To wonder how our adult children will see us?

[amandacarnet]

I know most of us do try our best with our kids. But do you ever worry how your adult kids will view you? Yes I know adults who respect and love their parents. But I know so many more who although they may love their parents, find them boring, irritating, annoying. And many who say they will never bring their kids up how they were brought up.
Most of those parents will have tried their best.
So do you ever worry how your kids will view you when they are adults?

Oh my yes. In fact I wonder how they see me now. I'm somewhat excruciatingly aware of my faults and flaws both as a parent and a person. And I have two singularly perceptive and intelligent daughters.

Yes.

I also wonder how our generation of parents as a collective will be viewed by our children in 20 years' time.

Yes. I resent many of the things my parents did but know mine will resent me for doing the opposite

I don't worry but I frequently think about it.

I like to think that whilst they might not like some of our decisions now, they'll understand the reasons for them with hindsight and maturity; the same way I view my parent's actions.

Viewing yourself through another's lens is important.

My children are in their 20s & view me as old, mainly

But they do still seem to like mine & DH's company & will often ring for a chat or occasionally a bit of advice. One lives at home & the other two pop round regularly, which is lovely.

I suspect things might change when they settle down & have their own DC, time will tell I guess. I hope they continue to have a better relationship with me than I do with my rather difficult elderly parents - who also did their best.

I don’t really worry about it, It’s human nature to at least go through a phase of thinking your parents are boring/too strict/embarrassing etc so I am sure my DS will think all that about me.

My DS is now 18 & I recently founded my own diaries from age 18, I was horrified at my behaviour, so my parents did put up with a lot. I used to think they were too strict but now as a parent to a teenager I can fully understand & we have a great relationship now.

I expect them to find me irritating but hopefully they will not hate me. They may look at some if the things I did negatively but I think that is normal.

This scares me quite a lot. I have screwed lots of things up in the last 2.5 years and I’m aware like anyone I’ll continue to screw things up.

What will he think about never having a mum/mother figure because of me.
How will he feel that he doesn’t see his grandparents, aunts and cousins because of me.
How will he feel when he is able to fully mentally unpick his start in life, will he still see me as his dad, or ‘just’ a carer.

Mine are both nearly 30 now and we’re still really close, but I do think that is due in part to me being a single parent, plus they are both single with no DC of their own. Maybe if/when they have families it will change a little. I think they approve on the whole about how they were brought up. My DD I think would do a lot of similar things to me, my DS admits he would be stricter than me! Lol. We’ve never really argued either, certainly never any big fallouts. I hear my neighbours going at it with their teens sometimes and it shocks me. With us it was always a sort of unwritten rule that you don’t shout and swear at family.

Yes I do worry about it. I don't really fault my mum but if I'm honest I don't look forward to time with her. I know she'd always offer practical help if I needed it but I'd never call her for emotional support or even because I fancied a chat. I'd feel sad if either of mine felt like that when they were grown up.

@Asta19

That's lovely. You must feel proud of yourself. Any secrets to impart?

My parents claim (and I'm sure genuinely think that they did their best) but the reality is that, with the benefit of hindsight I can see too many times when they simply didn't. Even now I cannot fathom why they made some of the decisions they did If they truly thought they were doing the best for their children. They were also very inflexible. I think the main things I try to do as a parent is assess and reassess whether I'm making the right decisions and I also listen to my children's points of views. I guess they'll just hate me for other reasons!

No but then mine are in their twenties and we are close. We talk about their upbringing as a positive and loving experience. They know our home will always be open to them and there is very little that would make us shut the door on them (drug dealing maybe).

They acknowledge we set firm boundaries and had high expectations but know this is the reason they are all able to enjoy nice lives in early adulthood.
Have youngest and boyfriend here for five days and we’re all going over to have a barbecue and stay with the eldest and her fiancé tomorrow. Well we’ve booked into hotel as their house won’t comfortably fit us all in. It’s lovely they like each other and enjoy time together.

All I can say is that my decisions felt right at the time. But of course I look back and wish I'd done things differently, when I look at my 30 year olds now. But so much is hindsight. If I'd known that #1 would turn out to be a perfectionist worrier, I'd have made different decisions when she was young. Had I known that trying to protect them from certain things was going to be counter productive, I'd have faced up to giving them that information. But I didn't know either of those things. I did what seemed best, and I try to remind myself of that and forgive myself.

If anything I over-thought parenting. I so wanted to be a great parent. But we're not psychic and we all get things wrong. The effect of those mistakes might be minor of we're lucky. Or major if we're not.

Fortunately my kids love me still. But with eye rolls sometimes.

I think about it a lot. I am not very close to my mother, i consider she was not the best. Perhaps she tried her best, but I'm not necessarily convinced.
I hope my dc remember the time i spent with them and that the decisions I've made, have been made with their best interest at heart.
There have been times I've got stuff wrong but i hope that we'll have a relationship where they can tell me and that I'll apologise sincerely for anything that i may have messed up.
I do not have that relationship with my mother and if i did tell her how i felt growing up, I'm sure she would be defensive and make it all about her.

Yes! Yes yes
Im struggling with depression, i hope they dont think i was just feckless and lazy.
I'm planning on how to turn it around (therapy, job, diet, exercise) now, before their childhood memories are impacted

I think this so much when I read MN. People are so forgiving of them and their peers ('of course you shout at them sometimes, you're only human') and so unforgiving of their parents ('DM sometimes criticised me, which has given me life long issues'). Especially their mothers. DS is only a baby so I haven't had to face it yet, but I think one of the scariest things about parenthood is that he will have some issues arising from his parenting, as literally every adult I know does, no matter how hard I try.

Like a pp, I have always asked my kids their views on certain things, like moving house. It doesn’t mean I won’t do what I think is best in the end but I think it’s important for kids to feel heard. When it comes to things like depression, as another pp mentioned, equally I don’t think kids need to be “shielded” from everything, there is often an age appropriate way of telling them the truth. When I first got IBS I became agoraphobic for a while. I think my kids were maybe around 10 then. I told them I had “tummy problems” and it was making it difficult to go out. But, they saw me force myself and overcome it, and that’s a good lesson to learn. I also made sure I had regular one on one time with each of them. It sounds corny but love and time are the most valuable things you can give your children imo.

It’s true that when your kids are young, you have to be a parent not a friend, but if you’re lucky they will be your friends in adulthood.

What I think looking at my friends' relationships with parents - and this is both terrifying and reassuring at the same time, in a way - is that it's quite unpredictable how your adult children will see you, there's not a recipe. I know adults who hate their mothers for working and others who massively admire them for it. Similarly I know people who are very grateful to their SAHMs and others who despise them for it. Some people who got smacked as children, left at home alone young, or any other practices that aren't in accordance with modern ones consider it child abuse, others defend their parents passionately and go down the 'it did me no harm' route. How your adult children perceive your parenting seems to be the result of a complex interaction between your personality and theirs more than it is a straightforward 'outcome' of exactly what you do.

I fully expect mind to think I'm a boring fuddy-duddy.

It's been my aim!

They'll have the benefit of believing that they are so much better than me, whilst not appreciating the boring stability that was the background to their life..just as it was for me.

I'm sure I must be mucking up in some unforeseen way but it will depend on their own personalities as to how that conflict plays out.

God some of you are much more relaxed about this than me. I know my mum did her best, although my dad didn't. But my mum made lots of mistakes. I can also see that lots of those mistakes were her going too much the other way, in response to the mistakes her mum made.
I know kids and their adult selves make their own decisions and have their own personalities. But I do wonder how parents cope if they really have tried their best, but their child grows up to do something awful like rape or murder.
I know all we can do is what we think right at the time, and I probably over think all this. I just think it is ironic that the things parents worry about like bottle feeding or breast, when to wean, toilet training, etc - I have never heard any adult complain about these choices their parents make. Which makes me wonder if we tend to naturally focus on the wrong things.

I see it as an entirely one-way relationship (perhaps a protective mechanism?).

I do not expect anything at all from my children, support, love etc. and I see it as my duty to give them everything I have, including soaking up any resentments or anger they may feel toward me and my parenting of them.

My own relationship with my parents is completely coloured by their selfishness and deflection of all blame (very abusive childhood), and I guess I am focused on trying to avoid repeating their mistakes, although that means honest (albeit uncomfortable) acknowledgement of the mistakes I do make.

I think a lot of he ‘issues’ that come up between parents and adult children are less about the way the parents brought up their children and more about the fact some parents don’t seem to know how to ‘parent’ adult children. Which I can understood cos it must be tricky!
My mum and I had a pretty bad relationship until I went to uni - owing to circumstances she wasn’t entirely in control of - but she has noticeably made so much effort since then to build a good relationship between us as adults that we are now very close. Some of my friends definitely have the reverse and their parents seem to very much take the relationship for granted after putting a lot of effort in throughout childhood. I don’t think it’s the historic relationship that matters (not all the time anyway but obviously in some cases it will) it’s the current one.

*I see it as an entirely one-way relationship (perhaps a protective mechanism?).

I do not expect anything at all from my children, support, love etc. and I see it as my duty to give them everything I have, including soaking up any resentments or anger they may feel toward me and my parenting of them.

My own relationship with my parents is completely coloured by their selfishness and deflection of all blame (very abusive childhood), and I guess I am focused on trying to avoid repeating their mistakes, although that means honest (albeit uncomfortable) acknowledgement of the mistakes I do make.*

I could have written this post.

Nope, I don’t care, let him make that decision when he is bringing his own family up. That will sort him out. Lol