Sort of replicating ones own childhood . . .

[nothingnatural]

I live o/s and one of the things that used to bug me was the fact that my children would have such a different childhood to me - that it would be unfamiliar to me I suppose.

I was lucky enough to have had a really happy childhood in England, large family, lots of love and adventure etc etc, the sort of thing that when I became a parent I wanted for my daughters.

Anyhoo, we live 1000s of miles from where I grew up, and have little extended family around; so far, so different, but I've just looked over to my 3 year old daughter playing happily by herself with a set of dolls that my lovely dad made for me back in the '70's and it makes me feel so much closer my lovely dad and that my worries about my children's childhood was a load of old guff.

Sentimental old fool.

Loved reading this, my little dot is eating off Bunnykins china and plays with my fisher price toys mum brought over- but just can't recreate all the outdoors-y stuff in this heat/ humidity/ traffic! Oh well...

having children can really bring you closer to your parents, can't it? Even when they are not around.

I had a dream of a childhood, it was magical and I couldn't replicate it for my own dd. It used to make me sad sometimes , you just try and compensate for that by making the most of whatever opportunities the place you are in offers. I tried to give my dd a lovely childhood and a lot of thing have been special but it is been nothing compared to the childhood my siblings and I had which was fantastic.

My DD's childhood is in some ways very different indeed to my own: I grew up in a village, in a house with a garden, in a bit of a rural English countryside idyll where everyone shared the same cultural references. My DD is growing up right in the centre of a large city in a highly globalised context. But I don't think that her childhood is worse than mine was in any way, and we still do many of the things that I enjoyed in my childhood.