Did your parents hug you and tell you they loved you as a child?

[Tryingtostayawake]

Speaking to Dh today and his perfect family (they’re really not!) he said how they all said they loved each other all the time and hugged etc. I told him my parents didn’t, we’d kiss goodnight and I knew they loved me. My Dm even says now that she wished she’d done in more (she tells me she loves me now and hugs me when we meet up/leave each other-I live far away.
Dh said this can really mess people up.
Im v affectionate with Dd and hug her and tell her I love her all the time, I can’t help but not 🤷🏻‍♀️ I wouldn’t say I’m an affectionate person though-only to her and Ddog the most really.
Was anyone else’s family like this? I’m mid 40’s, so the 80’s and 90’s
I remember being away at Brownie camp
for the first time ever away from home for a few days, I was shy so found it hard. When the mums came to pick all the kids up, they all have big hugs and kisses to their kids and I remember seeing my Dm and expecting it and her just coming to me and getting my things, it did really stick with me. My Dm is quite closed And shy though (possibly on the spectrum, but not sure) but still.

I feel like there are generational and cultural differences with this which I think can be judged unfairly. I imagine my parents weren’t hugged and kissed regularly so didn’t learn to do that with their children.

Same here. I was more likely to be hit than get a hug. LOL

Nope my parents were not huggy people at all. I don't remember being hugged/kissed or told that they love me ever.
They are more tactile with my kids and will hug them but still don't say they love them. Even when my children say "love you Nanna/Grandad" they don't say it back 😔

My mum was very affectionate, my dad gave hugs too but I don't recall either of them saying they loved me. I know they did but they showed it rather than saying it.
I hug and kiss my kids loads. DD1 always says love you when she goes out or is talking to me on the phone.
DH is okay with hugging the kids but he doesn't do it as much as I do. Then again in 20 years I have never seen him hug or kiss his mum, even when his dad died.

Yes both my mum and dad were up until I was an adult then I lost my mum.
I'm very affectionate with my children

Never, either of them. Until Mum knew she was months from dying aged 80 (I was 59) and she said to me "I can't die without telling you I love you". I told her I loved her too, hugged her and did so every time I saw her until she died 9 months later.

My Mum did. She was always kissing and hugging us. My Dad didn't really. The first time I clearly remember him telling me he loved me was when I left for Uni, aged 17. He had a very poor family model growing up, though, and I suspect was never told he was loved as a child (grew up in care.)
I have a considerably better relationship with my Mum, but no idea if this is directly relevant.

My parents were not perfect but affectionate - their own role models of parenting were pretty poor, so I know they were doing their best while dealing with their own trauma. I hug and kiss my Mum at the beginning and end of each visit and often hugged my Dad when he was alive. When he was ill with cancer, we'd often hold hands, even while it was very difficult to get him to talk about what was going on and how he was feeling.

I hug and kiss my little DD every day and tell her how much I love her.

This question has been asked so many times on MN .Different families have different ways of showing they love and care. My parents were not demonstrative but I definitely felt loved.
Our children know that we love them but interestingly only one out of my three like to be hugged .I don't finish every conversation telling them I love them because it is so obvious that I do .

Lots of affection - physical & verbal - from both my parents & my maternal grandmother (my maternal grandfather died before I was born). My paternal grandparents would hug me, stroke my hair, have me sit on their lap when I was a baby/toddler - but they weren’t so comfortable with verbalising their love: never did I doubt how much I was loved, but after my grandad died, granny started saying “I love you” & it sounded/felt strange & awkward.

What I didn’t hear from my father until I was almost 20 was “I’m proud of you”. He now makes a conscious effort to tell me, because he’d never realised I might need to hear it. He thought it was obvious. This, from the man who read Roger McGough’s The Railings at his father’s funeral…

I think you can absolutely know you are loved without hearing the words/being hugged & kissed. My paternal grandmother wasn’t very “huggy” (I didn’t just inherit her red-in-summer hair…) but I knew, always & completely, that she loved me. I also think [grand]parents can be very demonstrative but not truly loving; & that will be damaging too.

I'm not sure the hugs or lacktherof was the thing that messed me up but it likely didn't help. We didn't cuddle much as a family, and when we did I was quickly hyper aware that I'd exposed a vulnerability somehow by wanting that connection. I was very young when I realised that if mum and I didn't hug that when she was later mean to me it wouldn't hurt so much. I don't think I was double figures.

I'm still not demonstrative, and find it hard to be physically affectionate with people unless there's a strong emotional connection and a lot of trust. Made living with toddlers very tricky as my go to was to shut down when they're being terrorists which then leads to them doubling down on the attention seeking behaviours as they are craving attachment which was the thing I naturally withdraw when I don't feel comfortable...nightmare circle right there!!! I have to remind myself often to make an effort to hug and kiss the children whilst they're small enough to let me at least! Feels like a far healthier thing to not see affection as a potential weapon so trying not to pass on that one!

no