Now I feel total shit and rubbish as a parent AIBU?

[Toysintheattic29]

My kids are mature adults. Both have degrees, both have good jobs and both own their own flats in London (with the help of my husband and myself). My husband isn't their dad - I split with him when they were small. Spent a year homeless with them and then struggled to get us a roof over our heads. Made one or two mistakes along with way with bad choices of relationship. Little or no support from dad through this. We moved around a bit which involved the kids changing schools. However I felt if I gave them all my love and support and saw they had a good education they wouldn't do so badly. During those years I was hurting but I'm not sure they appreciate just how much,. They grew up to be careful with money, didn't smoke or drink heavily. I had rotten partners and one was abusive. I have fully accepted and acknowledged the folly of my ways as a younger woman and in many ways, now don't like who I was then. Later I married a lovely man and have been with him for almost 25 years. Together we were able to give the kids stability through Uni and beyond,. Now for the crunch. One had kids a short while ago and clearly since then has made comparisons between their childhood and what their own kids have. Sometime ago they made it clear to me they had a shit childhood and cross-examined me about why I had made the decisions I did. I took this on the chin and apologised for all my mistakes. However the 'rubbish childhood' issue persists and as if that isn't enough I was told recently what a crap education they had too; they missed out because they changed secondary schools. My kids didn't go without that much when they were growing up - I made sure I gave them what they wanted at Christmas and on birthdays. They had holidays both in the UK and abroad. They had pretty much all the outings they wanted and when I finally got a decent job I gave them as much as I could. I have treated them countless times to meals, clothes, treats, given them support when relationships broke down - including giving them a home and lending my car. I feel any deficits from when they were kids were more than made up for as they got older. But no, I still get digs about how how crap their lives were as kids and it seems never to go away. The 'lousy education' comment was the final straw. I wonder why they even want to spend time with me when I am clearly so awful. AIBU?

The thing is that childhood trauma can seriously affect the adult for the rest of their life in ways they may not even understand.

I grew up in a volatile home with arguing parents and an alcoholic dad who would rant and rave until the early hours. On a bad night I would be woken up many times a night as a teen, including in the run up to my exams. My mum put a bolt on my bedroom door as he used to come staggering in there at night. But it didn’t help, because when I bolted the door he would hammer on it anyway, or he would chase my mum and she would hammer on the door until I opened it. It will be no surprise that I am now in my thirties with chronic anxiety and insomnia and in times of stress the only way I can sleep is if I’m fully clothed in bed, hypervigilant and ready for danger.

I also cannot drive due to severe driving anxiety/phobia, I know through therapy that this is a result of my dad drink-driving so much when I was a child. My brain has wired up to have too much fear.

I also have workaholic/perfectionist tendencies as I learned from a young age that I can only rely on myself, so I teeter on the edge of burnout but cannot rid myself of the compulsion to work.

I have bad psoriasis from the high levels of cortisol.

So while I can appreciate that my parents struggled too, it’s not as simple as forgetting about the past when you are being affected every day. Also my DM does not hesitate to criticise or patronise my parenting now, which triggers a lot of repressed anger in me.

I am watching a friend go through a similar situation to the OP. A series of failed relationships including an abusive partner - her DC have been to hell and back yet she carries on and refuses to put them first. Recently moved in with a new partner, DC are lavished with gifts of iPhones and holidays but eldest is now self harming. Her DM cannot understand why and believes it to be a phase because her DD wants for nothing apparently

I think a lot of parents have no idea what their children really want or need
It’s not like you can ask for stability for Christmas

I feel very humbled by some of the posts on this thread and now realise I should have put my boys first more. Their father did very little for them and constantly let them down. They changed schools 4 times. Many of the problems began when I met my second partner. At first he was wonderful to us all but as time went he became my tormentor and the boys got caught up in the dreadful rows though were never physically abused. I did not have multiple partners or a range of men moving in - just the one.

I had rotten partners and one was abusive. You contradict this in your latest post and only one may have moved in but it turned out to be one too many for your children.

I have fully accepted and acknowledged the folly of my ways as a younger woman and in many ways, now don't like who I was then.

Have you told your children that you now don't like who you were then? If you don't like who you were then you can't really expect your children to look back at that time and you with fondness either.

On the positive side you have realised and accepted the mistakes you made and I am sure if you had the time over again you would do things very differently, have you said that to them?

Keep talking to your children, they do seem to want you in their lives but they, understandably, have anger and resentment regarding the choices you made which impacted on them.

Op my best advice is actually don’t over compensate now. It can come across as disingenuous to a resentful child. Also do not try and have a do-over with your grandchildren. I’m not saying you are, but I think the first step is total honesty - yes you made mistakes. You are sorry. Do not add onto the end ‘but I took you to lanzarote every year’ or what you have said as it comes across as defensive, and the point is, you aren’t trying to defend yourself you are just listening. The material things can’t and will never cancel out feelings, so no matter how many items they had or holidays, these did not make them feel better about what was happening to them. People looking for answers often aren’t really looking for actual answers, they want to be heard and understood. You naturally want to move on from the past but sadly a child although adult can feel stuck there when they have their own child as it’s a trigger releasing the feelings they didn’t know they had

I feel sad for the people saying your son is a brat , is that how you would feel about your own child trying to deal with trauma, triggered by having a child? Surely having a child should be the happiest moment of your sons life so the fact he feels like this speaks volumes - he shouldn’t feel this way, and isn’t choosing to.
I think it can and will pass for him, but you might not get the forgiveness you would like, sad as that is

I’m not going to make excuses for myself, but I included my sons’ father in the comment about rotten partners, RedDogs. I was fucked up as a kid too which probably didn’t help with choices so made with my own kids.’

Their childhood doesn’t sound terrible, you clearly love them and did your best. They haven’t struggled in adulthood so you did something right, you shouldn’t beat yourself up and they shouldn’t use this as a stick to beat you with either.

Some people just grow up to be incredibly ungrateful and entitled. Rather than vilify you, perhaps he ought to try some empathy and just be glad he can offer better for his own children.

Having dc does make you reconsider your childhood.
I have never raised the issues in my childhood with my parents, neither for different reasons has the emotional capacity to deal with that. I am just fairly low contact.
DH was able to raise the significant issues in his childhood with his DM and they have a fairly decent relationship.
We have moved a fair bit for DH's job and while there are positives of that I do expect that dc when older may well tell us that they would have preferred less travel. And that is despite us trying to minimize the moves as much as possible. Adult choices aren't without consequences.

I'm sorry you too had a difficult childhood, OP. I think PookieDo has given you some very good advice. I do also think your children cannot continually berate you and forever use their childhood as a stick to beat you with, you all need to reach a point where you can move on and not keep raking over the past as it does no-one any favours.

@RedDogsBeg

I think this tends to happen when you end up stuck in a cycle of accusation - defence - anger so OP needs to take out the defence part to break it IME

@PookieDo I agree and the cycle definitely needs to be broken for everyone's sake.

I think if you've had a hard childhood you spend some time as you grow up feeling angry and blaming your parents, but ultimately you realise they are humans, imperfect and tried their best

Except when you realise that they really really haven’t tried their best...