I moved towards 16 years etc.
Now I've reread that it sounds horrific but there's more context as I was just a normal kid.
I know have 2 girls and my oldest is me in repeat but I'm different in my approach to my parents.
I'm trying to explain to my DH why our responses etc are so key to keeping her safe.
I always feel very lucky to now be in a very safe relationship for the last 20 years when my story could have been so different.
But my fears for both my daughters remain.
Can anyone relate?

Yes my story is similar and I have two girls. Oldest is 8 tho so have a few years before I have to face this. There’s another thread about teens that’s quite interesting tonight. I anticipate that I will be a lot stricter than my mum was but I also anticipate knowing my children much better than she did, which I hope will guide the way.

i have noticed at this stage that I am much more willing to let my children take risks than other parents I know, and I think as a result they are very physically capable compared to peers. I wonder if that instinct will continue and I’ll unintentionally leave them to learn some things the hard way like I did… I think my mum trusted me far more than she should and was naive.

I haven’t actually read it yet but the Gabor Mate book about keeping your kids close may be helpful for your DH..

I had waaaaaay too much freedom as a teenager. I remember wandering around at 3am and talking my way into nightclubs age 14, and other stuff I'm not proud of.

Since having kids myself I don't understand why she wasn't more strict with me and making sure she knew where I was and what I was doing!

My daughter becoming a teen was the catalyst for the breakdown of my relationship with my own mother. I look at my daughter and I just could not imagine being as hands-off and permitting of damaging things as she was with me at that age.

I had no one to protect me (from others and from myself). Eg. She let a 20+ year old bf stay over in my room all the time...slightly before I'd turned 15. She knew I was SH and did nothing about it. Etc etc) she still blames me for that shitty bf, she offered no help or support or anything when I had an extremely difficult time getting away from an abusive ex. Afterwards she said "oh I always thought he was abusive!" Hmmm... Maybe say something at the time then?! I was lost. She didn't want to find me.

It's so hard to suddenly realise how shit it all was. I am by no means a perfect mother but I am observant, loving (and I tell them all the time I love them! I never heard this) and prepared to put rules in place and put their wellbeing and safety first.

She doesn't like me as a person and I realised in therapy that she never really did.

You're lucky that you realise and are trying to be a better parent! We have to make our own example sadly, and analyse everything to make sure we are doing better.

That's really interesting.
I've been really keen for my daughter to develop independence such as simple bus journeys which I believe she's capable off. I appreciate this is leaving her in vulnerable situations and as you say her friends aren't as keen to engage with this. But I feel she's developing self help skills for later life.
My poor life choices usually presented at night / and or after drinking.
I'm not sure if me pushing towards independence and knowledge of this is positive or not!

My parents were loving but my early teen years were very hard and they were very underprepared with little support themselves (only children, grandparents had passed away).
But at 16 they let me travel away to stay with my 21 year old bf on the south coast. That feels crazy now!
I between everything else just feels so lax!
Maybe that was just the 90s.
It was clearly a me too catalyst when I considermy experience.

My teenage years sound very similar to yours OP. I too have DDs and I have made sure I did not make the same mistakes my parents did. As soon as I hit the high school years they just saw their old life coming back to them and their parenting job was done. They weren’t affectionate or interested in maintaining or developing a relationship with their children through the teenage years so we were given way too much slack. Looking back I was desperate for love and nurture, but in an absence of it at home, I found the attention and affection that I needed in very unsuitable and abusive places. I swore I would never ever have that sort of relationship with my children.

@Bluestar23 Yeah I agree, the age gaps seemed so normalised back then... But nowadays, I'm not kidding when I say I'd call the police if such a man was trying to abuse my underage child! And rightly so. It was a real headfuck to realise it for what it was as an adult. And that my parents allowed it.

Placemarking - really relating to this thread

Circumstances have meant that either me or DH is home when DDs leave for school and when they return. I feel this has been really important in maintaining a daily connection with my kids. I’m there for the end of school offload chat before they disappear into their rooms.
I returned to an empty house from the age of 9. No one asked about my day.

Can you signpost me to the other thread? I can't find it
Thanks

My parents were highly intellectual but extremely naive and not aware of what I was up to. Teenage years spent in the 90s were travelling across the country going to raves with boyfriends who were in their 20s etc. A lot of drugs etc and it scares me just thinking about it now.
I think DD has had a more sheltered life than I did so far but I'm also aware that she needs to have some independence.
I hated secondary school and developed anorexia but I also didn't have a relationship with my parents where I could discuss my issues. I have worked hard on making my DD feel comfortable to come and talk to me about anything and she pretty much tells me everything (so far at least). I'm going to keep working on facilitating the communication.

Yes I feel the same - but I am making sure that my child knows that I will always come and get her, no matter what time, or where from, if she calls me. I will never, ever put her at risk because I can't be arsed. I am also much more open and easy to talk with/to about men, sex and consent, and my child is actually allowed to say no at home, which hopefully means she will be able to say it if/when it matters.

So interesting reading these perspectives and it's helping me re-interpret aspects of my teenage years that I want to help my DC avoid. Nothing so healthy my end as a 6 years older boyfriend - with me it was unsafe ONS with stangers which my parents had no idea about and which somehow I saw as a social success. I hope I can teach my DC to form real connections in relationships and have a sense of themselves and their intrinsic value. This thread is making me feel better about being more protective than lots of my elder DCs classmates parents.

Here it is @Bluestar23 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5038574-talk-to-your-children-and-teens-and-tell-them-you-love-them?page=5&reply=134139236

Interesting you note a difference in attitude towards independence too! I suppose it’s having self awareness and insight into what it’s about. Like some of my mum encouraging independence in me was good, she always gave a message ‘go travelling, have adventures’ etc and taught me not to be frightened of new things. But yet didn’t really teach me to assess risk, she wasn’t and isn’t good at that. I think I am better at that but what will my kids say, argh

Funnily enough I've been thinking about this tonight as my 18yo dd has gone out in town for the first time 🫤

I think culturally things were very different in the 90s when I was a teen, there were no phones and I think kids/teens generally had a lot more freedom.

I was clubbing at 16 and walking 3 miles home at 2am 😳 I'm staying up tonight to pick dd up when she's ready to come home!

I was very like you. Behaved somewhat wild (while really being very insecure and also a swot at school) and made lots of risky decisions. I have a daughter who could definitely tend towards being like that so I've been very honest with her.

Interesting thread OP. My childhood was a lot
like yours (including middle class NW London) but my Mum wasn’t around so it was just Dad, and he really didn’t have a clue.

Like @Beginningless I am much more relaxed than a lot of parents I know about my kids’ independence, but I also stay very close with them all (I’ve taken a big pay cut to work school
hours and it’s really, really important to me to be there after school and in the holidays). So my DD10 is the only one in her class allowed to be home alone or walk to school alone, but she’s also one of the few who still gets a bedtime story. I think my seemingly incongruous approach to this does come from losing my Mum young.

Teenager of the 90s here. I can relate to every single word you wrote.

My parents were working every hour god sent to pay the mortgage after interest rates hit 15% was it?

I felt very alone and unguided.

I allow my teenage boys more freedom than I was allowed, but I'm closer to them than I was to my Mum. My eldest one (17) does talk to me about things. I feel awful saying this cause she isn't around anymore, but my Mum was quite formidable and quite unapproachable, although it was with the best of intentions. I therefore did quite a bit of sneaking around and didn't tell her very much. I had some quite rough times in my teens tbh and I know I'm quite lucky that I didn't end up in more difficult situations than I did if that makes sense.

Could it be that the now-elderly parents of current fortysomethings had quite strict, rigid postwar upbringings and decided to be more lenient with their own children, but went too far t’other way?

As a result, maybe current fortysomethings are more strict in the way that their grandparents would’ve been at fortysomething?

Meaning that today’s 15 year olds are going to be lenient-leaning parents….

I think it's cycles.

Parented on the strict side and you're more inclined to offer 'better' to your own children so parent with fewer rules, more liberal. Parented on the liberal side and you're inclined to offer 'better' to your own children so parent with more rules, so stricter.

Neither are right or wrong in my opinion. We all (our parents included, and our children when they become parents) trying our best to tread the fine line to balance the two.

I think this is really common for those of us in our 40s.

Our own parents were boomers, they could leave school at 15 or 16 (depending on exactly when they were born!) and start work, get a flat, get married, join the army etc. My own mother left school at 16 and was living independently by 18. Two of her older siblings left school at 15 before the leaving age was raised and started work, one of them married at 17 and then had a "premature" baby six months later which was, God be praised, a remarkably healthy baby considering how early it arrived 😜

My parents were raised with the view that children of 15 and 16 were fully responsible for their own poor choices as they were essentially adults, and drinking and smoking underage were normalised in the 90s.

Our generation thinks that 15 and 16 year olds are very definitely still children. There's two or three years to go until they can leave education or training.

It will be very interesting to find out what happens with our own children's children. Will there be further research supporting that adolescence isn't truly finished until 25, and our children will be horrified that we allowed them so much freedom at just 18 or 19? Or will the pendulum swing back and we'll be saying 15 year olds should be learning from experience and not babied? Whichever it is, I can pretty much guarantee that the segment of the population which will blamed for not having the crystal ball to predict the mood of the 2040s will be the mothers...

90s upbringing here and my parents were strict but distant. I’m trying to be more connected to my dc than my parents were. I had similar teen experiences to the OP and never told my parents anything. Some bad things happened and I would never have told them as I’d have been the one in trouble.
I was so happy recently when my ds11 was excited to tell me that a girl he likes asked him to the cinema. I would never have considered such conversations with either parent .

The teen years will of course change things but I’m hoping that if we can continue talk to each other, it will be ok for us!

I agree. My grandparents were very strict with my dad so he definitely went the other way and left it up to us to make our own decisions etc. My mum wasn't interested once we were in high school. I wonder as their teenage years were more restricted they didn't really understand how vulnerable we were as teenagers. As a teenager this was great but as a parent I will definitely be more stricter - I knew what we really got up to!