To think we are doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes?

[Sevendown]

Almost 20 years ago my 17 year old friend got pregnant.

It wasn’t an accident, Mum had a difficult childhood and wanted her own home/family.

At the time I remember reading that children of teenage Mums were more likely to become teenage Mums themselves and I wondered if my friend would become a 30 something granny (still seemed old to my teen self).

Mum loved her dc but the child’s life was a car crash (separation/criminality/substance misuse/parental mental health problems/domestic abuse/truancy/self harm).

Found out said child is now expecting a child in their teens. No job. No home.

It’s such a sad waste.

Why does history repeat itself?

A generation ago I thought someone in her position could still make a go of it. There are so many positive stories out there. But now I’m so cynical. Is this child doomed to repeat all the difficulties?

Is there no escape from this cycle of poverty and trauma?

Google attachment theories; it's more about expectations than choices. If you experience a stable loving family then you expect this for your future and won't accept anything less. Whereas if you experience neglect in childhood then you don't expect to be loved, you expect to have to be self reliant because you expect others to let you down, so you will be drawn to people who reinforce those expectations (the comfort of familiarity, as others have mentioned)

This is me - and I suspect a lot of other people - to a perfect tee (it was benign neglect, not out and out nastiness but the end result is the same). Currently working through it with talking therapy.

Keep To the two PPs above me, you are missing the point... Bullies go on to bulley, abused children become abusers. Adults repeat the pattern of their childhoods. That's why it's important we get it right No, I disagree. I have made huge and conscious efforts not to be the same to my ds as my parents were to me.I have actively tried to break that cycle, and talking to ds (he is now 22), he tells me I did pretty well.

It can certainly happen. One of my friends became a mother at 16. She was a great grandmother before she was 60. I doubt any of them would see it as a mistake, though.

I also don't agree, I think we have choices - to a degree. I think what gave me a lot of peace and freedom was the realisation that my parents were also 30-somethings when they did certain things during my childhood. I don't feel I have a clue what I'm doing and most of us just try our best. Also heard a bit of a motivational speaker's talk where he said if you resent them for screwing you up with something specific, you have to resent them for the whole package - the bad and the good in you. The good to know better and the good to do better.

Some people very deliberately and successfully go out of their way to do the opposite to their parents. It's fairly common, though perhaps not as common as unthinkingly, unquestioningly sleep walking into repeating exactly what they did.

I'm in the first group, but my childhood wasn't a car crash, just not one I wanted for my own kids. Im sure I've made just as many mistakes as my parents, but at least I was awake and thinking about why I was doing things...

Honestly?? I think it's a bit of a cop out to say people are doomed to make the same mistakes as their parents. We all make choices and sometimes we need to put our big girl pants on and take responsibility for our own actions. Some of my friends had truly the most horrific upbringing imaginable and they sought out the help they needed and surrounded themselves with good people as soon as they were able and now they've got friggin amazing lives.

abused children become abusers

Not necessarily, I’ve managed to not abuse my children, in fact none of my siblings have gone on to abuse their children. It’s pretty offensive actually to suggest that a child’s path into adulthood is entirely predicted by abuse she may have experienced. Abuse does impact later life, of course, but there are so many other influences too it’s by no means a forgone conclusion.

I disagree. There are huge differences between myself and my parents, and between my fiance and his parents. Fiance and I very much meet in the middle of their extremes.

My parents; frugal, academic, unsociable, liberal socially, traditional but artistic in tastes.
His parents: spendaholics, neither university educated, highly sociable, traditional in social terms, modern but unimaginative in taste.

Us: like to eat out, travel luxuriously but save hard, moderately academic and not into soaps or textbooks, sociable but happiest alone together, liberal, kooky blend of tastes.

It's not as simple as "abused children become abusers". Abused children are likely to find themselves in relationships with people who abuse them, this then leads to their children being abused by this person (and they allow it because it's their version of normal)

I’m almost a clone of my mother, so I think there’s something in it.

No, I don’t agree.

It’s down to removing ourselves from the cycles that we were brought up in. I don’t necessarily think that it’s about age when we have children either.

My mum was 21 when she had me, she was married, divorced 3 years later and subsequently had 4 kids by 4 different men in 5 years. We were neglected, physically and emotionally abused and generally our lives were awful. My childhood was devoid of any of the nice things other children had, I was scared of the beatings I would get if I was out of line, I grew up to believe that I was nothing more than worthless. There are bits that I’m sure I’ve left out that are fairly important to bring up, maybe that our peers and teachers didn’t like us because we were “those” people, you know the dirty, unkempt, trampy, on benefits, stunk of smoke and frying pan, never had PE kit, ever had school shoes kind.

I did go on to have a child at 17 myself, first few years were a bit rubbish, and I could’ve been a better parent, but, and it’s a big but I have turned my life around.

I do have MH issues, but myself and my husband both have professional jobs- mine is more part time than anything but I’m a professional with a great deal of responsibility when I’m on a contract.

My daughter is growing up wanting for nothing. She is always clean and tidy, she is well liked by her peers and teachers, she makes a good impression on most who meet her. She takes part in four separate clubs outside of school, she has hobbies, birthday parties, friends over for gatherings.

She doesn’t live in fear of being hit for anything, we have a nice life, a nice house.

We both drive new cars, we have nice holidays.

It’s been hard work, but our life is the complete opposite of what people expect of me, who knew me growing up.

I sound like I’m being showy off, but I’m not, I just grew up being told I was worthless, then I was bullied at school because what I didn’t have (pretty much everything!) and you know what, I wasn’t going to allow my daughter to feel that way, and grow up to feel completely broken.
I don’t have contact with people who bring drama into my life, I just don’t allow it.

Someone said to me a few months ago that I didn’t come from the same place as them, that I don’t know what it’s like to not have money (they were being CFs and asking for a handout) and it was relatively funny because their start in life was much more comfortable than mine, they were afforded opportunities I had to fight for, and I did, which has given us a nice life.

Oh and I doubt my daughter will make the same decision to be a teenage parent.

DD is nearly 11, at that age I was already wanting boys to like me, I thought boys would like me, and if someone liked me I might believe them and like myself. My daughter is brought up to believe that there are things she is good at, that she is a nice, good human being and I know she likes herself because her confidence is apparent.

She has hobbies, she has friends, she isn’t interested in boys.

I’m sure that won’t be the same come 14/15/16, but I have instilled an expectation in her. An expectation for her life.

She knows that life is about so much more than just struggling through, she knows that there are so many places in the world to see, that she can spend years building and enjoying life before settling down to share it with children and a life partner.

I hope that this is enough to stop her from following in my footsteps.

Statistically yes, it’s certainly true that certain patterns exist - eg a mother who gets pregnant young is more likely to have children who in turn have children young. And there are correlations such as having parents in professional roles means their children are more likely to have professional careers.

However stats are exactly that- stats. They are indicating trends, not saying that a particular path is inevitable

My birth mother was a teenage mom (still at school) and several before she was 20. Neither of me or my siblings copied that. None of us are a horrendously shit, abusive, alcoholic parents whose only concern is money and who they're next shagging. All of us ended up in care, all of us are NC with her.

You either copy your parents and then excuse yourself because 'that's how you were raised' or you learn from their mistakes because you don't want your children brought up like you were.

I think it depends on how self aware the parents are when raising their children.

My mum had me at 22 but I was the product of a not very good relationship, she game-played and they split up when she told him she was pregnant - I’ve never met him and I’m now 40.

We grew up in poverty, on benefits, relied heavily on help from better off family and I had a generally unhappy childhood.

My mum met her partner when I was young and he was a useless shit. She was miserable for most of my life and my prevailing memory of my mother is she was unhappy a lot (she died suddenly when I was 19).

However, the biggest thing she did for me is drill into me to a) be independent financially, b) not settle for poor treatment and c) not have children until I could afford them.

I’m now 40, a professional, a homeowner, happily married with a very kind and generous husband and have two children, but I had them when I was older so I could give them a nice life.

I’m glad she gave me the information I needed to escape the shitty estate I grew up on but I understand that it’s not easy. I was also very fortunate to be naturally bright so achieving at school was easy in spite of the chaotic home life.

We need to be telling our children it’s ok to want ‘more’, to achieve, to shed an unhappy life and give them the tools to do so.

I don't think so.

My mom had me at 17 and the childhood I have had due to it have made me very careful not to ever reproduce the mistakes my parents have made/be anything like them.

I have had to sit through countless chats about not having a baby in my teens because of people/relatives thinking like you, that I would be bound to repeat her mistakes without taking notice that I was completely different person to my mum with a totally different mindset.

My mum craves love and that's why she had a baby at 17 and stayed in a toxic relationship for too long and married pretty much a stranger a few months ago (who might be scamming her). I am sooo far away from that. Not only do I have no interest in men & the whole family thing but her entire life is miles away from what I could ever want for myself, she has no inspiration, no big goals, no nothing. If I have learned something from her it's that codependency is a terrible thing and being independent (financially, emotionally) and having good self-esteem and knowing (and valuing) your self-worth is paramount if one once and healthy lifestyle and I live for that.

My father is probably one of the worst men around and I can't think of anything I would ever be stupid enough to want to do like him. If anything having been around men like him have made me crave to always remain independent from anyone appreciative of men who actually treat women decently and pull their weight with their own children.

So in my case I have learned from them. I am sure I am making my own mistakes, but so far none that I would hate my kids reproducing so I am fine with that.

Whoops "once and healthy life" = if one wants an healthy lifestyle!

if you experience neglect in childhood then you don't expect to be loved, you expect to have to be self reliant

Yup this is me too.

For people who have broken the trauma cycle, how did you do it?

I’ve heard that new research says that having one supportive adult is a cushion against the negative effects of adverse childhood experiences.

Its long been known that a stable adult relationship in childhood does a lot to offset the impact of trauma. For me recovery has involved a very stable marriage, a real desire to do better, long term therapy, good friendships and a lot of determination to overcome disadvantage. I was also fairly academic which I think helped me a lot because my path through school was relatively easy from a staff point of view - although I was wickedly bullied for a long time.

It’s not easy and doesn’t happen by accident but it is possible.

For people who have broken the trauma cycle, how did you do it?

There were a lot of different things,

There were parts of my childhood that I didn’t want to inflict on my daughter because I knew they were horrible, for example the physical abuse. I just set out to treat my daughter with more kindness than I’d had, which removed the need for shouting and screaming, at and around my daughter, already it was a much happier environment. I removed people from our lives which weren’t able to demonstrate the same behaviour- our family is now smaller but actually healthy in an emotional sense.

As odd as this may sound, when DD was in nursery age 3-4 I saw there were posters of abuse. At the time I thought that abuse was only hitting your kids etc,

I went home and found the lists of what was emotional abuse, neglect etc and I literally ensured that I was doing the opposite of all those things,

At which point I started trying to figure out how to make DDs confidence good, it didn’t seem bad, but I wanted to make sure I was kind of aiming to do the opposite of shaming, I wasn’t sure how else to demonstrate that she was important because I’d never really had that experience to go on. All I knew was being shouted at and shamed.

The rest was generally running away from the life that I lived.

I set out to do the opposite of what I saw as a child. I don’t smoke because my parents did.
I don’t have alcohol in the house- might buy a few ciders if DH and I fancy one, but literally what we will have with dinner and no more because my father was an alcoholic, If DD needs something she gets it there and then, if she had to wait I would feel like my mother, I’m scared I’d morph into her and my daughter would be without shoes for a long time, I have a cleaner just in case my house isn’t as clean as I think it is because our house was a shit state as kids.
If there’s a school trip DD always goes,
DD always has hobbies she partakes in,
I always make sure to spend at least 20 minutes a day in deep conversation with her.
I tell her no less than 3 things about her each day that are positive.
It’s all in smaller things that don’t always make much of a difference but it all plays part of the picture changing.

Yes I think lots of parents don’t think of anything beyond hitting/ sexual abuse/starvation is abuse.

Eg seeing domestic abuse as emotional abuse of children

As a D.C. I only articulated abuse as getting hit but when I read about emotional abuse I see that was what the bigger issue was.

Lots of parents still don’t know this though and you don’t get far telling parents they are emotional abusing their dc!

My parents made a lot of mistakes most a result of their childhood my sister is following the same pattern. It's so sad to see she blames most of her problems on my mum which is mostly true but then does exactly the same with her own daughter. It's crazy she can't see how she is carrying it on.

I see a lot of the same bad points in myself and have worked very hard to over come them I try my best to show my niece another way and hope she won't do the same

I completely depends on the individual.

Someone i know was brought up in care due to her birth mother being a heroin addict and in and out of prison. This person has now had two children of her own, uses drugs, has social services involvement, has been in prison. She is 21. She is in touch with her mother and has a 'good' relationship even though she is still using and recently out of prison again. History really is repeating itself there. It is sad and i find it strange that she doesnt want better for her dc than what she had herself.

Mine and dps childhoods were not ideal although nothing like described above and i do think we are doing better for our dc. I want to. I would hate them to feel about me like i do about my largely not present mother.

Oh by Christ I hope not but I fear so. I grew up in a house full of shouting and I hate it, but now me and my other half are not getting on and I am so upset that I might have made the wrong decisions for my daughter. But I also grew up a child of divorce and a 'blended family', which while mixed I would rather have done without; so it's not straightforward to just do what's 'best'. I can't magic my relationship better, and the more I try and heal it the worse I seem to make it; but I don't want my daughter to grow up with mum and dad in separate homes like I did, having to deal with step parents, step and half siblings, never feeling normal. And so it goes on.

I spent so long choosing not to have kids as I felt I was far too fucked up by my upbringing to be good enough. I could never regret eventually deciding to have her, she's the most wonderful thing in the world, but dispassionately I think I was probably right about that. I'd hoped I was better, knew better, would do better, but in June my mother killed herself and ever since then I've been so aware that I'm not and I don't, and I may fail my daughter just as badly as my parents failed me, because the essential bits I need to be a good parent and a good example to her are missing from me, just like they were from them. I need to be so much more than I am to be any good to her at all.

I made the same ‘mistake’ as my mother and got pregnant in my teens.
At least my mother got to be a Nana before she died in her 40’s though