You AIBU Lot!!

[Moxxygirl]

I must admit as an older mom with grown up kids, I love reading the AIBU posts!!
Thank God my kids were raised 30+ years ago, when us moms were not so navel watching, agonising, worrying about their food, school progress, friendships.
WE were the adults - WE made the rules ( without a huge amount of negotiation !) and our kids ran free, didn't worry about pouting on FB, and had a brilliant childhood.
We used to go to the neighbours for a drink and wire the baby alarm through the window so we could here if one of them cried.
We went to holiday camps and left them in the chalets with a babysitting service that flew past on a bike listening for crying babies and flawed it up in the car if one was crying in your chalet.
Nowadays I'm sure SS would have taken them all off us.
And yes they grew up to all hold very responsible jobs in Police and Education.
I actually feel a bit sorry for you moms nowadays.
Your thoughts??

As a teacher and person raised by this generation of parents (80s baby): kids have not changed. They run around, they laugh at the word bottom, they draw and dance and build. They love to play and climb and shout and sometimes be naughty. This image of today's kids sitting, overweight, in front of an x box or being over sexualised is just complete bullshit

I love this statement and find it quite uplifting.

Your type of parenting explains why so many aibus are about toxic parents the op has gone nc with.
Smug, self absorbed and ill informed nonsense.

thecat, I thought I had read them all but just found out about The Blythes Are Quoted, the long-suppressed final book! And this thread has just made me download Rilla of Ingleside as I've lost my real copy

The worrying or not worrying by parents 30 years ago was down to personality not 'the times'.

I worried. Some of my friends worried. You didn't, OP.

Much like today.

OP: here's my arse

Hive mind: ooh we need a plate

OP: no no no, I rilly rilly didn't mean I PITY YOU ALL I do actually

Hive mind: Have yer arse back, on our plate

You sound like my father in law, patronising me and implying that trying to keep my children from harm is 'health and safety gone mad'

You can't really get a picture about what parenting today is like from posts on AIBU of all places.

I had 2 DCs when I was very young and then 2 more when I was quite old - so I've sort of straddled some of the generational differences in raising children. Certainly I don't remember worrying so much when I was a mother in the late 80s as I did in the 00s - but I guess there was just less information, so less to worry about.

I do sort of see where the OP is coming from - but how much is a generational thing and how much is just hindsight? I remember being beside myself because a Y1 DC couldn't work out that C-A-T spelt Cat - now I can see that they'll mostly all get there in the end and stressing about it won't help. That would have been of no help to me back then, though. You just have a bigger picture when your DCs are adult, IYSWIM.

I like to read AIBU because it's good to see people questioning how they've been treated by others and ask for some validation from others. It's also made me realise that there's lots of things I should be pushing back on and to be more assertive.

I don't see much navel-gazing at all. Just because you have done it all with your kids and know the score doesn't mean that everyone else does.

I love the "sacrifice some possessions and stop working!!"

My basic outgoings are over £3,000 per month. What sort of possessions were you sacrificing for that sort of money? Because let me assure you, i couldn't go without handbags and holidays and save that

Do you have any idea how much some people earn? All this sacrifice some possessions crap makes me think you probably gave up an admin job at the local council that paid you your pin money. Women have a lot more now than you did.

I detest these 'back in my day' posts & the accompanying nostalgia crap that comes with it. Things change, usually for a reason.

Back in your day I bet your grandparents were tutting because that 'wasn't how they used to do it', same as I probably will when my kids have their own!

I'm really glad that my parents only talk really about the positive changes that have been made in terms of modern parenting. They probably privately think that some things were better in their day, but they are sensible enough not to pontificate about it - this thread makes it clear that it doesn't go down well!

I wandered all over the place as a child. I don't let my DD do the same, for 2 reasons: a) where I grew up most people knew each other and would equally keep an eye/chastise others kids. There was a sense of community. B) the fucking traffic. There were fewer cars back then. We could play tennis in our street. Where I live now the side streets are used as rat runs and an 11 yo was killed on his skateboard only the other week.

Well my DCs are now between 35 and 29 so not a dissimilar age to the OP's DC I imagine and I don't remember their upbringing being anything like the way she's describing her DC's upbringing.

My DCs didn't 'run free' they were driven to and from school, 4 miles away, they came home, did their homework and after school activities and went to bed at a reasonable time. During school holidays they sometimes went to clubs or I took them for days out or they went to play at friends' houses or friends came to us. They were supervised the whole time.

If we went out in the evening, we got a baby sitter. Certainly would never have gone to a neighbour and left them in the house on their own, even with the baby monitor threaded through the window.

Perhaps I'm just a more 'navel gazing' sort of person, but I did take care of my DC's diet, I breast fed all of them and cooked everything from scratch.

I really don't think OP's version of child rearing is representative of everyone's at that time. It certainly wasn't my experience of motherhood.

I know things are much harder financially today for younger parents, but feel that they miss out on a huge amount of their children's lives as they are not prepared to sacrifice possessions for time

I would love to be at home for my child, and not have to think about handing over the baby I'm carrying to a nursery when they are months old. But I have to be really selfish and think about possessing a home for them.

You've actually really upset me. Can't stand this attitude from the older generation, bloody clueless.

Enjoy your cruises and pension

My mum and dad left me in the house and went next door with the baby monitor. I woke up and thought they we never coming back. Quietly walked downstairs out of earshot of the monitor and cried and cried for a few hours until they came back.
yup, great parenting OP. Well done you and the rest of your generation for being so much better than us

I was born in '74.

my parents never left us while they nipped over to the neighbours for a drink. My mum was horrified at "baby-listening" services. We had proper babysitters when they went out, just as my kids do now. I remember my dad bolting car seats to the frame of the '70s Rover so we could be safe in the car, (a bit more of an effort than chucking a maxi-cosi on a base like we do these days, no?). my parents were super-interested in our education, and my mum turned us all vegetarian in the early 80s, so worried was she about our intake.

In short, they parented then pretty much as I do now.

Oh, and the reason that no kids were worried about pouting on Facebook was because it hadn't been invented. obviously. My friends and I were, however, quite into pouting in polaroid pics - the instant photos of their day. Kids aren't any different - your generation wasn't morally superior. Sorry about that.

Just another one of those people who was on the receiving end of that kind of upbringing. Your post brings it back vividly. Never being allowed to "negotiate" anything no matter how much I hated it or didn't want it because any word back was "disrespectful" right? It took me nearly a decade after leaving home to learn how to stand up for myself and I'm still learning to say no without apologising. And let's not forget the sense of abandonment and of being an unrelenting inconvenience. Sitting locked in rooms or in the car by myself for hours in whilst they were out drinking. Yeah. Some freedom and joy that childhood was. I'll continue to do almost exactly the opposite thanks very much.

I know things are much harder financially today for younger parents, but feel that they miss out on a huge amount of their children's lives as they are not prepared to sacrifice possessions for time

The fact that you think it's a choice we whipper snappers make to work long hours instead of spending time with the children we live for just shows how out of touch with today's reality you really are. If dp or I gave up work we would be homeless... you can't stay at home while your husband does his milk round, pay a mortgage and feed your family in 2016 i'm afraid. I truly hope this post is a troll.

If I stopped working and 'sacrificed possessions for time', or whatever, the possession sacrificed would be our house.

Comparing 1970s parenting to now could be an interesting discussion, but the OP was so smug that it's hard to get past.

I don't stare at my belly button, leave my child whilst I go out drinking or pout on Facebook. I'm happy, DC is thriving and ain't no need to feel sorry for this mom.

...and all these generations of dc who were actively discouraged from challenging authority and told there was no "negotiation", how many of them do you think are in therapy now op?

I'm so angry at your shitty patronising crappy smug opening post and your bleaty updates.

Stay away from your grandchildren, don't infect them with your crap.

I'm sure OPs grandchildren are fine. They prob just think she's a bit dim

Lol, you're probably right buckin