To think that many parents would have a much easier time if they realised that they don't...

[seeker]

.....actually their children?

I understood birdsgottafly's comment the first time. I thought it was totally clear. And i agree - I hope my DD will be a mentally healthy and well rounded individual through things we have taught her. Wouldn't ask for anything more.

Oh and the depression I have suffered throughout my life was caused by my parents. People around you do affect you.

Nothing wrong with raising them in the same spirit of your own upbringing.
So same values you yourself had as a child are often useful in character shaping of your children.
As for grandparent, both sets, me and Dh are allowed to have our differences with them, but our children are to respect them and love them and treat them with kindness.
DS's that are raised in supportive extended families will be emotionally enriched, and can only benefit from that very special bond children often form with their grandparents.

Evidence from studies done on twins separated at birth and adoptive siblings shows that genetics plays a far larger role in the outcome of a child's life than upbringing. Therefore twins raised in completely different families will be far more similar than adopted children raised in exactly the same family. Most of the evidence in the nature/nuture debate actually falls in favour of nature. Naturally this only applies in situations where children are given a reasonable standard of living and doesn't hold in situations where a child is neglected or abused. If more parents realised that as long as you have love for your child and express that love in emotional and practical ways as best you can then you pretty much can't go wrong then "parenting" (hate that term) would be a much less stressful occupation.

I agree re the ownership thing in the sense that I believe you are given a child rather than that you make one. Yes you can influence them to a certain extent but it seems mad to me that people honestly think they can shape a large part of their child's character when they don't feel at all that their parents really shaped who they are deep down. I think most people would agree that their parents gave them context, guidance and information but that in their heart they feel they are who they are regardless of their parents views or wishes. The same will be exactly true for their own children.

To the question do we own our children? No I don't think we do /should.
Should we influence them and equip them for life ahead with our help for as long as necessary? Yes.
Do I want my DC's to live exactly the way I live? I don't think it's necessary/nor they should.
Do I want them to have same values and appreciation for life? Yes.
But most of all I want them to be happy, to know they always have place in our hart, our life and our home, I want them to know they can always relay on us, and that we are there for them.
When they are all grown up I don't want them to live very far away from us, I want to be able to see my children and. future grandchildren.

Mens sana in Corpore sano...only on MN would this ambition for your child cause an argument....

You mean like parents who feed their chldren meat for no good reason, until they get a taste for it and can't give it up even when they realise it is not entirely ethical? Or don't let them become vegetarian because its their house their rules? Those kind of parents exoticfruits

Yes exactly. You bring up your DC to your beliefs and diet but they may differ. If you eat meat I would say that 8yrs is the age I would let them be vegetarian-if they understood that they would be eating pulses, nuts etc and they would have to like vegetables.(not just be fussy eaters) Vegetarians wouldn't expect to serve meat at home, but 8yrs is the age where you would expect them to choose to eat it for the school meal option or at friend's houses and parties.

Every parent is going to bring up a DC with their beliefs, influence and interests. e.g. you often see interviews with new parents and they say something like 'we are keen sailors and hope baby will be the same'-there is nothing wrong with that. You would expect them to take the DC sailing from an early age and enthuse him/her BUT at the back of their mind they must have the thought that actually their DC may detest sailing. It shouldn't make any difference to the relationship.
David Cameron's DCs have the same freedom as any other DCs. They can grow up labour supporters and enjoy the debate, they can have no interest whatsoever in politics. I don't see why this matters to David Cameron-he might hope they would follow him -but respect the fact they don't.

I don't want to restrict mine to living near me. I want them to have choices. Their choices are such that it is unlikely they would get the right sort of job near me. DS1 is just going to work abroad-I am looking forward to the holidays.

I find the example of vegetarianism used as evidence that parents think they own their children very odd. I make no apologies at all for the fact that my offspring will grow up in a household where its parents don't eat meat, or think that battery farming is OK. What said child does when older is obviously up to him/her, but I'm certainly not going to start cooking sausages and pretending that McChicken Nuggets are cruelty-free for the purposes of allowing my child some kind of impossible 'free choice'.

On the GP issue, I think people are overlooking the number of 'toxic parent' posts on MN. Remember - these are the same people. One would like to think they've magically reformed and are better grandparents than they were parents (and I know of some cases where that is absolutely true), but I'm not surprised at the 'lack of connection'. Why would you happily hand over little X to someone who made your own childhood a misery?

My dd became a vegi at 8 the number of people who told me I should just put my foot down and make her eat meat astounded me. She is perfectly capable of making her own choices around these things.

Agree with you hardcheese on the subject of food, and what is being eaten at home, some choices given to children these days border with unreasonable.
Meat eating household or not it's up to a parent give choices stream lined and in tune with rest of the family.
Those are the family/house rules, they are not negotiable, you stick with them, like washing hands before eating.
On the subject of grandparents, I'm the one pro grandparents, and I genuinely don't understand term "toxic parents" what does it constitute of?

Meat eating doesn't mean that you have to support factory farming. You can bring up your DCs anyway you want, but you are kidding yourself that if they are vegetarian when small they will stay that way. They will suit themselves when they can. My very strong vegan friends have one adult DC who is vegetarian but not vegan and one adult DC who eats meat and worked in a butcher's shop for a while (-that one was just teenage rebellion that he grew out of.)
Lots of people have parents they didn't get on with-and the DCs get on with them fine. My hairdresser bypasses her parents with a problem and goes to her Gran, who she thinks wise. Lots of people do that.

Exactly sofabitch-it is the same the other way around-except that a meat eater could prepare veggie food but you wouldn't expect vegetarian households to prepare meat but there is plenty of scope for choice when eating out.

Just because I haven't always seen eye to eye with my own mother, it doesn't mean she isn't a very goo nana to my children, and actually today she will often say, "New generations of parents are so much better and more knowledgable and in tune with raising their children".
Grandparents are people of a different era, most of the time they have good intentions, if perhaps little outdated, but that's not a crime.

Very often if people don't get on with their own parents and go the opposite way with their own DCs they find that actually the DCs would have thrived under the very methods that didn't suit them!

birds said we should aim to raise mentally healthy well rounded adults, what is wrong with that.

And actually having worked with people with mh problems some of the parents have alot to answer for

But obviously not all of them

Precisely moomins In healthy body, healthy spirit, as birds said and somebody up the tread put it more eloquently in Latin.

I don't own my DC, but I own all their possessions and if they don't do what I say I'll confiscate them........

In principle I do agree with you Seeker and also with the things that exotic said but I also think that in terms of the hair cutting, name changing etc thing it is curteous for others to talk to the childs parents about it before they do it. I also think that if you have a very wide circle of family (or very complicated as it is for my dd-though not unpleasantly so) someone has to be in charge.

seeker, on the other thread, a poster made a point about nn being a pet name that evolves naturally and is about a relationship between a child and a particular relative. That is fine imo. What isn't fine is for a parent to make a decision (about a name in this case) and for a GP to say 'I don't like your choice, so I'm going to do something different'.

I don't think I own my children, I reserve the right, as their parent, to have the final say in their upbringing (and the name they are called) until they are old enough to choose their own way of life.

My DS2 is a vegetarian, in a house where no one else is. He decided when he was around 6ish (I think) that eating meat was cruel and he would prefer not to. So I listened and respected his choice, because he was old enough to have an opinion. He is 11 now and has remained vegetarian. So I don't think I have a right to impose my choices on him at all times.

However, there are issues where my word goes. My parents respect me as a parent and will ask me if they are not sure about whether I would allow something. If I said no, but my mum thought it was okay and did it anyway, I'd be cross because it is about respect for the parent rather than ownership.

There are few things that bug me when my parents or IL's are with my dc. I don't mind if my mum gives my boys a haircut, for example. They are old enough to say if they want this. But I'd be mad if she cut my 3 year olds hair without asking me. I also get cross when I've told my mil to not let my DC play hide and seek in my wardrobe (DS3 has broken 2, so far) or bounce on the beds and she lets them do it anyway. I feel as the mum, I have a right to say no to theses things.

Sorry, this has turned into a bit of an essay.

karmabeliever if you don't mind me asking what brought that decision on for ds at only 6 years old? Is he strict? I'm quite impressed-especially with sticking to it for 5 years!

Birds I'll let my son's consultant and CBT's know they are wrong because you say so. There is a difference between a mental health illness and learning difficulties.

So to say parents should strive who have children who are mentally healthy when most mental health illnesses are nothing to do with parenting was insulting but I accept your explanation that you don't know the difference and therefore expressed it rather poorly.

It is you birds who need the educating on this one not me.

My bil and sil have decided what DN (11) will study and where. They have 10 files with info about the Uni.

They have build DN's house (finished when he was 6) and when they gave us a house tour they said 'the sofa will go here, an armchair there, the curtains will be green, that's the Nursery room..' etc. Sometimes i think it is funny, sometimes very sad.

SouthernFriedTofu, his teacher at the time was a vegetarian and I think it was sparked by something she said in class. At first we thought it wouldn't last because he really did like the taste of meat very much, but he thought about it and couldn't see how it was right to kill animals to eat and so here we are, all these years later.

I have said to him that he is not under any pressure to keep this up if he does change his mind - whatever he chooses will be fine with us, but he is certain that he wants to remain a vegetarian. I'm very proud of him for doing what he thinks is right and for being able to stick with it.

Forgot to answer your other question. Yes he is quite strict with it. I have to read all the labels to make sure we don't buy foods with gelatine in etc.