To change my opinion of my own parents since having kids

[Froggles1]

Just wondering if anyone has experienced similar as I feel guilty feeling like this but since becoming a parent, I feel really hurt and annoyed by the way my parents are.

There is probably too much to explain here but growing up they always had a volatile relqtionship (not abusive but argued a lot and mum would often leave with bags packed etc then return as if nothing happened). They dont discuss things ever & just continued this pattern (still together)

Both can be kind people but I feel like everything is on their terms. They live about 45 mins away so not far but theh very very rarely visit us. We work full time etc so we typically can only do the journey once a month. My mum comments that they never see our children a lot and insists on buying them things to make up for this. I confided once that I felt our son was missing them and her response was “well then he should come see us more”. 😒I think this is completely unfair to expect a 5 year old to maintain their relationship! They also see my sisters children a lot more & subsequently my kids are less comfortable there than them just due to familiarity.

throughout my life my parents, although I know loved me, very much put their social lives, friendships and wider family members before me. I was slso given silent treatment (mum) if i did something wrong or she would share too much with me regarding her life etc. Now, I feel they dont really listen to me or have much interest in me. Mum in particular talks over me and monologues about her life, ranting etc whereas Dad barely says a word

i have had a lot of counselling and have built a lovely family. I have a good job and a lot to be proud of but I feel so heartbroken that they dont ever acknowledge me, say they are proud etc

they have very different values to me and whereas i always felt we were close, over the last few years I have really noticed these things and feel a distance due to them.

aibu to be upset?

Seriously?
Are YOU a parent?
I do hope not.

Yep. But childhood abuse will make you question every aspect of your parents parenting when you become one yourself. And that's a good thing. Immediate knowledge of how to do things far differently and avoid the glaring mistakes they made.

I've been feeling similar lately. I presume our kids will always think we could have done better by them so we're damned if we do and dammed if we don't. I consider everything for my own child and now feel disappointed that my parents didn't seem to do the same for me. It's difficult too as there's no point telling them as there isn't really any point.

Yes, my parents were incredibly immature and abusive.
When I had DC, I didn't understand how my parents could do that to us.

I get it @Froggles1 I know where you are coming from. I had exactly the same feelings about my parents when I became a mother myself.
They both smoked - I developed asthma as a child but had to live in a smoky environment and I doubt they even considered giving up smoking.
I had excema and am allergic to cats - we had a cat for 13 years as I was growing up. Now I avoid cats and my excema has almost completely disappeared but as a child I had it terribly.
I can't help but feel resentful when I look back on it though I love my parents very much. I just am so much more worried about my own children's wellbeing than they were about mine. It's hard to process if you dwell on it, so I tend not to.

You're not being unreasonable to re-evaluate your experiences of being parented growing up. Nor to feel upset about that or about how your parents are now. Over time I've realised how damaging my Mum's parenting was. We didn't lack love and she did her best, she suffered a lot of abuse as a child and went on to marry a narcissist who left. She had PTSD and unlike your parents OP she did want to and try to do better. She was a much better parent than her own parents where, but she did pass on a lot of her truma. I dealing with my own seperation from an abusive man now, with little kids and I'm being very wary of what I do and don't expose my kids too. I don't blame her, but I would absolutely feel like I failed if I put my kids what she put me through.

My problem is my parents died fairly early in my life and I got pregnant aged 40. They never met my son. I had a difficult relationship with my dad which never got resolved. I think parenting is very difficult irrespective of the circumstances.

This is totally right
No parents are perfect and your child will probably say the same about you one day. Majority of parents do their best

I've found it so interesting to read this. My relationship with my mum is so much worse since having my children. I remember how badly I was treated and some of the things she used do say, especially as a teenager. I'm quite new to the game as mine are under 3, however I haven't met anyone else who feels their relationship isn't as close. All around me, it feels as though friends have become closer with their own mums, through help with childcare etc.

Similar to PP, I don’t have children but I have become less close to my parents as I’ve got older. NC with one and LC with the other.

I think you just learn about appropriate behaviour/parenting after you leave home, and naturally you reevaluate your experience.

I didn’t know that I had an eating disorder and depression all through my teens until much later in life. Partly because no one gave a fuck and we were constantly judged, shamed and humiliated as children so there was no safe space to ask for help, but also there was less awareness than there is now, so teachers and other adults didn’t pick up on it.

I try not to dwell on the past, but I really don’t think it was a case of ‘different times’ in my case. In fact it was when I compared my childhood to DP’s (same age as me) that it really hit home how awful my childhood was.

If that were true its weird that children in the UK would be some of the most unhappy and insecure individuals in the developed world. Our parents generation may not have known what they were doing but it is already patently obvious that new parenting models are bringing up another generation no better adjusted than the last.

I agree with everything in this post. It's rather amusing to sit back and see just how today's young parents seem to think they know it all, and are the only ones who actually parent their children the right way. We will see the results of that a few decades down the line - but all I can say is stand back and wait, your children will be sure to judge your parenting skills.

Admittedly I only have a few close friendships around me, but all of them have a poor or virtually none existent relationship with their parents. My best friends mother doesn’t even know her latest grandchild has been born. My sibling and I lived with my grandparents as children because our mother couldn’t cope being a single parent, yet I’m now a single parent and I can count on one hand the amount of times she has cared for DD and she’s 8!

I personally find it quite amusing how the older generations seem to want to diminish how parents acted and how that affected their child.

I can honestly say I don’t view myself as a perfect parent, but I will never put men before my children. I will always be there if they hurt themselves, not just tell them to go away (I remember falling in a nettle bush as a child, covered in sores and my mum told me to do one), when they have children of their own I will be there to take an interest in their lives, take part in childcare and have an active role. I will not abandon my children like my Dad did to us when I was 2 years old, never to be seen again. I will be there to do all the “boring” parts of being a parent, not just the days out.

Theres the different type of “generational” parenting that differs from the way most do it these days, then there’s the parenting that falls closer to neglect and abuse, and with all of my friends it’s closer to the latter.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself

Phillip Larkin

And so, you too, will have the opportunity to fuck your own kids up. As we all will. Just do your best.

It's very normal to look back at how we were parented. My own parents said some ridiculously harsh things to me which I'd never consider saying to my own children and yes, totally identify with being a "bit part" actor to their own "starring roles". One thing I have considered, which may not be applicable to you, is that a lot of our parents were early 20's when they had children. We have a sibling 12 years younger and they definitely parented him very differently to the "hands off" approach they had during our 70's childhood

Becoming a parent myself has definitely made me appreciate my parents more. As a child/teen, I used to think that they were too strict (they weren't! They just put in clear boundaries for behaviour/manners/us DC helping out in the house and us doing our studies), but being a parent myself now, I completely get where they were coming from!

The only thing I would change about them would be this: my DM used to find it excruciatingly difficult to talk about sex ed/puberty and periods with me (but she had a very sheltered upbringing). This meant that I thought it was something to be embarrassed or ashamed about. I'm definitely more open/honest and make it easier for my DC to talk to me about this.

I am one of 4 kids, and our DP worked damned hard to make sure we were ok as a family, and that they were there for us and (as I found out after they died) for other people less fortunate than us. They're both dead now but I wish so much that they were still with us.

Reading some of these posts, I can see how lucky my siblings and I were (I figured that out many years ago tbh). We had wonderful DPs and a happy/secure/loving upbringing. I only hope that I can be as good a parent for my DC that my DPs were for me.

For me it’s the other way around! I am much much more sympathetic to my mother having raised my own children!

I used to feel very upset with my mother in particular for being so undemonstrative in their love and parenting in the 70s was very different to how it is today. We now know more about attachment and early childhood development for one thing.

At the same time, I’ve come to understand that my late parents were products of their own quite harsh parenting and they were both teenagers who were evacuated during the war which must have had a profound effect on them, as did their religious faith which discouraged contraception.

But the thing that led to me finally forgiving my mother for what I perceived as her parenting “deficits” was raising two teenagers of my own, one of whom was quite challenging.

That experience made me look at my own parenting faults very closely and understand how things I did with the best of intentions could be misconstrued or misunderstood and how I still don’t always get things right, despite really trying hard. I don’t mind admitting that I fucked up on quite a few occasions and when I thought I had learned lessons and knew what I was doing with my second teen; they needed totally different parenting to the first.

Some people are naturally and intuitively good parents. I love the very bones of my two but parenting was never something that came very easily to me. Happily it came more easily to their father. I still constantly second guess myself now my dc are young adults.

I think success with teens partly with depends on how emotionally resilient and and mentally “successful” you are as an adult yourself, as at a certain point they stop needing hands-on parenting and they need a good role model instead.

And if you are fragile in any way or struggling with your mh, as I now realise my parents were to some degree, or if you are just not very confident like me, your teens will hold you to account for it as they need someone who is strong, to have their backs and be there as a very solid presence while they go through what for some is a tumultuous time during adolescence.

What’s good and positive though is that, in most families, parents and teens can both fuck up but eventually they pass through that challenging phase… and teens go on to develop a much more objective and realistic view of their parents, and adults stop being so anxious about their teens and let go and trust more … and both parties discover that they still love one another massively, and in the best scenarios they realise they still enjoy one another’s company too, and both parties on to reconcile as adults and develop a more level and mature relationship based on trust and forgiveness.

When I got a dog I realised that I treated her with more care, gentleness and encouragement than I had received from my parents.

My parents cared for my physical needs but were cold, distant and immature. If I didn't do exactly as they required I was given the cold shoulder and silent treatment. To 'encourage' me to behave they kept a packed case in my bedroom so that if I 'misbehaved' I could be taken without delay to a childrens home. It never happened, but I lived under that threat.

I thought that was normal.

They never changed. They're dead now and for the first time ever, in my fifties I am completely my own person.

Thanks again those who have shared their views.

I think in my case my parents are ‘emotionally immature’ and this is a result of their own upbringing. However, my DH’s dad had a horrific childhood but he did not let it affect him negatively.

i agree with the point about age as my parents did parent my much younger sibling differently. I guess theres just memories of things that come up like my parents laughing at my singing when I did a school concert, screaming at me if I did something wrong (once said they were embarrassing and got yelled at until I was crying and begging for forgiveness aged about 7) and aged 11 got called vulgar by my mum for wearing a low cut top 🤔there are loads of happy memories too but I hate that these play on loop. The yelling in particular means that I have a very strong reavtion if my partner ever shouts at our kids.

so for those few saying that my kids will criticise me, they probably will but I am cpnscious not to repeat these actions and try and parent as best as I can

I think on the most part our parents did the best they could with the skills they had. In the 70s 80s even 90s parents had kids young so they were also growing up alongside us. A lot of people now wait until 30s 40s to have kids so they are usually alot more mature, financially stable etc resulting in less stressful environments

Also society values and norms have changed as well as people being much more educated and aware of childhood development

People need to stop giving their parents such a hard time. Life is hard and we all make mistakes. Same will be for our children likely. I think the big one for our children's generation will be 'hardly ever saw my parents they were always working or on their phones'

'To 'encourage' me to behave they kept a packed case in my bedroom so that if I 'misbehaved' I could be taken without delay to a childrens home. It never happened, but I lived under that threat.'

That's horrendous. It makes me feel frightened as an adult just thinking about it. My partner's parents used to do similar - pretend to phone the children's home when he 'misbehaved'. They did it because they found it funny and it made them feel in control. It's hard to excuse such cruelty.

By the way, I agree that most parents do their best. But what if 'their best' falls so far short of what their children needed, or made them feel terrified, or caused lasting emotional damage that impacts them and their relationships well into adulthood? Are those adult children not allowed to feel anger or heartbreak or resentment or anything else they might be feeling?

Being a parent doesn't give you a free pass to do what you like with no consequence

Since having children of my own I've really been reflecting on what a brat I was as a child and especially as a teenager. I can't fault my parents other than the fact that I was probably quite spoiled but they were doing their best. I do hope my kids won't be quite as ungrateful as I was.

In 20 years I honestly think most people on mn who were saying about parents not visiting enough will be saying‘I have a rubbish back/health, work and am just wrecked aibu for thinking my family should visit me and not me them?’ I’m only 43 and am thinking when my kids have kids I’ll be struggling to be the energetic fun granny (back and knees are very bad, I have 4 kids and work in retail). How on earth do you see things in that light now? Do you not see all the stresses they had and feel for them now?