To ask what thing your parents did, that you will/have actively tried NOT to do when raising your own DC?

[ollieplimsoles]

I'll start,

I love my Mum to bits and we have a wonderful relationship, but I had a very serious phobia of needles growing up and I was a very anxious child. She wouldn't tell me I had to have an injection til the very last minute (she would just show up at school or we'd walk into the doctors) and I would have a panic attack. I wish she would have told me a few days before that I was going to have one and why, then I would have been able to make peace with it. It just meant that I couldn't relax when she took us out or at school, it made my phobia worse that she felt she needed to keep me in the dark about it too, like it was something she was also afraid of.

With DD I'm going to avoid doing that and try to be upfront with her from the start.

Talking about sex and periods. I will always make sure there are plenty of sanitary towels/ tampax etc in the bathroom.

I will let my daughter shave her legs and will make sure she knows how (or any other defuzzing of choice).

I will give my children a choice over clothes and not buy the cheapest so they get picked on.

Not have children.

For a number of reasons but two are that I might be like my mum and that my other siblings children would be the favorites.

Will have to name change for most of it, but yes to the affecting my sex life as an adult for the way they behaved when I was a late teenager. Also the banning shaving legs, to the point when on a foreign school holiday aged 14 I had to buy a dodgy mans razor from a stall and cut my legs to bits

Pretty much all emotion related things I learned from my mum, I'll do the opposite. There was a lot of guilt inducing, angst rife parenting going on

Oi dsis I thought you'd said you never posted on mn

and aren't you supposed to be at work

I still do it though

Not being my mum is harder than I anticipated

My DM taught us to put others needs, wants and preferences before our own EVERY time. Regardless of what was right or fair.
Instead,
I teach my DCs to value themselves and make sure their own needs are met while being very caring and considerate to others.

My DM ridiculed anything mainstream or trendy. For example celebrities, music, fashion.
she was very alternative.
Instead, I let my DCs like what they want and never judge or comment.
If they like Justin briber, then so do I as far as they know.

My mother was very liberal but extremely judgmental.
I work hard not to judge or express judgmental views to my children.

I always had crap, short hair maybe tied in a ponytail. I was so jealous of girls with beautiful long hair and pretty hair styles.
I grow my DDs hair as long as they like and spend time every morning making their hair look gorgeous in intricate styles. Which are always commented on and they love it.

I could go on and on....!

I forgot about periods and shaving. I have blonde leg hair, but it still was long. I wasn't allowed to shave it. Or my armpits. I would get nail scissors and and trim like mad, but couldn't get it hair free.

Periods were not to be talked about. "I need sanitary towels" and would get "shh you call them whatnots". It used to piss me off because they were obviously not whatnots and I needed to specify the brand. (had to wear super nights all the time)

Hot water stingyness. I know we were poor, but limiting me to washing my hair once a week was a little odd.

Never EVER say (in response to news items seen on TV or glimpsed in a newspaper or magazine) "Oh, that's too difficult to explain, dear." It annoys me thinking about all the opportunities to LEARN STUFF that I missed out on, because my mum couldn't be bothered to try and present some of the basics in a way that I could understand.

My daughter (5) was curious about a picture she saw in my news magazine about the economic situation in Venezuela (empty shelves in the grocery store, basically), so we went and found Venezuela on the map and talked a little bit about South America, and I tried to explain to her a little bit about oil, where it comes from, what it's used for, and how countries like Venezuela sell oil to get money--and about how the people selling oil aren't getting very much money for it at the moment. A very simplistic explanation and probably not a very good one, but I really think that when you do this kind of thing every day and build up, they can acquire so much knowledge about the world....

Yy NewStatesman - or even just "I don't know, let's Google".

I don't have any kids & don't plan to, but I I did...too many to mention. Praise and encouragement. I was criticised constantly. As such I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to do anything. If you know where your child is, who they are with and what time they are going to be home, do not go to that place well before the alloted time they should be home and shout at them in front of their friends and demand they return home. Let them go on holiday with their friends, or to the fair. Let them wear a skirt that's above the knee. School results are NOT everything, they have to know this. I got As in everything, a first class degree. Nothing was good enough. Stop criticising all their friends and friends' families in front of them. Try different foods at home - even if you don't like it, every chance your children will. Take your children abroad to experience different cultures. Don't mollycoddle, don't overprotect. Let them have boyfriends. I could go on... I'd do a LOT differently!

I'll never go through my DD's diary with a pencil and highlighter pen, annotating as I go, then hide it back where she keeps it for her to find the next time she goes to write in it.

I'll never pin my 17 year old child to the floor to stop them going out to a New Year's party with their friends, because they should want to stay home with their parents instead.

I'll never play off one child against another.

My mother spent my whole childhood ( and continues to this day) going on about how fat she is and how she shouldnt eat x,y,z. She always comments on other people's weights and I feel she judges them on it. We had quite strict food rules growing up and I was constantly told not to eat too much and I was overweight. I developed anorexia nervosa age 15 and ended up in hospital for months, I am now in my 30s and althought mostly recovered it has taken that long. Anorexia has lots of compelx causes but mum's behaviour definately did and does make it worse. I am trying to be much more helpful about just a range of balanced foods with my dc.

I will never, ever, make my daughter feel like she can't become a 'whole person' if she doesn't have children.

Every day I strive not to be my mother.
I will not cause deliberate harm to my child. I cannot.

Things I want to do cos my parents didn't:

• Have an ongoing dialogue about sex and relationships which increases in detail as they age. My parents never said anything about either of these to me apart from that "in our religion, you don't have girlfriends or boyfriends", "in our religion, people don't get pregnant before marriage"
• Speak to male and female children about puberty and periods well in advance of them starting either. I didn't know what a period was until I was 11, the GP asked me if I'd started them and my dad quickly answered 'no' for me, he then told my mum she better tell me what they were I guess so she did. I started menstruating about 2 months later so it was a good job they didn't wait any longer!
• Just generally be more chill and liberal. There was too much pressure on my academics, my mental health problems were treated as a terrible, shameful secret and so I was denied any kind of treatment, I was categorically not allowed to drink alcohol or go to clubs with my friends (even once I turned 18). I was threatened with homelessness/destitution a lot to keep me in check really...

Despite all their errors (mostly my father's errors tbh), I do love my parents and maintain a very good relationship with my mother, and a generally good relationship with my dad although it can be a bit tense/fractious at times. They tried their best and nobody is perfect and I have lots of fab memories of my childhood.

Be too strict. My mum was sooo strict when I was a kid. I want my kids to have discipline but not be afraid to blur the lines and explore their own boundaries without the fear of drastic repercussions at home. I feel it made me afraid to do anything that didn't have triple stamped parental approval!

I refuse to tell mine that they are good at everything or over praise them, as my dm did me (even the stuff I was shit at ) because it didn't do me any favours but instead it made me over confident and way more assertive than I'd like to be

Never EVER say (in response to news items seen on TV or glimpsed in a newspaper or magazine) "Oh, that's too difficult to explain, dear." It annoys me thinking about all the opportunities to LEARN STUFF that I missed out on, because my mum couldn't be bothered to try and present some of the basics in a way that I could understand.

Me too!!
My mum would just brush things off, I get that she didn't have google like I do but she could have said something like 'oh lets write that down and find out later.
I once asked her what the Cold War was and she said "Its when no one knew what was happening in Russia and it was cold"

I hope Iwill never open my child's private letters as a teen especially GCSEresults grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I never left dd overnight aged 5 with 4 other little girls in 1 town whilst I went clubbing in another town with my friend. The dad's were night fishing so the ladies partied.

I'd never emigrate when dd is 18.

I was hugely fat as soon as I left home as mum was so controlling and tightwith food

I will not make my DC be a childminder for a younger sibling while I work, especially when they are still a child themselves.
I will not make my DC take responsibility for all the meals and house work.
I'm all for helping out at home and doing chores but becoming a part time mum at 11 is just too much.

No sex ed. Just a leaflet from Woman magazine about periods.

'There will be 3-4 teaspoons of blood' ---- eek that conjured such strange ideas!

No sex ed at school either in those days.

Like Excuse Me I Am Actually A Distinct Human Being. It means your achievements aren't yours, but the cumulative effect of selective breeding

Yes , thank you for this. PILS are always like this! It drives me MAD.... why is DD such a good reader then he will say " I was never much of a reader" But we know why she is good at Maths, I was great at Maths, she is like her aunty with her sports, she must like chocolate because of me....she gets her bla from bla....and they are very shallow, materialistic obsessed with how things look...and it did affect my DH>

It sounds to me like similar issues you have my DH also had.

I will never force my daughter to cut her hair short "because it's easier to manage" so she looks like a scrawny awkward boy for years. My daughter has waist length hair that I manage just fine, and unlike my mother, I have always had a fulltime job as well!

I have no quarrel with my mum, our differences in parenting are generational and she's a good person who did her best. The hair thing still rankles though!