Having your own children making you question what you were told about other families

[comoatoupeira]

Does anyone else find that having children is making them not take the word of their own parents anymore as being the norm?

I grew up with a mum and dad who were obsessed with not being too hands-on, I was always praised for being independent etc. They were divorced, don't know if that's relevant?

My mum was always talking down about other parents (mums, let's be honest) who she thought were over-protective. So all the jokes in our house were about mums who wouldn't let their children do this or that because it was apparently dangerous, or mums who didn't work and would arrive 10 minutes early at the school gate to, apparently, show off their blow dry or outfit, or something.

Now I'm looking back on it as a parent myself and I'm looking it the other way: like, these were mums who were sorted and organized so they were on time, and they were stay at home mums for x number of reasons but one of them being they wanted to be with their kids after school. I'm looking at some things that happened to me, like some medical things, that my parents didn't really follow up on or help me with, and looking at it the other way: this was maybe a bit neglectful, and the helicopter-ish mums we laughed at would have been there for their children and helped them.

Maybe this is a cultural change thing because it was the 80s and cool to not be a mumsy mum, and now there's a cultural backlash going on where we are romanticizing motherhood and caring roles again.

Anyone relate?

I do the school run any opportunity I can, more days than not, and volunteer at school events. I work full time self employed and earn very well. Not everything is as it seems. Your mum seems to have had very fixed preconceived ideas. I'm glad you're more open minded.

Mine was definitely more hands-off than I was, but I think everyone’s parents were in the 80s.

Parents didn’t really play with or interact with kids outside of basic care and homework type stuff and I and most of my peers were routinely smacked. We were expected to entertain ourselves and children’s opinions weren’t asked for or considered. Only the most privileged did things like extra curriculars and clubs. My Mum had two jobs and worked six days a week my whole life. It was evident that she absolutely hated her life and found it draining and tedious.

I was a bit more strict than my parent friends when DC was growing up but I’m quite a structured person overall. I have a much more informal relationship with DC than I did with my Mum growing up in terms of conversation, safe places to discuss difficult issues though. I’d never have discussed sex, drugs, politics or social problems with her.

She was very practical, and scared me to death with telling 5/6 year old me, ‘this is what to do if I ever get electrocuted, this is what to do if there’s a fire upstairs, this is what to do if you can’t wake me up, etc’. Friends as an adult have always been shocked that we talked about that but I suppose she had to because she was on her own.

I insisted DS 4 fed himself from 6 months, I potty trained him by 2, I spent ages showing him how to put on his clothes and handle buttons / zips / laces. I’m now teaching him how to cook, clean. I do this because my own mum never did - she viewed ‘dependant’ children as a validation of her motherhood and used it as a stick to beat us with (literally). She wouldn’t teach us anything but still blamed us for getting things wrong.

I don’t just do that. I take him to afterschool activities, I insisted he learn an instrument, I host and take him for playdates all things mum never did for me. Mum never got my heavy periods treated and they eventually resulted in infertility but I regularly take DS to the GP regularly and there is nothing I don’t treat.

My sister was like mum. Neglected her kids, began hitting them when they were babies, and also used dependance as a yardstick to measure her maternal skills. This means she has a 9 yo who can’t do half the things my 4 yo can.

I think I am 100% a better parent than anyone in my family for prioritising my child’s independance, wellbeing, health, and social skills. When they criticise me as they always do I used to keep quiet but now I actually (loudly) say so until they shut up. Of your mum is critical of you being caring then tell her the truth.

My mother was astonished when I told her I walked to school alone from age 8, and cooked tea for me and my brother from 12 while she was at work. She’d completely forgotten. The same person who thought I should stay up all night to watch my teen son sleep as he’d bumped his head that day.

I was also told what to do if there was an accident that knocked my mom out cold (phone the number of a nearby relative that was on a piece of paper taped next to the phone). It didn’t scare me though.

As you say if there’s only one adult in the house the child needs to know how to get help in an emergency. There’s nothing shocking about it really 🤷‍♀️

Definitely. Currently on my way to the cinema while dh does bedtime!

Yes I think this is right.
So the answer is not to resent them for it but at the same time to understand how it must have shaped me and brought challenges to life and work out things to make better from that. So it’s not really to do with them anymore, it’s to do with me and how I can avoid transferring that to my kid.

I remember standing in a friends kitchen and asking her why her school timetable was on the fridge. Her dad explained it was so they could make sure she had the right books, PE kit, HE ingredients etc. when I told my mum she laughed and said that girl should be looking after herself. We were 11. I just remember thinking imagine being that loved.

My niece is now 11 and I can’t imagine her having to fully manger her own washing and school schedule and cooking dinner for the family every night.

My mum was like yours @comoatoupeira Everything anybody did differently to our family and her was wrong. This continued until her recent death at 83.

she was also a reluctant parent and constantly let us know how unwanted we were, especially me as the oldest and consequently the reason for her disastrous and short lived shotgun wedding.

In later life I trained as a psychotherapist and gradually came to realise her judgement and disapproval of other people were projections of her judgement and disapproval of herself, particularly of her early adulthood choices. Knowing this helped me understand her and take her constant criticisms less personally but sadly it didn't make me love her. Her behaviour, whilst understandable made her a hard woman to love.

I took care of her in her old age and gave her what comforts and luxuries she would accept but it was done out of fear, obligation and guilt combined with pity for a lonely old woman not love.

I'm also shocked how much I love my kids and how much I enjoy spending time with them.

I have found it traumatic and then ultimately healing to have children after a very difficult childhood. It brings validation to what I went through and made me realise and understand how I was innocent and should have been protected.
I have cut contact with my family and I parent my children in a totally different way. And it isn’t effort, it’s easy to parent differently. I cannot imagine how they could do those things to a child.

Hard relate to most of these posts. The difference with my mother was she could flip between overbearing and smothering one day then cold and uninterested the next, sometimes hour by hour, one minute she’d be grabbing at you for cuddles calling you her special girl, the next she was shoving you away, reaching for her cigarettes and having a rage about how us kids wouldn’t give her five minutes peace.
She also thought things like car seats and baby gates/playpens were for snobs and never bothered to brush or style our hair and insisted it was cut short so she didn’t have to bother. I so envied the girls who came in with pigtails and french plaits and bows in their hair, that their mums had taken the time to make them look pretty.

I dunno. Expecting an 11 year old to manage thier own school books/PEkit isn’t unreasonable .

With respect to washing and cooking experience was the opposite to yours. My mom never made me do any cooking or cleaning so I emerged into adulthood …having no clue how to cook or clean.

Parenting is amazing until it isn't, for example when you're dragged through a psunami of stuff during the teenage years. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster to put it lightly....

Baby stage is stressful in different ways too.

😂 my mum would fly into a rage if the dinner wasn’t cooked and played in the table when she arrived home from work. It felt like a lot of responsibility at that age. Walk home from school (fine) to an empty house (fairly unusual at 11 where I grew up) clean the house and cook dinner. Yelled at if it was burnt, or not cooked on time. Yelled at if I forgot to defrost the meat before school (that happened a few times).

i suppose I was just jealous of the care and attention my friends got in comparison. At 11 I think it’s okay to need a little help managing with life. I am now incredibly independent and never rely on anyone for anything. It did feel quite lonely, and I think there was a bit of neglect compared to my friends.

Yeah my mum used to yell at me to if I’m honest. For no reason at all. She lost her glasses once and was chasing me around the house saying I’d broken them and hidden them. I had no bloody clue where her glasses were. They were her bloody glasses. My dad wasn’t much better.

I think my parents were probably a bit more laid back than I am now...but they were pretty normal for the 90s.

DM is a better and more varied cook than I am but she was a SAHM and had more time.

She says she admires how DH and I take the children to lots of different child friendly educational days out - we maybe had a couple of special days out a year and otherwise wandered around the garden centre or pet shop (just to look!) at the weekends.

I do a lot of 'cultural' things the same as her though like insist on vests and fret if anyone goes out with wet hair.

My parents were also largely good, sometimes just ok (especially post divorce) but we were definitely expected to be much more independent than kids now. I had to make my own Doctors appointments from about 11, homework wasn't monitored and there was zero engagement with schoolwork or university choices after about 12 or 13. I didn't go to a single open day as had no money to sort it out myself.

This won't be true in all families but my parents had us pretty young (by mistake) and I do often wonder what another 10 years- financially and maturity wise - would have done. The shift to having kids later has made a lot of changes I think (someone mentioned the carrying on partying- well, they were in their 20s!). In retrospect they were not parented well into their teens either- in one case due to neglect and the other due to bereavement, and grandparents went out to work at 13. So their model was preparing for independence much younger.

Becoming a parent can be very healing and enlightening as you see your younger self in your children. Growing up, the family narrative was that I was particularly hard work and demanding - a 'madam'. I used to feel ashamed about it. Having my DS has made me feel more normal. He has shown me that I was just an ordinary child finding my way and acting as children do.

Exactly the same here. Physical and emotional abuse although I didn’t realise it at the time. A lot of counselling was needed when I was an adult.
Like others have said in this post, I was so shocked at the strength of my feelings of love when my first child was born and saddened to realise that I knew my mother had never felt the same way towards me.
A really stark memory I have is standing at the school gates one morning when I was about 14 and seeing a car pull up. A girl in my year being dropped off and her mum kissed her goodbye. I was absolutely floored by what I saw. My mother had never kissed me. In fact I don’t ever remember her touching me with anything but anger.

@Justrestingmyeyes1 I had similar when I stayed away from home for the first time, camping with Brownies. I remember us all seeing our mums come to pick us up and looking at them all giving their girls hugs and kisses and my mum just taking my bag, sure she didnt ask me much in the car about it on the way home either. I remember going up to my bedroom and feeling just so sad that no one had missed me at all.
I know my mum loves me, she says it and hugs me more now, not much, but a bit. She sometimes says she worries she should have been more affectionate with us when we were kids…no idea why she couldn’t, it feels like the most natural thing to me in the world with my dd, i cant help but hug or kiss her or hold hands sometimes. I also notice a strange look on her face and awkwardness when dd comes to me for cuddles or to be tickled, maybe I never had that, would explain why im quite messed up in lots of ways, low self esteem, social anxiety and more…im a damn good mum though, I make sure I am

I realised recently that I need to come to terms with the fact that my memories of my childhood will never be resolved with my own mother.

Our relationship now has a very thin veneer holding it together, and it will only hold up as long as I never mention any part of my childhood to her in conversation ever, not give her a sliver to get a wedge into because it would tear it all apart.
I can bear not talking about it but I couldn't bear her still maintaining that she was doing her best and it was all my fault. So I can't talk about it ever.

I had this fantasy that one day I would list off all the shitty parenting and hold her accountable and ask her what the hell was she playing at, but that's never going to happen. It wouldn't do any good because she still thinks she's right. So I can never ask her about it and I need to accept that. It's hard though!

(Oh and my dad's always been a mess - I wrote him off when I was about 12. He does at least know he fucked up though).

I really identify with this My sister (younger and childless) makes constant comments about my life revolving around my toddler. The living room with her toys, holidays doing things she will enjoy, weekends going to kids shows etc. I have tried to explain that when my toddler has a good day, i have a good day.

I am not sure why my sister in particular is like this tho, we were taken to Disney and soft play. Although I do remember a lot of wondering around in shops while my mum and grandma fulfilled their shopping habits and I can’t imagine putting my own child through the boredom.

Ugh sorry massive ramble but missed out the important bit - we have so much laughter and fun in our house now with our teens! We joke together! We have inside family running gags, we sing in the car and the kitchen. We burn food and laugh and get take out. We talk about school and careers and futures and where in the world would be good to live. We play "would you rather..." We make mistakes and apologise and make up as best we can.
It's a different world and I'm sad I didn't have that growing up. But glad I get to experience it as a parent.