to feel like my DM has completely whitewashed my childhood?

[olaay]

I didn’t have a great childhood. Both my DM and DF would hit me and my brother. DM was constantly shouting, irritated by us doing normal child things, and both parents expected total obedience all the time. Home felt tense a lot of the time and I left at 18 because I found it unbearable living there.

They divorced years ago and I only really see DM occasionally now. I have DC of my own and something that really gets to me is the way she talks now, as if she was this amazing parent who got everything right.

She often talks about how she “brought up her children so well.” Meanwhile, my actual memories are of being scared of getting shouted at, trying not to upset anyone and walking on eggshells a lot of the time.

If my DC make a mess in the car from snacks, she’ll comment about how spotless she kept her car at all times. But we were never even allowed to eat in the car because she would get angry. If toys are everywhere, she’ll comment on how tidy she kept the house and how her children “knew better.”

It’s like she has rewritten history into this version where she was endlessly calm, organised and patient, instead of someone who frightened us half the time. I’m not saying I’m a perfect parent myself but I try very hard not to make my DC feel scared of me the way I often felt growing up.

What bothers me most is the total lack of acknowledgement. Not even “I was stressed” or “I wish I’d handled things differently.” Just this constant narrative about what a good parent she was and how well behaved her children were.

The hardest part is that if I ever challenge any of it or mention how things actually felt growing up, she gets angry immediately. There is absolutely no room for any version of events except hers. Even mild disagreement turns into defensiveness or rage, so over time I’ve mostly stopped saying anything.

I’m not claiming she was evil or that there were never good moments. But I do find it really difficult hearing someone constantly praise their own parenting when your actual experience of that parenting was fear, shouting and walking on eggshells.

The reality of the parent/child relationship means that it is very rare for both parties to remember everything exactly the same way. The obvious power imbalance, the cognitive and emotional development that occurs during childhood, the changing cultural expectations of behaviour for both parents and children, etc. all combine to make an "objective" version of events highly unlikely. For instance, sometimes children will say that they were shouted at, when a parent or teacher simply used a firm tone. The children aren't lying, that is genuinely how they experienced the incident.

I'm absolutely not saying that you are wrong in your recollections. And maybe on some level your mother feels guilty that she wasn't always the kindest or most nurturing parent, and for that reason she tries to paint an unrealistic picture of herself as Supermum. But at the same time, I expect that your own children will one day describe their childhoods in different terms to the way you would. 'Twas ever thus.

I am not rehashing the past. DM is giving a completely different version of the childhood I had. She often brings it up.

Is calling your children bastards bringing them up differently at different times?

My mother does this. She once told me how upsetting it was for her when she heard me raise my voice to one of my children (I shouted because he bit his sister hard enough to draw blood!). Anyway, I completely fucking lost it at my mother and reminded her that not only did she shout a lot at my siblings and I but she hit us, threw stuff at us (plates, chairs, anything to hand), chased me down threatening to wring my neck, dragged me out of the bath when I was 3 by my hair because I splashed water on the floor… anyway I told her she was a shit mum. She “didn’t remember” any of it. Sure Jan. she said she did her best at the time. Honestly, some people, if their best is being utterly shit and abusive they have no business having kids.

But at the same time, I expect that your own children will one day describe their childhoods in different terms to the way you would. 'Twas ever thus.

I have no problem with that. My DC will not be saying I hit them and swore at them.

What is wrong with you? How dare you minimize, dismiss, and condescend to the OP and every other person on this thread who have described out and out abuse as just some kind if child’s misunderstanding.

Your assertion that children report parents shouting when the parents are only speaking firmly is totally irrelevant to this discussion. Its true that at some ages children are unreliable narrators. Or a child may report something like a parent scaring or hitting them because it was so unusual it stays in their memory as significant long after the parent has forgotten what happened in the heat of the moment. Bit we aren’t talking about these cases.

But in fact children who have been severely abused by parents and caregivers are more likely to forgive, excuse, and minimize or naturalize the abuse than name it and claim it in public.

I really hate these comfortable pieties of bad parenting “oh Im sure your children will complain about your parenting one day.” Bullshit. I respect and love my parents snd my children respect and love me as a parent because I raised them, as I was raised, with love and caring and respect for their individual natures. I am 65 and my daughters are 29 and 26. They don’t complain about childhood treatment and we pretty much share our memories of what happened and why. If they did complain I would owe it to them to listen and apologize as I had the power over them at the time.

well done for breaking the cycle! I don’t think you will get closure from her. I certainly didn’t get any from mine. I think previous generations didn’t have the same culture of self analysis and reflection and owning your mistakes, validating other people’s experiences etc. They grew up indoctrinated with ‘I’m the parent I’m right’. I have found both my parents and DH’s to double down and be rigidly confident about how right they were, and are completely unable to accept any differing viewpoints. Whereas if my children said they were upset about something in their childhood, I would listen, reflect, and take on board what they had to say.

But in fact children who have been severely abused by parents and caregivers are more likely to forgive, excuse, and minimize or naturalize the abuse than name it and claim it in public.

Thank you, this is very true. I guess because it’s “normal” to us. I am still in contact with my mum despite trying to cut her off several times. There’s a barrier I do not understand and cannot get passed. It took me having my first child when I was in my early twenties to even start realising that she was a horrific mother. I will and have defended and shielded my children from her behaviour (it’s not all physical abuse certainly not now she’s older and “frail”). I even defend my husband. I cannot seem to do that for myself so easily.

In the context she uses it, just reply with “oh, I don’t care about that” . If she blusters because how could you possibly not (my mum does that) I say “I have other priorities “. That normally quiets her down.

No mater what, DD will never go to hospital for an unrelated matter only to discover historic (badly healed) fractures caused by me. That’s just one “small” way in which we are very different parents.

I am so sorry that happened to you. Its incredibly common for children with poor, neglectful, or abusive parenting to take the blame for what happened to them and only really start to realize it was wrong when they have their first child.

People have told me “I assumed I had done something wrong/was the problem but I can see my own baby is innocent. If they don’t deserve the treatment I got perhaps I didn’t either.”

oh yes i completely agree. My mum would say the same, she said some awful stuff and didn’t keep me safe which had consequences.