To feel like a very inadequate mother after reading this?

[Rainallnight]

I’ve just finished reading a novel (In Memoriam, by Alice Winn) and she says this about her mother in the acknowledgements.

I don’t know why it’s affected me so much but it’s making me feel like I’m not trying hard enough.

But then DD and DS have additional needs and it’s quite tricky sometimes to get the basics done.

It’ll probably take a while for the image to load.

Meh I don’t think so. I mean my mother taught me a few things but I was not her only child and she worked. Sure she gave me good books but is that the same as saying ‘my mother ensured I was educated in classical literature’? They also took us to lots of churches while driving through Europe as kids - no wait I should say ‘we had a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of Romanesque and Gothic Spanish architecture’. I could spin it that way for sure.

Just love them OP. Love them with all your love. It's the most important thing. A lot of kids don't have that.

Edited to add: my parents didn't do those things, but they loved me so much, made me feel loved, and were always proud of me. They were fantastic.

I've written acknowledgements for my own books (not novels and nothing nearly as best selling as In Memoriam). You spin things to make them sound profound. So yes, my DParents did fill the house with books and encourage me to read them but they spent a lot of time cooking, cleaning, earning a living, nagging us, telling us off, running baths, washing clothes - all the daily crap I now do for my kids more than I point out things of beauty, joys forever. I didn't mention any of that in my acknowledgements. Probably should have done.

My Mother taught me how to read comics. The art inherent in the drawings, and the Beano and the Dandy use of the vernacular were useful for feeling part of the community. We could identify people 'just like us'

I tried to do similar with mine & they said ‘borrrrring’! :) Why do the children in other memoirs not do this :). Advice you’ve had is wise, love them.

I don’t think that passage is a great testimony to motherhood or parenthood or nurturing of any kind: in fact I think it is pretty sad.

Anyone, literally anyone, can teach you facts and history.

The people who teach you to be human, to love, to care, and to have fun, are the ones who actually matter.

I don't think I can add anything to the wisdom of the posts already posted.

The best thing you can do for your children is simply to be yourself, showing up every day and loving them.

Why would that make you feel inadequate?

Her Mum would have taught her about greek mythology etc because that's what her Mum was interested in, and she developed an interest as a result.

From my Dad I got a love of Chess, and sci fi. From my Mum, baking and Corrie. My brother on the other hand had no interest in any of those things, so picked up shared interests in football and jazz from them.

In turn, I've passed on a love of Mario Kart and (very different) sci fi to my daughter, while DP has passed on her love of the guitar, 80s metal, and superheroes. DD in turn has started educating us in Greek Mythology.

No, @Rainallnight , you're not teaching your kids the classics, presumably because the classics don't interest you. But you will have shared some interests with them, and that's the important bit.

Pretentious horseshit. You’re fine.

My parents were cuntwaffles tbh

This just sounds like the mother shared something she is interested in, which is lovely and all but I don't think the fact that it happens to be academic makes her better than any other parent. I think good parenting is loving and seeing who they are, and supporting their interests even if they are different from ours..

The reality is that you're doing your very best if you can take the time and effort to bestow whatever you can to your kids.

It might be that you don't have a great grasp of studying, but you teach them how to respect others, and feel love. It might be that you have a great background in science, languages, math, and you can bestow that on your children.

Maybe you teach them how to cook, clean. The reality is it really doesn't matter. So long as you teach them to be the best version of themselves that they are capable of being.

That's when you know you've succeeded as a parent.

I wonder why this is particularly chiming with you OP, why it makes you feel "got at" when it's simply a daughter's reflection about her own mother. We all have doubts about our parenting and hope we do our best but if something is drawing your attention is it worth examining why? Presumably you have no burning desire to read greek mythology to your kids, or else you'd be doing it, so why does it specifically make you feel inadequate that you're not? Would you like to? There are versions suitable for children if so. Or is it more that you want to read more widely, for you, as an end in itself?

Hmm. You're comparing apples and pears here.
Your children have additional needs, which means you are exerting additional time, additional energy and patience in getting the bare basics done.
I have children with additional needs too, and I often think...oh how shit, I haven't done x/y/z that others have managed with their similarly aged kids, but that doesn't mean that they're really doing any better. You're most likely doing all you can.

Stop looking for additional things to do, when each day is hard enough. I always used to beat myself up that DD wasn't doing the same as others her age, and felt I was letting her down, however I realised a few years ago, that actually giving DD the time, space and support she needed was much more than many parents were doing, with all the extra bits I felt bad I wasn't doing.

Signed- a mum who has just put her autistic 3 year old to bed, after listening to baby shark on repeat for 3 hours, in German. Who will be waking, to do 4 hours of driving throughout the day to get autistic DD to college and back... from the outside, I'm sure it looks like I'm scraping the barrel with my parenting capabilities, but I could've taught my kids something cool if I wasn't busy meeting their needs that are in excess of most kids of their ages. I'm sure you can see where you're spending the time and effort - it'll be with your kids in a way that your kids gain more from.

This is beautiful.

‘Love them with all your love’

I don’t know why but that’s literally just left a mark on my soul.

I’m going to write that out (or most likely store it on my phone) and read it often.

Thank you.

Like OP I have a child with additional needs and it’s challenging and I often feel I’m failing - both him and his sibling who doesn’t have additional needs.

This is what I need to remember. Some days loving them with all my love is all that I can do.

*Edited as I used the term special needs rather than additional needs.

What mother or father teaches their children about Greek mythology, Chinese history, the lives of kings and (hopefully queens but of course they aren't mentioned in the text above).

And I love Literature and the classics, but to be fair you are comparing a memorial from an adult to their mother. It's interesting that you already compare that as a let down. Like PP said what is worrying you?

I encourage them to read fantasy. I think that’s ‘ensuring they have a thorough grounding in graeco Roman and other early cultures mythology, and extensively developing the concept of world building and the complexity of an ecosystem’
my oldest is 10 so mostly Harry Potter so far but lots of time to expand on this already stellar education I’m giving them 😁

You can’t be serious!

Well that was in a pre-tiktok/ snapchat/ wtf-app world. You're being hard on yourself.

Everywhere we go on holiday, we go to the little, local museum. So that’s what our dc have learnt to find value and interest in.

Modern Disney film questions at school quizzes - not so much.

Only your children can tell you what they value from their childhood @Rainallnight and they can only do that with some years distance. You do your best, you live your life and everything becomes a memory.

She's an author, you can't be sure how much artistic liberty she's taking!

I found a quote in an article about her "The daughter of American parents, she grew up in Paris, before being sent to British boarding schools from the age of eight."

She also describes her experiences :
"The most stable environment I had were these boarding schools. I know this is embarrassing, but it did remind me a bit of Harry Potter – that feeling of it being much more home to me than wherever my parents happened to move to for that year. The experience was both lonely and great.."
inews.co.uk/culture/books/alice-winn-novel-in-memorium-queer-people-voices-first-world-war-2251772

It's ridiculous to compare your parenting with her parents parenting, or her childhood with your DCs childhood.

Do your best for your children, that's all.

I'm so sorry to read this but I applaud you for the creation of 'cuntwaffle'.

OP - authors can write all sorts of hornswoggle, but it doesn't make it legitimate or account for the entire truth. You love your kids and I bet you're doing everything you can to make their lives amazing. That's enough - they don't need to learn about Chinese culture from you to know that either xx

Stop comparing...that passage made me giggle I mean she could have done all of that with a few of those Dorling Kindersley books in the library one wet morning. Writers are the masters of spin.

You have a go at spinning what you do with your kids and you could come up with something to make the author question if they did enough with their kids- probably not because they maybe do not doubt themself. We are all doing our own version of that passage for our children to one day not acknowledge.

She taught me how to load the dishwasher, how to get stains out of tops, all the lyrics of her favorite Bob Dylan songs, how to make small talk with pompous people, how to survive on baked beans, eggs and noodles...etc...I mean honestly if that is what her mother taught her then great but in my great ranking list I place other things more highly to be honest. Never had to apply Chinese History yet.

Bring on the acknowledgements mums of the net.

Agree, it's a pretty cold and barbed acknowledgement. No warmth, no spontaneous effusion of strong feelings. Just a cool list of boxes ticked.
And that opening sentence, which presumably refers to mum interrupting Black Beauty or some other late Victorian children's novel to explain the likely fate of the cheerful boy characters, is utterly grim.

My parents weren’t educated people and taught me none of this. I was free to learn what I wished with their support.

What they did teach me was what it is to be cherished beyond measure.

If only everyone had this experience as a child.