Reflecting and realising I didn’t parent DD well

[IndSebCas]

I have 2 sons and a daughter, my DD is my middle child, she’s 25 now, successful, happy and we are still close. When my children were teenagers my boys got a lot more attention than DD, DS1 has autism, he still lives at home now and he needed a lot of support to get through the last few years of school, DS2 has ADHD and was quite challenging as a teenager, he really needed someone to be on him with homework and struggled with school. DD was a social butterfly, did well in school, had lots of hobbies and just generally didn’t need the same hands on support. However now I’m looking back I’m realising I made a lot of risky choices with DD and regret it.
Example one is when DD was 14 she asked if she could go visit her friend who’s family had moved to Newcastle for a weekend, we lived in London so this was far away, she did have a friend who had moved to Newcastle so I agreed. However I didn’t do any checks, I didn’t talk to the friends parents, I just gave DD money for the train and food/shopping while there and let her go.
Similar at 16 when she asked to go to a gig in Glasgow as she couldn’t get tickets for the London one, told me she would go with a friend, gave her money for a flight etc. and let her go, didn’t check anything. Then at 17, I let her go to Amsterdam with some older friends from volleyball, I’d never met these friends.
Luckily as far as I know nothing went wrong and all was fine, but it could have so easily gone wrong! I don’t know why I didn’t think to be more diligent, I guess I just trusted DD.
I also knew DD had a fake ID and did nothing about it, let her boyfriend stay over from just before her 16th birthday.
I don’t even recall being massively involved in her uni choices, she went to most of the open days alone, I didn’t know where she had applied to until she got accepted and had to decide where she wanted to go.
Now I feel awful, DD has never mentioned it, but I’m terrified she is going to have her own children some day and think wow my mum really didn’t give a crap about me!

AIBU to feel like I was an awful parent to DD and to wonder if it’s worth talking to her about it now?

You’re overthinking this. Make sure you’re being a ‘good parent’ to her now. If the occasion is appropriate bring it up but don’t over do it - something like ….. remember when I let you do this, what was I thinking….and see what she says.

Say that you were a terrible mum. Say that you neglected her. Say that she struggled with that.

If this is all the case, and you talk to her about it now, how does that serve her? It might make you feel better but it doesn’t do anything for her. In fact, if she feels unhappy, all that you talking to her about it does, is make it her responsibility to make you feel better. You apologise and her choice is to accept that to make you feel better, or not and create massive conflict. It puts her in a really difficult position.

Instead, why not understand that even adults need their mums. Be a good mum now, and in the future. Be there, be supportive, be an emotional resource for her. Guilt is just the base state of motherhood. You met as many of your children's needs as you could but you didn’t meet all of them. None of us do. But it isn’t your DD’s role to make you feel better about that.

You facilitated your child's social life while giving her independence. What's to be ashamed about?

I’m a happy, successful daughter. It took me time to even realise how wrong some of my mother’s behaviour and choices were. That process truly started in my mid to late 20ies IIRC.

but what matters is that OP is aware. So she’ll be able to take accountability and apologise if / when that time comes.

Perhaps speak to your daughter about your worries about not parenting her as hard as you parented your other children. You might find she has a completely different view on this. Or, if she says your concern about this is valid, then you’ve acknowledged it so you can talk about it, say how sorry regretful you are and move on from there. Acknowledging something goes a long way.

I’m just wondering where your husband, her father, is in this? Does he have the same concerns about how he parented her?

I‘m also wondering if ‘mum guilt’ ever ends? I’ve never heard the phrase ‘dad guilt.’

Speaking from experience of parental neglect, I would say there is a high chance she won’t realise it fully until she has children herself.

where is her father in all of this?

I wouldn't worry too much, times were different even 10/15 years ago. Nowadays many teens are given no freedom, is it any wonder there are so many going missing all the time.

My parents were similar about letting me travel independently from a young age and generally have a lot of agency as a teenager. It’s pretty much impossible to know if what you did was a problem without knowing how your daughter felt about it. I just felt trusted to be sensible and even looking back it doesn’t feel to me like they did anything wrong. I always knew if I wanted them to be more involved in something I just had to ask. Personally I would have been hurt by a lack of involvement/interest in me choosing a university but I’m sure others would feel differently.

Your daughter may be very happy with her childhood or she may feel like you were disinterested and taking a lot of risks with her or like you favoured her brothers and cared less about her or any number of other things. If you have more capacity now then be more supportive where you can now she’s a young adult. If she ever raises it you can apologise, acknowledge you too often assumed she was fine because she wasn’t your squeaky wheel and you should have done things differently. If she doesn’t maybe it’s something to just leave alone. You can’t change it and she might not want to address it at the moment even if she does feel unhappy.

Out of interest what were your own teen years like @IndSebCas ?

The problem with this is that parenting norms change over time- my parents would have been considered quite strict and very involved by early 90s standards but disinterested and lax by today’s standards. Eg parents didn’t go to uni open days with kids in the 90’s. It would have been considered a bit odd to have them with you. Now it’s almost mandatory. It’s highly possible then when my kids have kids that the pendulum has swung the other way and the intense parenting that we were encouraged to do is seen as awful.

I think we all look back and think we could have done things differently with our children. At the time we just did what we thought was best. Nobody gives you a manual or training when you have a child - we are always wiser after the event. It sounds like your daughter is happy and independent so you must have done something right.

As someone who had a similar upbringing to your DD in many ways whose mother confessed to feeling like she’d let me and my brother down, I’d like to put in a note of caution about speaking to her about the way you feel.

What are you hoping to achieve? If you have a warm relationship with her, she’s most likely just going to feel obliged to assuage your guilt. Don’t lay that on her.

Something along the line of you wished you’d spent more time with her when she was younger, wouldn’t be too bad, but I don’t think going into your realization you should have been more on the ball with things is a good idea unless she bring it up in some way.

Talk to her about how you feel.
It must have been hard for her with her brothers, the result made her very independent, used to doing it for herself.
I'd tell her how proud she makes me, and that I'm sorry.
It could have went either way.
We have a similar situation, only DD hasn't flourished, she lacks confidence.

I wouldn’t. What’s the conversation for? For your DD to assuage the guilt you feel. Well, that’s not her job.

You seem to have a great DD, which suggests you did something right!

She might take a different view of her upbringing once she has children herself and may want to challenge you about that then.

But in the meantime, let sleeping dogs lie and deal with your guilt yourself. But don’t beat yourself up about it.

Has something happened recently to make you dwell on things? I had a lot of autonomy growing up and am close to my mum. She trusted me to do the right thing. Maybe she could have been more involved but I had siblings who needed her more. I was mature enough to see that. It sounds like your daughter is similar.

Honestly this sounds like how I was parented, I was fiercely independent and any attempts at additional input/ oversight would not have been welcomed. I love my parents and are very close with them! I’m really resilient and looking back can see I entered adulthood with a secure grounding in how to live life! I’m trying to emulate the same with my children.dont beat yourself up OP, your daughter sounds happy

What you describe was pretty standard parenting when I was a teen (am in my 40s) - I didn't see a single parent at a university open day ! My friends and I did several youth hostel trips as teenagers which our parents were minimally involved with.

Which just goes to show, it isn't intrinsically bad parenting - the norm now is to be more involved with your teen's lives but that's the current zeitgeist

My parents allowed me to do very similar and more as a teen. As I remember it I felt they were quite smothering and intrusive if they asked anything about my plans! I also do not think they were unusually permissive, quite the opposite. It was the 90s though!

I think you have done a great job. I don’t understand people on here who don’t trust their late teens as far as they can throw them, but the second they turn 18/ go to uni “they are an adult “ and you aren’t allowed to get involved. Sounds to me like you gently lengthened the leash whilst she still lives at home and it worked as she is successful and actually likes you, which is more than most can say for their 25 year olds TBH!

I think you should go into therapy to talk through your own feelings - don't talk to her about it because that is just you trying to assuage your own guilt. Therapy will help you understand whether you really were neglectful and why or whether you are being too hard on yourself. My guess is that it will be a bit of both - perhaps compared to your other kids she didn't seem to need as much support (even though she would have done) and perhaps as your only daughter she didn't seem as 'separate' from you as your sons. It can be a common pattern for a mother to be more neglectful of a daughter than a son as she sees the daughter as an extension of herself.

It just sounds to me like you trusted her, and used a type of parenting that was usual in the 80s\90s. It seems to have worked fine.

Personally, I think better that than the over parenting that is quite common now - that's really disabling for able kids like your daughter.

You can for sure acknowledge to her that you now realise you were more free range than you intended to be, simply because her brothers' needs grabbed more of your attention - but don't make it more than it is.

Oh dear god.

I am all for therapy when needed, but there is zero point in it here - there is nothing wrong and nothing to discover. The OP was just a bit more liberal than she intended, due to the pressure of 3 different kids' needs.

There's no need to make a drama out of this.

My mother was similarly permissive.

Unfortunately it didn't end as well for me as it did seemingly your dd, though my mother doesn't know about any of it. I found myself in dangerous situations I was too young to handle and was abused.

I blamed myself for what happened to me. It wasn't until dd started reaching the same ages that I was when the events happened, that I was truly aghast at my mother's parenting. I thought it was my own fault for so long, but looking at dd now I realise I was just a child, and the adults should all have known better.

I'm staggered by the responses on here and had a father posted he would have been flayed alive. It's true to say OP had a lot to deal with but her examples made me anxious just reading them. Her DD was a child, being allowed to do adult risky things. Of course she would be delighted but it was OPs responsibility as her mother to weigh the risk and as a parent put boundaries that were safe in place. Yet everyone is saying no harm done etc.

I’m a bit like your daughter, when I reflect on my parenting.

I don’t think my parents knew where I was applying to uni, they probably roughly knew but I wasn’t really a significant topic of conversation. They let me go to uni open days across the country solo with friends, including overnight stays. I went abroad with a friend at a young age.

I don’t remember much guidance on A level choices etc.

I would happily have crossed the UK on trains and planes at 15/16 without much worry.

I don’t see this as neglectful at all. I was independent and capable. I asked for help when I needed it. I got into some scrapes but sorted myself out. My sister was the same. My brother was mollycoddled and honestly is much less independent even now as a grown man.

If I really reflect, I think perhaps a touch more interest might have been nice, I probably did crave some attention, but I don’t begrudge my parents. I was mostly happy, and continue to be. I am however, more interested in my own children’s academics and interests, but equally happy to give them independence and freedom.

We can all reflect and find fault, but ultimately you raised a happy daughter and adjusted your parenting to your circumstances and her style. That’s ok, no need to beat yourself up about it.

I may add it wasn't "standard parenting" . Parents in the 80s were as protective of their children as parents are now. This notion that kids were entirely left to their own devices is false, I was an 80s parent and now I'm parenting my 5 year old GC in exactly the same way and it's no different to my now peers.