To ask, If you have/had an amazing mum, what makes you think this?

[Blaaaaaaaaah]

I know it seems odd but I just want to right a bad cycle.
I really want to bring my kids up right but I’m just terrified I’ll go down the same way as my mother, hers before her and so on.

Solid. Dependable. Funny. Loving.

There were 5 kids un our house and never was there a favourite or was anyone overlooked.

My mum was and still is available to us all. Anytime.

I don't think anyone loves me more than my mum. Maybe apart from my daughter.

Nothing like my grandmother I mean!

Love and support is what it comes down to.
My mam and I are very close and DH is to his too.
Mam always made sure we knew she loved us. Plenty of hugs and kisses. Late night cups of tea if we needed to talk. Wasn't (overly) judgemental, let us make our own mistakes to learn. Made sure I knew I could tell her anything.

She really is a lovely woman. Everyone who meets her agrees! My brother's ex gf and ex wife both admit that they were spoiled having her as a MIL.

My mum is amazing. I knew that if I could only be half as good as a parent as she was, and is, to me, if have fine and ok job parenting wise.

She's so caring, supportive, but no nonsense and I can tell her anything.

Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen is a great series of books for people who weren't parented well and need to learn what to do. It is all about being kind and fair and setting healthy boundaries that make your child feel secure and listened to. I discovered it when DC were toddlers and followed it faithfully. My DC had about three toddler tantrums between them and I am sure it was because of this book.

This is such a beautiful thread that I can't read it all right now. I'm sobbing like a baby. It's been 10 years since my mum died and left such a huge hole in my life.

She was my cheerleader. She loved me and my brother so deeply. She just made me feel so loved all through my childhood. We didn't have much money but I always had what I needed. She was always in my corner but told me off fairly when I needed it.

I can't even put it all into words. She was fun, smart, great company and I loved being with her. She was my parent as a child but my best friend as an adult. She was strong, brave and kind.

As a grandma, she was amazing. My dad often said she was born to be a grandma and before she became so ill, she was my son's favourite person on this earth. MND took her from us when she was 59. I'll never get over losing her and my son will tell me how sad he is that his memories have faded (he was 3 when she became ill and 6 when she died).

If I'm half the woman and mother she was, I'll be happy.

@FlamingVictoria what a beautiful post. I'm so sorry for your loss

Some wonderful insights here- reading with interest as I’m expecting our first baby. I have a friendly relationship with my mum but I don’t think she was a great mum when I was younger.. I feel she was very judgemental and not ‘friendly’ to me. I was desperate to spend time with her and she rarely obliged me- to be honest it’s a bit the same now, we have no activities we do ‘together’ you know, just us. I think that’s something I really want with my son- to be his mum but also to be a friend. Lots of things I could never talk to my mum about. I’m hoping to do the opposite xox

This is such a lovely post.

My DM was nothing like the others who have posted but I was fortunate to have an absolutely lovely MIL, who was all of the lovely things that people here have described, and treated me like one of her own. Sadly she is no longer with us but I aspire to be a better mother than the one I had after having her in my life.

I always knew how much Mum (& my lovely dad sadly no longer with us) loved me and completely unconditionally. I still know.
My. always supported me in everything I wanted to do in life, even if she didn't necessarily agree with my plans when I was younger.
Mum supports me emotionally and
Is very wise and gives valuable advice
Has always been there for me and in my corner
Mum has always been a calm, unruffled, caring parent. I remember the days of something upsetting me and trying to get home with a huge lump in my throat, knowing that when I saw mum the floodgates would open but then I would be okay.
So much more. Mum is 81, I am 48 and we are best friends. I could and still can always talk to her about anything . She is very warm, modern in her thinking and young in her outlook. She's a wonderful mum, the absolute best and an equally wonderful Nan. I appreciate and love my mum so much.

I love this thread and have enjoyed reading all the posts. I really empathise with you OP because I’ve often thought ‘how can I be a good parent when I’ve never experienced good parenting?’ It can make you feel lost and like you’re destined to repeat mistakes. But I don’t think that’s the case.

My mum worked so har, two jobs whilst my dad was desperately poorly MH wise… honestly when I was younger though I didn’t get it. I didn’t get why she wasn’t there to read me a book at night, to tuck me in. I spent weekends wishing we could do stuff together and probably as a child resented her for this.
however I never knew how poorly my dad was as it was sheltered from me. This I didn’t know until I was a teen. That makes her amazing in my eyes.

My mum never stood up for me to others, she always seemed to take my friends' side of any argument, and in my teens became friends with my boyfriend's mum and after we had split up she'd go out for coffee with ex bf mum and ex bf new girlfriend and would come home and tell me how lovely his new gf was ☹️

Years later I talked to her about this and the reason was that my grandmother had stood up for my mum too much, if anyone upset my mum my gran would go after them so my mum was determined to be different.

I'm more like my grandmother and will stand up for my kids, but I don't start personal vendettas 😁

So my point is, when you're determined not to make the same mistakes as your dm, make sure you don't go too far the other way.

Wow. I came to this thread as I also want to break an abusive cycle for my young children. Now I’m crying because I wish I had even a fraction of this unconditional love from my mother.

I miss my mum so so much. Like others on this thread, it’s the unconditional love… sky high expectations, utterly believed in me (to the point of being embarrassing😆) and was so so lovely to everyone. My husband fell in love with her as she was so kind to him when she met him and healed some real issues he had from childhood just by the sunshine of her approval and love—I’m half convinced he married me in the hope I’d turn into her one day! She was the most amazing loving and energetic granny and even dementia only made her kind and forgetful… she could still convince you she remembered you and you were the one person she wanted to see!!! She was a saint and is now a saint in heaven I deeply believe. Also, her childhood was no joke—you are not doomed to repeat bad parenting, OP, your children will hopefully be writing things like this thread about you in years to come!!! Love is such a powerful thing, even if you make mistakes it will carry you through.

She just was.
Kind caring firm fair, annoying, short, good advice, supportive, never judgemental, loving.

Just unconditional love with a hint of realism.

First lockdown nearly broke me - both parents had died one a few months before and the loneliness of realising that no one unconditionally had my back. I needed to pick up the phone and talk to my Mum after a day in the hospital and I could not.

She simply was the best and I miss her every day and now I miss my Dad - in a different but equally painful way.

I was blessed and did not realise it enough until it was too late.

My mum is my best friend. She is the only person I can talk to about anything. She is always there for me and always has been.

Unbelievably kind and Understanding and not judgmental in anyway, I could tell her anything, uncomfortable things and I knew she wouldn’t think any less of me. She was my best friend.
She adored us. I worked at the same place as her and use to take her home from work everyday and when we met on the car park her face lit up, it poured out of her.
I hope I can make my dd feel as loved as what she did me. I’m not a patch on her but I’m trying to be.

@sittingonacornflake

Soooooo many things it's completely impossible to note it down, but I suspect it's the total of lots and lots and lots of little things all added up.

I'll tell you one amazing my mom used to do for me when I was a teenager that was so kind - breakfast in bed every morning!! She'd make me a cup of tea and a toasted bagel and bring it up to my room so I could have breakfast and get ready leisurely. Usually with a kiss on my head and a gentle greeting.

No stress, no being shouted at to get up. The smell of the bagel soon made me sit up to eat it and of course the caffeine from the tea helped too I'm sure.

Many years later I think about this often and try to do little thoughtful things for others as I know how much I appreciated them growing up.

I do this every morning for my DD @sittingonacornflake. I take her coffee and toast in bed . Its nice you mentioned this.

Loves us out loud - it is never in doubt regardless of how stupid we’ve been, and we are always welcomed home (we’re in our 30s now).

Explained things and expected us to make our own choices and be accountable for the consequences from early on. So reasonable, lots of freedom, and having to fix our own mistakes (with appropriate support). Similarly both mum and dad would admit when they got things wrong and work to fix it. There was and is a strong culture of respecting each other as people capable of handling things and making our own choices.

Kind, calm, even-tempered, fair.

She listens, rather than just waiting for her turn to talk. She did it from as early as I can remember and she does it with her grandchildren too.

Didn’t care about exam results, cared passionately that we were happy and interested in whatever we were doing.

Really properly funny.

And the product of a cold, self-absorbed, anxious, controlling mother and a philandering, unfaithful, substance-abusing father. You’re not defined by your own parents (although my sister and I both hope we can do half as good a job as mum has with our own kids).

She died two years ago but dementia took her away from me before that. She was a good mum in her way which was of its time. That's not a criticism but I'm a different sort of mum. I loved her very much and still miss her.

What I hope is the same - what I try to do for my kids that Mum did for me is much of what others have said. Unconditional love. Always there for me. We had very little money but I had everything I wanted or needed. (Within reason. I never got a pony !!). Prioritised education and opportunity - because she'd never had that. (And I gained so much from that).
There was always food on the table, clean clothes in the cupboard, a welcome for me and later too for my kids. She put us first - always. She was kind. She laughed a lot. She let me have my independence and was proud of what I did with it.

She's thoughtful, kind, loving and fierce (when she needs to be). She listens and is understanding. She's diplomatic, tactful and honest. She's wise. She's the only one besides dh and I who I know would die for my children if she had to. She made chicken soup when I was ill, she ran me baths when I'd been hiking and came home exhausted. Her smile lights up the room when she sees her grandchildren.

She's not perfect. I don't remember her ever admitting to being wrong. She has a look that will cut you like a sithe. She can be stubborn and unforgiving. But she's always on my side. She's fiercely loyal.

She was always very kind and gentle, rarely snapped at us but apologised if she got a bit shirty. She was also very calm and knew what to say to calm you down to cheer you up. My father was quite hot tempered and she was a good foil to that. She celebrated what made us unique and ourselves rather than trying to mould us into what she thought we ‘should’ be, and supported our interests and ideas. Wasn’t particularly a great cook and the house was always a bit of a mess but it didn’t matter because we all felt loved and supported.

@NCBlossom

My mum is amazing.

Her own mother was dreadful and abusive as was her father.

That my own mother had the strength to not bring any of that into her upbringing of me is something that I will always admire her for. She wasn’t perfect, but by that I mean she was human, she got ratty, she didn’t always cope well, which made her retreat sometimes, or turn to me for help when I was a bit too young, but none of these things were BIG things… if you get my drift. She was loving, kind, always around, interested, stable, not abusive or horrible.

So you can do it too. And you’ll have kids who totally adore you.

Reading this gives me so much hope. My own mother I love so much (she's been dead 3 years now and I miss her every day) but she wasn't a great mum. She was mentally ill, impulsive and had zero appropriate boundaries, and left us with my dad when I was tiny giving me lifelong abandonment issues. We had a beautiful, intense relationship but it was never safe, never stable, never without a huge amount of stress. She was the most hilarious, vibrant, unique, loving person, but she was also erratic, touchy and very selfish.

I am adjusting to two children at the moment and not doing very well. I am often snappy and cross. I fear so much that I am failing to daughters because I am so far from the perfect mum I want to be. I would hate them to grow up with the issues I have.

So being reminded that I can bugger up, be grumpy, get a bit shouty, have a bad day and STILL be a good, stable, loving influence in their lives was just what I needed to hear. I need to do better, I know that. But I am not my mother. I will do better. Not perfect, but better. Not perfect, but, I hope so so so much, good enough that my kids will never have to try so hard to be.

I didn't always get on with my mother who quite a harsh Irish mammy with a wooden spoon. She was too strict and too harsh and found it difficult to show love even though I know she did love us. But I appreciate her more and more as I get older. Especially now I have teens myself! I have a much better appreciation of her perspective.