To think that it is impossible to bring up your kids without doing them some sort of ''damage''?

[poshsinglemum]

They fuck you up your mum and dad,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They pass on all the faults they had,
And add some extra just for you.

Man passes misery to man,
It deepens like an ocean shelf.
So get out quickly as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself!

I love this poem by Philip Larkin.

IMo there are so many conflicting parenting styles, each claiming that that other parenting styles are wrong or damaging.

I think we should cut ourselves some slack. Do the best for your kids, love them and don't abuse them. Go out of your way not to harm them but don't stress about being the ''perfect'' parent as we are all human with faults and so are our kids.

Try to make their childhoods as magical as possible but don't stress if it dosn't represent something from a Boden magazine or Enid Blighton noval as we live in reality. (I'd secretly love dd to have an Enid Blighton childhood- will be more of a struggle as a single mum but not impossible)

I agree with TrillianAstra that most parents probably don't fk up their children and nearly all parenting styles are absolutely fine - different from each other, but still fine. Making a few little mistakes every so often is different to being an utterly shit parent nearly all the time and making huge mistakes. Some parents do and their children are fked up. But most parents don't. You don't have to be perfect, just reasonably ok at it!

The House of Mirth I LOVE that! Thank you very much for quoting it.

i was away for a wee minibreak with OH last weekend and i realised the day before i left i was operating on 'holiday mode'. i was far more relaxed with the dcs, i listened to them and actually enjoyed the little converstaions, when usually i would be saying "that's nice dear but mummy has do do X,Y,Z." i really enjoyed the day so whilst i was away i decided i would try and treat everyday as if we were on holiday with as little sress as possible. it isn't always easy because sometimes we are late or under pressure but it's all in the way i deal with it. it does feel good and i feel as though the dcs are getting the best of me.

booyhoo - that is such a good point. I do that as well - we come back from a holiday and I am determined to stay calm and relaxed. Sadly it rarely lasts more than a few days.

We damage them slightly if we dicipline them, we damage them slightly if we don't, we can't win, the best we can do is try to work out what will make them happy in the long run - ie Ds1 is happiest eating with his fingers but in the long run, his friends will take the piss if he still won't use a fork when he's 10, so we have to make him.

We AREN'T perfect, and that's okay.
I shout sometimes, over stupid stuff, BUT I am also silly with my DCs. I love them, hug them loads, and pay attention to them and do stuff with them. I try to model kindness and calmness, and it doesn't always work. I don't CARE what any body else's parenting style is, and people can tut tut all they want at the choices we've made, but my DCs have said out loud, with no prompting that they feel loved. That's all I care about, really...that they feel loved and secure.

What else can we do?

I also think there's something a bit sad and spoilt about people who bang on about how their parents "fucked them up" when they are 40 years old.

OK, if you were beaten/assaulted/constantly belittled, but I've heard people quite full of bile about this or that their parents did, when in the grand scheme of things it wasn't very important, or was really the parenting style of the time. I've heard many people complain that their fathers were distant, or uninvolved, when actually ALL fathers of a generation ago sat behind the paper or messed about in their sheds. You can't now say they were a bad father because they weren't "hands on" as fathers are expected to be today.

An Enid Blyton childhood would mean that your DD's would have to make the tea all the time and be scared of everything - not a good role model!!

All we can be is good enough. And, when we're adults realise that we are who we are and we have to take responsibility for that and do the the best we can. 99.9% of our parents were just doing THEIR best so they aren't to blame - we have control over our own lives and can make our OWN choices without blaming anyone else for messing us up!

All those people write books/ posting on internet forms saying X parenting practice is really damaging, should bear this in mind.

Understanding your parenting style is a good place to start, parents do often repeat patterns but do it unknowingly a lot of the time! If you become aware of your reactions (screaming and shouting/praise )and your child's you can start to make changes. It's easy to blame parents for everything wrong in your life but actually the whole point about being an adult is that we have choice.
www.thinkit.co.uk has products that may help if your child is anxious or has low self-esteem.

I used to work with young people with emotional and behavioural problems and I really believe that there is a very diverse range of parenting styles which all fall within the bracket of "OK and will result in healthy, responsible, independent and happy adults" At either end of this range are parents who are very neglectful and those who are very smothering and this is where the problem lies - in the extremes. We all have different parenting styles and that's part of what makes the human race so diverse and interesting. Whatever your style, if it's not extreme you're doing OK. Just be confident in your own decisions and don't judge yourself by other peoples styles.

I think that gramercy has a great post. At a certain point you have to let go and say that it is the past and you won't let it affect your future.
Unless you are at an extreme, then you are fine. You can't be perfect because what is 'perfect' for one DC is the worst possible thing for another. It is no good being a demonstrative, huggy type mother if your DC is self contained and likes personal space, whereas another DC could get upset at lack of hugs, if they are the sort that want it.Some DCs thrive on high expectations but some crack completely.
Be yourself and respond to the personality of your DC. Always listen to them.

I worry about this. My solution is to love them desparately and hope for the best.

Hi all - no, you are not being unreasonable at all, and its lovely to have someone remond me of that poem! I had my first baby in December and have not only had to live with no sleep, and my own insecurities about being a bad mum, but also the older generation of my family offering helpful criticism and throwaway comments re parenting skills which have had me in tears on more than one occasion but actually have more to do with them justifying their own fck ups to themselves than my skills or lack thereof (insert deep calming breath here). Anyway what I have learned is this: lighten up people! We are doing a fantastic job. The very fact we care enough to worry about fcking them up shows were doing, on the whole, a pretty good job. do you think they will care or even remember whether they were breast or bottle fed, weaned at the right age, toilet trained, speaking french at 4? No, they will not. All they are going to remember is whether they were loved or not, and the times they laughed with/at their mums and dads. So, I think we should all take a second to remember what a fantastic job we are doing under what can seem like intolerable circumstances on occasion. Chill out and well done!

Lol...nope we can't do anything right as mothers apparently, you just have to do what you think is right

You can rest assured that Philip Larkin was wrong-I have lost track of the number of people on these threads who have chosen DP or DH as the one person in the world that they want to have children with and live with and yet they can't stand the PIL!!!! This shows me that any mother of a DS is a dreadful woman who produces a wonderful partner-genes and nurture can't have palyed any part!!

House of mirth- that's a much nicer example. Larkin's poem is a bit bleak but I use it to illustrate how out of hand the parenting neurosis has goty. As illustrated by a ''party'' I held last Friday for mums and babies-all with conflicting parenting styles and all convinced that other parents were ruining their kids. That's what got me started.

mumbar- what are you on? Whats being a single parent got to do with messing up kids?

Completely agree poshsingle - I think all parents do it. I am sure I am passing on my own neuroses already and he is only one. However, I am determined not to make the same mistakes my parents did.

I always make the mistake of reading Oliver James's column in the Guardian Family section, & come away feeling utterly depressed because things I had no control over (such as PND, feeling stressed when pg etc) have, according to him, irreparably damaged my children's psyches...

My parents did things for my DB that contributed to making him quite an angry and resentful adult who struggled for many years to have a normal relationship with them. But the things they did (boarding school, a vile prep-school, having me after several miscarriages and a long gap) were done with out malice. But they left their mark. Not sure what, being the people they were in the time they were living in with the backgrounds they had, they could have done differently.

Don't read Oliver James! He still seems to blame a lot on his own parents-he should be taking the responsibility himself.
Having a sense of humour and not taking yourself too seriously go a long way. My DSs can just laugh at some of my weird phases-they look back on them as funny!

I think that's why you need to be aware of yourself and your own 'ishoos' because that's what they learn from.

For me, it's about prioritising. So I think well, what is the most important thing I'd like to have sorted with my dc (for me, it's attachment). For someone else it might be a healthy relationship with food or an ability to trust people. Then you work on that.

Ultimately, I think if you love them and tell them they are loved, take them seriously, teach them about others but that they are important, let them feel and express their feelings, feel valued, and above all love them, then they will get through the external stuff. We are not perfect but there is nothing wrong in looking at what our parents may have misjudged and aiming to do it differently.

I agree with TrillianAstra and other posters that on the whole, most parents do NOT fuck up their children. Most parents love them, want the best for them, and do a good enough job- not perfect, but good enough.

I think as a generation we agonize about our "parenting" in a way previous generations never did. In fact, when did "parent" become a verb?