Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To be angry at my mum for turning me into a fat kid?

47 replies

CJ2010 · 22/11/2011 17:59

Don't know why but I've been thinking back to my childhood and how fat I was. Always thought it was my fault, got told I was 'greedy' . I saw a picture of myself, aged about 2 years old and I was really fat. Now I've got a two yr old DC myself and I know that I control what they eat, i realise now that they can't just help themselves to a pot noodle/ snickers etc, it suddenly hit me that it was my mothers fault.

Why on earth did she fill me crap food, make me fat and as a result, suffer terrible bullying throughout my childhood? I'm having trouble getting my head round it. AIBU?

OP posts:

Bonsoir · 22/11/2011 18:04

She probably did it through ignorance rather than on purpose.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 22/11/2011 18:05

I feel the same except I wasn't a fat kid. My mother and aunts just kept telling me I was all through my childhood and hey presto, fat late teen and fat adult.

You don't say what your size is now, mine is waaaaaaaay bigger than I should be and I take 100% responsibility for that. But there is no doubt that they laid the foundations.

Pancakeflipper · 22/11/2011 18:08

Some people see giving treats as a sign of love. Perhaps she did it through misguided love for you?

2BoysTooLoud · 22/11/2011 18:09

This is a difficult one. My dh struggles with his weight and blames his mum. He was a small baby and out of worry and [perhaps ignorance] she stuffed him and he was a plump toddler/child and adult.
However, he is in his 40s now and I do feel he has to take some responsibility for NOW rather than take no responsibility and blame his mum who already feels guilty.

HardCheese · 22/11/2011 18:17

It's probably not psychologically helpful to assign the blame to her now that you are an adult, but it's understandable, certainly. In my own mother's case it was ignorance, and an inability to make her own parenting decisions about how much I should have been eating as a toddler in the face of pressure from her own mother and the elderly relatives with whom we lived, who thought a fat child was a healthy child and interfered constantly in what I was fed. I also recognise now that while her own eating is not disordered, and she is a healthy weight, she still has an enormously unhealthy attitude to sweet things in particular.

purplepidjin · 22/11/2011 18:18

My parents were brought up by people who had lived through the austerity of the war. They were congratulated on having "bonny" babies and encouraged to feed them up to keep them healthy. When my generation came along (I'm 30) our parents carried on as their parents had - as one does - not taking into account the increased calorific content of the food us kids were getting.

OP, you don't say how old you are, but chances are that's what happened to you, and it wasn't deliberate...

countessbabycham · 22/11/2011 18:33

My Mum has always been big.Consequently,she was very careful about what we ate (back in the 70's) and strictly limited the amount of sweets etc that we had,whilst giving us no hang ups about food either.I thank her for that and I was very lucky.But I'm sure this was the exception rather than the rule even then.

I can understand your feelings OP.Whatever the reason for this, (I would think lack of awareness or her own distorted views on food?) the way forward must be to take control yourself now for you and your child.Make wise decisions with the knowledge you have now.

HardCheese · 22/11/2011 18:37

I agree that poverty or wartime austerity is definitely a motivating factor for a lot of people of that generation. My mother was born just after the war (and in Ireland, so not relevant), but they were desperately poor, and there simply wasn't a lot to eat, and the meat was kept for the men (farm labourers who did exhausting manual work), so she and her siblings were severely protein deprived as children, and her health has latterly suffered from it. My grandmother was also prepared to let her children go hungry so that she could buy them 'good hats' to wear to mass on a Sunday to keep up appearances, which tells you all you need to know about my grandmother.

Kayano · 22/11/2011 18:39

My dad bought a sweet shop when I was 11

Fucker

We were all big though. And sweet conventions and ice cream and slush puppy on tap was awesome.

And then I got a weekend job. I'm mcds! Lol I was doomed!

2BoysTooLoud · 22/11/2011 18:42

I think 'genes' come into it too. I was a plump baby and fed very well by a Doctor Spock reading mother. I just slimmed out as I got older/ ran around but was fed quite a lot as a child.

KittyFane · 22/11/2011 18:50

Well, I was a 'fat kid'. My mum, dad and brother all very slim.
My aunt who I saw about twice a year was fat and if you were to compare photos of her from 8- 10 and me at the same age, we look identical!!! How's that then? Genes must play a part!

CheerfulYank · 22/11/2011 18:51

I'm having a hard time with the generational difference now. 2 or 3 days a week my FIL picks DS up at preschool and takes him to his house to watch him until I get done with work. (FIL in his late 70's)

Now, I am beyond grateful for the help and I know I can't say anything because FIL is being kind and lovely. BUT. He lets DS have as much food as he wants, whenever he wants, of any kind he wants. As in an ice cream sandwich every day, drinks of "Papa's soda" (usually Mountain Dew...only a few sips but still), unlimited access to the candy bowl....ARRRGH!

FIL thinks it's fabulous that DS will eat everything, and it is, but he doesn't need to eat and eat and eat. They think it's great that he's "such a great big boy!" DS is still proportionate in his height/weight...for now.

squeakytoy · 22/11/2011 18:57

were your parents/siblings overweight? did you get a lot of exercise as a child?

I think with children, so long as they eat nutritious food the majority of the time, and get a lot of exercise, then that will balance out the snacks and sweets..

I grew up in the 70's and out of my entire primary school of 150 kids, there was only one noticeably overweight child, and she was the one who wouldnt ride a bike, wouldnt swim, didnt want to play rounders, and was the first one in the sweet shop every day.

SophiaMurdoch · 22/11/2011 18:59

I gained alot of weight when I was 9 and overweight till I reached 16 and even had the comment "...atleast I'm not fat" said to me when I was in year 8,which didn't help as I was already a shy,messed up child.

My mother let us eat as much as we wanted and we were always told to finish everything,as she grew up poor.I do think she could have encouraged us to join sports clubs or something like that, but now as an adult,you have to chose what you eat yourself.

slavetofilofax · 22/11/2011 19:02

YANBU. Parents have a lot to answer for.

Birdsgottafly · 22/11/2011 19:19

My mother sounds exactly the same as yours OP.

She has some very strange ideas about what children should be fed on, despite having a very healthy diet herself.

I had daily arguements with her when she was providing childcare. She was in complete denial about what she was feeding my children and why.

She had done the same with myself and i feel quite resentful bout some of the comfort eating habits that i have learned in my childhood and the fact that i never ate vegatables or proper meals until i left home.

controlpantsandgladrags · 22/11/2011 19:25

I could have written your post op. I was noticeably twice the size of all the other kids by the time I started school at 4. I am a good 5 stone overweight now as an adult...massive comfort/binge eating problem which started in very early childhood.

runningwilde · 22/11/2011 19:39

Have you spoken to her about it? If I see a very large two year old I do wonder what they are being fed, but we know more nowadays don't we? I did see a toddler recently who was very very large being given a lot of junk and I felt so sad for her.

pointydog · 22/11/2011 19:46

yanbu to be angry but you have the ability to do something about it. That's the good thing.

tralalala · 22/11/2011 19:54

yanbu there is a kid at my ds's school who is very overweight as he is fed shit all day, and his mum talks about his moobs (in front of him ). His mum says that it's easier to feed him stuff he likes. makes me so sad for him.

ChunkyMonkeyMother · 22/11/2011 19:57

I am so aware of what people think about my DS as I am obese - he eats very healthily and I only let him have yogs or fruit for pudding, thankfully he loves fruit + veg which is available on demand, we don't buy sweets, crisps or biscuits because I would eat them or he would bug me for them all day!

My mother would sooner give me a packet of crisps or a home baked cake than fruit which she bought for herself and rarely shared - she was also very big (she was always a small size 10 then she had me and put on 6stone + put another 4 on having my brother) and I watched her go through diet class after diet class after diet class, losing a few stone then putting all + more back on.

She has now lost over 5.5 stone doing Rosemary Conley and I am over the moon for her but she really doesn't support me in my efforts to lose my weight - yet she is happy to call me fat + lazy (the excerise is a whole thread on its own!)

I know that now it is my fault that I am so big, but its her fault that I've never know what its like to be anything else - she atleast had a memory of being a size 10 - I've never been that size so I feel like I don't even know what I'm aiming for!

Aparently nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels - butt I do make a bloody good victoria sponge from scratch fat moo

Original poster

CJ2010 · 22/11/2011 20:19

I was born in the early eighties, DM born in the 1950's. I don't think there is any excuse for what she did, there must have been info on good foods and bad; it's common sense anyway! I went through hell at school, was always the biggest kid, couldn't wear nice clothes etc. It has caused lasting damage to my self esteem. I'm a normal size now, not slim but not fat either.

To me looking back, it was a form of child abuse.

OP posts:

vincettenoir · 22/11/2011 23:02

Yes it's her fault. But don't be too angry about it as it's probably quite common. My mum is the same always forcing food on people and not accepting it when they say no. She needs to be needed and actually brought us up trying to trap us into needing her. It has had the opposite effect on me but she does all my brothers ironing / washing as she never wants him to leave home. The most important thing is that you break the cycle yourself

Insomnia11 · 22/11/2011 23:09

In the 80s I remember the dinner ladies standing over us making us eat the school dinner up regardless of whether we were hungry or liked it. There was still very much a 'finish your plate' culture around then.

I'm trying to do the opposite and teach my daughters to stop when they are full. Ok, I'll do "five more mouthfuls" if I think they are playing up or being overly fussy but I will not make them eat when they don't want to, and make a big issue over food, it's just asking for trouble.

skybluepearl · 22/11/2011 23:15

Yep I blame parents too. If only they would have stopped and thought about what really is best for the child instead of ignorantly treating kids.

Flip

1 2