To think this is just about the worst thing a parent could say?

[follyfoot]

Have struggled for years to let go of something my Mum said to me once. After another particularly critical comment about me as a youngster I said 'you never say anything positive about me as a child.

Her: 'there's nothing positive to say'.

Op and everyone else who's endured these horrible comments, the comments say nothing about you and everything about your parents.

Oh god, I've remembered another one. My Dad used to tell me my teeth were like stonehenge . He used to call me wingnut (my ears stuck out a little bit and wurzel gummidge becuase I used to have very frizzy hair.

pube head's always a nice insult to hear from your parents as well..

So sorry for all of you who experienced such cruelty.

A hopeful story from my own family, though... my stepmother was the Cinderella of her family. Violent father, six kids, ground down mother, my stepmother was the daughter who had to look after everyone else and do all the chores and was always blamed for everything. Left home as soon as she could - shortly afterwards her father finally beat her mother to death.

My stepmother was a very caring mother to my littlest (half) sister. Sadly had a breakdown at one point (hardly surprising really). Now my littlest sister is a mother herself and she's great - her children KNOW they are adored and their mother thinks they are fab. So a sad family history can be turned round and doesn't have to haunt the generations.

(Worst thing was my stepmother got a call out of the blue 20 years after her father went to Broadmoor - despite umpteen house moves the probation service had somehow tracked her down and had the cheek to say 'your father's coming out, can we send him to live with you'. Oddly enough she said NO!)

Edam your stepmum sounds like a very strong individual, gosh i dont know what else to say, everything i am typing just sounds so patronising! But i am sure you get me when i say i have a huge respect for the way your family have dealt with this.

Wahwahwah - in a weird way it was 'nice' to hear you agree that 'stupid' is an offensive word - of course we all know it is - but it was reassuring to know that someone else has a kind of phobia to the word IYSWIM. My DH is really good in that he also wont have it said in our house. DS is only 18mo but he will never be called that.

Summer - don't think anyone except my stepmother and my littlest sister can take any credit. It's all down to them. I was a teenager when my stepmother told me about this so didn't actually do anything useful except listen - what can you do?

Like to think my other sister and I have helped the youngest one, though - we were very involved Big Sisters as she's so much younger than us and we knew my father wasn't the most reliable parent (and is very self-centred) so we looked out for her and played a quasi-parental role.

I think that part of the problem for my mother was that she was vain - she had een exceptionally beautiful when she was young. She had looked like a movie star, and her identity was bound up in her looks.

It must have been horrible to feel herself becoming invisible as she aged. She never got her figure back after her pregnancies, and was bitter about that, often telling us that it was our fault. She spent a fortune on clothes for herself, always in designer clothes and top of the range make up. But there was never enough money to clothe us adequately. We looked like tramps, and she would jeer at us for it, while claiming to not be able to afford to buy us anything. She also had to be the pretty one, and I wonder if it ever occured to her that by making us look so bad, it must have reflected badly on her?

She did not seem to feel any real responsibility for us. As the eldest, I got the brunt of it, and was held responsible for my younger siblings, and punished for their misdemeanors.

x posts with all Edam's posts - that is horrible, but inspiring at the same time

It's so sad the way your parents can mess you up- and often without even realising.

I'm sure my parents loved me but I never felt loved. I never felt praised or supported. My stepdad used to hit/kick/punch me, and mum couldn't really stop him. (Stopped when I got big enough to retaliate though).

I'm nearly 28 now and still pretty much feel worthless. I think there was just a general lack of attention from my mum as well, she couldn't be bothered with me...and now she accuses me of being giving my DDs 'too much attention' and that 'it spoils kids if you make them the centre of your life'. nearly blew my stack at that! I tell my girls I love them every day, give them loads of cuddles and kisses and attention and they thrive on it.

Also my mum just can't get her head around why I've been depressed since I was 14. She knows I have no confidence but she doesn't know why or maybe doesn't want to know.

I do love my mum, I just don't want to be the same sort of parent she was to me.

After reading this thread i went and gave my dd an enormous cuddle and told her i loved her and she was beautiful.

I think these are all positive stories, in a way, we all see how awful our mothers' behaviour was, we all try to take a different approach with our own dc, and cherish them.

Imagine being a mother who can find nothing positive to say about her dc.

My mum couldn't understand why I needed to talk to a stranger to get over my ishoos when I had a "perfectly good family to talk to" - yeah, but you can't talk to your family about your family, can you mum!

When she was dying though, I still apologised to her for not being a good enough daughter. We were so different in our ways and outlook and everything, she never really understood me and she wasn't good at putting herself in others' shoes and perhaps that was a lot of the problem. She did a lot for me in material ways and I do have a lot to thank her for.

I feel very lucky that I am not as stupid as my mother and grandmother.

I may have had a crap start, but i think i am very lucky - I have a beautiful daughter who makes me happy, and she loves me and we are very close.

I think my dd is wonderful and I tell her every day how proud she makes me (to the point where she goes 'shurrup, mum'

Why could my mother and gran not see that in me? I am not that bad. Being so vile couldn't have made them happy, could it? Apart from the brief feeling of power, what did they get out of it?

This last year has been very hard, actually. My gran died last March, I was desperately trying to develop a relationship with my mum (uphil battle), but as soon as my gran died, something also died with me and mum.

To cut a very long story short, my mum left me with my gran to bring up for various convoluted reasons. I will never know the truth as to why. Anyway, my gran was physically, mentally and sexually abusive to all 5 of her kids, all of whom left at 16, 17, 18. My mum had me, and then left home. So I grew up with the same vile upbringing as she had.

Anyway, I left my gran at 16, and when I was 17 started a relationship with my mum. I only really got crumbs of a relaionship with my mum, she was very self involved, one of those people who was a professional victim. She was also very nasty to me, and I never really noticed (was only when DP came on the scene, and he was flabbergasted at I just let my mum call me fatarse, LGT (stood for lanky ginger twat) etc.

Anyway, we staggared on, I moved away. And then my gran died. My mother went into full Scarlett O Hara mode, went to the funeral, went to my gran's grave with flowers every day, carried a picture of my gran in her wallet (bearing in mind my mother had not spoken to my gran in about 20 years).

My mother's response to my upset bout the abuse from years before was 'get over it'. We had a tiff 18 months ago (over a headstone which said 'loving mother' amongst other things), I drove home, she refused to take my calls etc, and after a while I thought bollocks to her, and we have not spoken since.

I will never speak to her again, though i saw her last month (took dd to see her). I just feel shje has thrown me in the rubbish twice in my life.

how can you trust her with your DD?

I maintain a relationship with my mother, partly because she is wonderful with my DD - but I've never yet allowed them to be alone together.

Binful and everyone else

I am so sorry to hear these awful things you have had said to you

It makes me mad

How can people, especially mothers do that?

But look just how far you have all come and what wonderful mothers you are

Well, my brother was there (he had just flown back from america) so it was to see him as well, first time she had seen him for a year.

I did let her go and stay with my mum for a week on whitsun half term, I dropped dd down to devon, and my mother just stalked past me. I thouight never again.

DD is 15, so I don't want to scupper the relaionship she has with her gran, but it is difficult.

Happy birthday binful.

"my children are utter failures, i just don't know where I went wrong" said to my extended family at a boxing day party about ten years ago.

god this is making me sad reading all the shit things people have had said to them.

puts my mother's classic 'your head is too small for your body' and my dad's (to 17yo me) 'I never realised how big your bum is' in perspective.

well done all of you for coping so well.

I don't think it's that bad really. I told my DS that he was so ugly that I'd have to pay someone to sleep with him.

(Before anyone gets upset about this - he is really quite ugly, bless him)

ignore

derailer wih history

I should have aborted you, I should have flushed you down the toilet, you are just like my father (a career criminal and sex offender) I tried hard with you but you took after that side of the family.

Oh..so that's all right then

SJ, JSS is a troll

don't let it derail the thread

Nice, ACC. Beginning to see why you have the Other Problem in your life - you were conditioned to believe that was what you were worth from a young age by the looks of it!

I worry that I am going too far the other way with DS - I know he's only 3 but I am always telling him what a lovely boy he is (he is!) and how much I love him and how beautiful he is - am slightly concerned that he will grow up as a self-absorbed narcissist who thinks he's too good for anyone else.

Gosh I wish dd wasn't at school so I could hug her to bits. My parents weren't at all physically demonstrative, and said some things that hurt - nothing along the lines of what other posters have endured though - and it makes me hug and kiss my little ones more. So sorry for what you guys have gone through, incredible to think that parents could ever knowingly hurt their children ...