To ask if shield your children from your comments?

[TrialOfStyle]

Background here: my mother was difficult. I always felt she was very loving growing up to us but there was a lot of negativity - which would sometimes also be aimed at us. She is a really bitter person, and very jealous of almost everyone. She would make rude comments about people to me all the time (the one that’s sticked, bizarrely, was a comment in a supermarket about an overweight women with her husband “What is a good looking guy like that doing with a fat cow like her?”). She thinks she’s ‘paid her dues’ and the world owes her something (she’s 51 and hasn’t worked for 10 years).

I ended up feeling really jealous of everyone in teens and so insecure. My self esteem was destroyed and it’s really only been since going NC that I’ve realised my self worth without thinking it needs to be a competition.

It seems on MN people are ‘selfish’ and ‘entitled’ for just about anything right now - Legally parking in front of someone else’s house, visiting family within the rules, taking their ‘snot bags’ out shopping with them, etc. There’s a lot of anger (understandable, due to the situation, but often blow out of proportion).

So if you are someone who feels like this, do you take care to shield your children from your comments? And have you considered how your reactions and words can have a detrimental effect on children?

Or are you in the ‘this is reality, kids need to learn’ camp and just ‘say it as it is’?

I think you're confusing Mumsnet with real life.

A lot of posters here see a thread and just post a 'learned response'.

I don't really believe half of them actually believe in what they're posting.

Most of the "clever" but harsh responses are things people wouldn't dream of saying out loud to anyone, let alone their children.

I think they mean it, but they wouldn't be brave enough to say it in real life.

I completely agree with you, as I also grew up with toxic bitchy family members around me.
I know I can’t blame them for my life choices or for from suffering anxiety but I truly believe being exposed to that from a young age wires your brain differently and makes you always see the negatives in things.

I still have their voices in my head sometimes making me think bad things and I have to snap myself out of it and it has taken a lot of work to try to see things more positively.
I strongly believe kids need to grow up around happy positive people for their well-being and it’s not helpful in any way to have the kind of attitude you are talking about.
We need more understanding, empathic, resilient, and adaptable children, not ones who think everything they don’t like is unacceptable.

My Mother was the similar. I would know our all about our financial situation, her relationship issues and more intimate details than I should have from a young age. She was would be emotionally, verbally and occasionally abusive. I work so hard to not be like her in anyway, I watch everything I say in front of my kids as I don’t ever want them to feel like i did even for one second. We do not argue in front of the kids or shout at each other as my parents would argue all the time, screaming horrendously at each other. I met my DH and he showed me that this behaviour was not normal. Thankfully we have worked together to make sure we are not the same.

I do agree that MN is different to RL and people generally vent their more extreme opinions and views, but if you do feel so angry at little infractions, it must deep into family life something. I find it hard to believe posters who are so angry can immediately drop their phone and be happy, empathic parents in a split second.

I don’t discount myself from this either. MN can bring out of the worse in me if I’m already in a bad mood but I try to remain conscious of that and remember that I want DS to be kind and considerate - not bitter and jaded.

Meant physically abusive. Things are not always black and white like some posters seem to think

seep*

People can say things online that they cant in real life. I think that's the whole point. You have a rant and get it off your chest and you dont feel so bothered about it. But you haven't hurt anyone around you. Some things eat away at me and stop me sleeping or having fun. Once I've said it I feel better.

It's because I can excise my anger online that I can generally keep it from the DC and family life. Same way as a vent to friends can prevent me from dumping a load of negativity on DH or a whine to DH can allow me to go to work and not put my plans for indiscriminate violence into action. Of course I consider the effect of what I say and do on my DC. I don't pretend to them that I am a sunny pollyanna full of uncritical joy, but I wouldn't use the same language and discuss the same details with them as with other adults.

@scolha and @hardboiledeggs

I’m sorry you’ve experienced the same things and I do think there’s a different perspective when you’ve felt the repercussions growing up in a toxic family.

I would expect most posters are fine and get on with life, but I’ve definitely noticed some who appear on nearly every thread with anger and aggression to the OP. If you spend that much time being angry online it’s going to start merging with real life. How do you make sure there’s a clear divide?

Fair enough but you must also be careful that you don't protect them so much that they have unnatural expectations of life with no pitfalls or problems. I mean older children really. No need to be a faultless sunny stepford wife. My exs mother feigned perfection all his childhood and found fault with me on a daily basis as a result. Noone could ever have met up to her level of perfection but it was mainly a sham on her part.

I'm very careful about finding a balance with my kids.

My parents were neglectful and abusive, to the point I had to live with my Grandparents from 7. My GP's were lovely, but they had had so many years of living themselves without children that I often heard things I shouldn't about their stresses and worries. I was a very anxious child, and young adult as a result.

I'm very carefully trying to find a balance between not having my children live in a too careful and sanitised world, but also not have them hear constant negatives.

They have heard DH and I argue occasionally, but never over anything major and they've also always heard the resolution - always just a quick bickering thing and I don't think it does any harm for them to see that you can disagree with someone, but in a way that is not shouty or rude or disrespectful. It's natural to get frustrated with people sometimes and how to handle it is one of the biggest life lessons I think. Too many people don't know how to disagree with someone without being nasty.

It depends on the comments. About people's appearance? No.

Financial stuff - sometimes especially teen years and things were tight. I remember saying here's everything, if you can work it then awesome, means we have spare money.

I am extremely good at hiding emotions, and directing anger where is needed whilst happy with everyone else. I do have a personality disorder though,

I also think a venting space is important. We have a rule where the children can ask DH or I for a five minute free pass. We'll sit with one of them and they can have a few minutes of venting - they can say whatever they want without repercussion.

Then when they are calmer they can talk through the issue in the way we talk to each other and find a resolution.

I think a lot of angry people use online places to do similar.

I've also vented about my health. It's not something that I have been able to shield from them, and due to what has happened they also have their own frustrations. We have been extremely critical of some parts of nhs.

Teen ds also has an awful lot to say about the government, schools, the economy and more. Cannot really say to him unless it's positive, I don't want to hear about it until X time. He's a teen with asd and when things don't make sense, he vents