To think negative aspects of your own childhood influence your own parenting, like it or not?

[Fearlesssloth]

I’m wondering what aspects of your parents’ parenting, positive and negative you see in your own parenting? Is there anything that was done to you that you vowed never to do and then found yourself doing? Have you found yourself becoming more and more like one or both of your parents? Do you use your childhood as a guide to your own parenting or do you use it as a big fat ‘what not to do’ list?

My childhood had both good and bad and my parents were partly good parents and partly fucked up and did a terrible job, depending on what was going on in their own lives. Good parts were: lots of love and affection, basic needs were always met. The bad parts were: violent smacking as a v. young child by my mum, my parents’ marriage was a joke & both had multiple affairs, my mum temporarily abandoned me for a new man, my dad could be borderline emotionally abusive, aggressive and manipulative. I got the blame for everything. He was completely unable to offer emotional support or even talk about anything emotional. However, he could also be incredibly loving and kind. His parenting depended heavily on whether he was happy or unhappy.

I’ve vowed to never smack my kids and never have. I find it so annoying when boomer generation parents (mine included) say stuff like “it was done to us, so we didn’t know any different”. I know the culture around it was different to now and it was still ‘normal’ in the 80s/90s, but don’t these parents remember how horrible it was being hit as a kid? I do and I’d never lay a finger on my kids as a result, and I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t have if I was an 80s parent either. I just couldn’t do it. Some aspects of my parents’ behaviour has left scars that I notice myself trying to “make up for” in my own parenting. Eg. Never having any emotional support & not being able to talk about difficult/embarrassing things openly: I am SO open with my kids, constantly talking about periods and wet dreams and when they’ll get they’re first pube 🤣. I’d also never put a partner before my kids. I’m a single mum and currently not interested in dating but if I did get into a relationship down the line, I’d be willing to end it if my kids didn’t like the person. I’d never move them into our home unless it’s 100% what my kids wanted. It still gives me the rage the way my mum ditched me and my siblings as soon as a new man came on the scene. Anyway, sorry this has turned into a bit of a ramble. Would love to hear opinions

Lol I feel the exact same about feeling like I’ve gone too far the other way with trying to talk about feelings, due to how I was treated when I expressed negative emotion as a child. My parents were fine when I was a young child and only had simple emotions. Eg. If I fell off my bike and cried cos I cut my knee, or I was scared in a storm or something, they hugged me & were loving and affectionate. But when emotions got more complex (which was also around the time their own lives went to shit) suddenly it was “what have you got to cry about, I don’t want to hear it, pull yourself together” etc etc. Until I just stopped talking to them about anything real altogether. My kids are still young but I’m determined to be a mother they can always come to with anything. But sometimes I feel myself questioning a bit too much and asking them to describe feelings they don’t even understand yet. So I need to rein it in a bit I think! It’s interesting, I’ve read on here about a lot of people who I assume are Gen X or millennials who say their parents were cold and offered no emotional support. I wonder if growing up in the boomer generation their own parents were the same and on top of that, when they became parents in the 70s/80s society was still in a place where we didn’t really discuss deeper issues like mental health etc plus there was no internet and very few books to learn from. Whereas, us, as Gen X or millennials have gone through a huge shift in society with the birth of the internet, “parenting” as a concept, and previously taboo issues now being acceptable to talk about. So even though we were parented in the same way as our parents, we’ve managed to break the cycle because we’ve had tools available to teach us how to

It’s interesting what a couple of people have said about trying hard not to smack their kids after experiencing being smacked in childhood themselves. I find the opposite (I’m not judging or saying I’m “better” or anything! I’m just curious about it). The times my mum “smacked” me was more like a violent assault - pre-planned, as hard as possible, pants pulled down, left marks for days, I couldn’t sit down and was in pain for days after. It was actually really fucking traumatic. But weirdly the worst part about it was the silence and how unjust it was- she never spoke before or after, never explained why. Once it was just for being shy. On a couple of occasions I’ve lost my shit with my kids and screamed at them, slammed doors, punched pillows, but I’ve never been tempted to hit them, they’re so small and helpless, it just doesn’t enter my head. I wonder if it’s because I remember how traumatic it was when my mum did it to me

My parents didn’t discuss emotions at all. No conflict. No conflict resolution. Stop crying, go to your room etc.
Being told you’re a brat. Never talking about how you feel and how it’s causing your behaviour etc.

I think a lot of parents now probably experienced the same as kids, and as adults are trying hard to fix themselves as well as ensure their children have better emotional awareness than we/they did.

On the flip side my DH says his parents argued loudly all the time and it’s made him very conflict avoidant. So we are trying to find a middle ground where we can calmly disagree about something in front of our children and communicate carefully to come to a conclusion/compromise etc. We want to model better behaviour.

I’m sure we are all doing our best and no one has got it perfectly right, we all mess our kids up in one way or another somehow! But I used to have massive tantrums as a kid and be in my room alone for hours, but when DD has a strop about something we talk it through and the argument is resolved much faster.

As a result I think many parents my age (millennial) also find that their parents are now difficult to deal with as grandparents, as they don’t agree with our parenting decisions etc. and if we do something differently they perceive it as a criticism on their parenting.
I also find it very hard to talk to DM and DMIL about any problems we have as a family as they don’t want to listen, they don’t ask how we are doing, can’t discuss sadness or worry, they just want to brush it under the carpet and pretend everything is ok.
I really hope that having experienced this as a parent to 3 kids I will do better to be more helpful and interested in their lives when they’re adults.

I just make sure I’m the exact opposite type of mother that my own mother was.

I wonder if it’s also to do with feminism. Men used to control the family and the money and they were not that interested in the needs of the children . Now women have more say and control money. They want to spend money on their kids and give them their attention. Previous generations of women couldn’t do that.

This was me. We weren't dirt poor (privileged in some ways!) but always had dirty, smelly, unbranded 'market stall' clothing. Mum always had 20 Benson and Hedges a day and a bottle of whisky a week though!
Consequently I definitely bought mine the branded coat/trainers/bag etc, especially for school. I am definitely 'poorer' than my parents were but I prioritised things that helped my children fit in with their peers and ensured they bathed/showered daily (I was shouted at for wanting more that one bath pw as a teenager in the 90s!).
My childhood undoubtedly affected my parenting, I do wonder if my kids will only bathe their kids once a week due to the cruelty of the enforced cleanliness they endured 🤣

Yep I tried to put that nailbite stuff on one of mine and she was sick!!

This is such an interesting topic! I am fortunate in that my parents were very good. They both had difficult childhoods with 3 out of 4 of my grandparents being in Nazi concentration camps and Japanese POW camps. I think as a result of this a lot has been passed down the parenting line. I find it very difficult to process emotions and was always taught just to deal with it and move on as fast as you can.

I find it really hard to break this cycle and it's something I worry about a lot. I try so hard to be kind and patient with my kids when they are upset but I get to a point that if it goes on for too long I just can't cope myself. My DD has always been very loud with her emotions and finds it hard to calm down. I would welcome some advice as to how others have managed to handle this. I very much want to break the cycle but was never taught how to cope with big emotions so I've always pushed them down.

Indeed. I have emulated the kindness and caring of my mother and left out the teasing of my father.

People who have had a shitty childhood are likely to parent their own children the same way UNLESS they actively stop and reflect on what was done to them and make a conscious choice to break the cycle.

I think a huge amount of people who had awful upbringing do do this and so they parent opposite and in a much kinder and thoughtful way than their parents did to them.

people in denial about how they were parented eg ‘a smack never did me any harm’ are likely to inflict the same on their kids.

None of us had any control in how we were raised and many of us have been damaged by our parents but that doesn’t excuse continuing the cycle .

all of us have the responsibility and choice to make thing different for the next generation,