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Original poster

Parental kindnesses you recall...

224 replies

retiredgoth2 · 16/07/2013 20:39

When I was about 10, I'd been out playing with friends. And had had an argument the substance of which escapes me 20 30 ok 37 years later.

Came home in tears. This was unusual. Mum figured she couldn't make things better, but plainly so wanted to.

So she went to the Music Centre and put on a record (I don't recall her ever doing this ever in any other circumstance). It was my Wurzels LP. Which I loved. She was just trying to do something that made me happy..

Anyone else have comparable memories? I really hope in X years my kids will have their own versions...

A disclaimer.

I'm out in Covent Garden, and two drinks down, and inclined to mawkish reminiscence...

OP posts:
AndTwoBits · 17/07/2013 22:50

I wish I had a story. Your stories are wonderful. My dad looked through me and my mam was cross my whole childhood. I hope dearly my children can look back on their childhoods with a smile on their faces and feel we gave them lovely memories.

MrsOgg · 17/07/2013 22:53

I was a bit down at one point when I was about 17. It was just before Easter and I was sitting in my room, and my mom was on the landing, talking about putting special Easter decorations on the stairs, she went on and on, and made me come and look at the stairs to imagine how it would look. I thought she was being a bit weird about it.

I went and looked, and she'd bought me a load of new fancy knickers and strung them up over the stairs like bunting, I laughed so much my legs gave out and when I sat down on the floor she whisked out a huge box of (wrapped) chocolates and threw them in the air like confetti.

My mom's ace.

apatchylass · 17/07/2013 22:56

AndTwoBits, my dad had a horrible childhood. Because of this, he wasn't an easy man - prone to tempers, and we had money problems. But he did love us and showed it by doing everything that his own parents didn't do. Whatever you are doing for your DC, they will remember and appreciate it. You can break the cycle, and leave them with such happy memories of childhood, as my dad did for us.

grants1000 · 17/07/2013 23:02

I think I did one today that my eldest ds will think of for a long time. On the way home from school in the car and the boy in his year who has been a total wanker from reception to y6 to my ds and others was in front of us on his bike, all over the road on his bmx thinking he was so cool, so I went right up behind him, revved the car engine, beeped the horn and drove past fast whilst shouting at the top of my voice 'you little fucker!' The car windows were half open and said wanker wobbled on his bike and looked shocked and stopped!! My DS was whooping, laughing so hard and just beside himself with the crazy fun and madness of his mother! He hugged me so hard when we got home saying I was so awesome, I told him, anyone messes with my children and I am a lunatic! They all leave on friday and are at different schools thank God!

AndTwoBits · 17/07/2013 23:02

Apatchylass thank you. My dad too had a horrible childhood. He never managed to break the cycle though, but I am so bloody determined to!! I am following my husband's lead, he is so naturally loving. Our kids don't know they've been born!

hellhasnofurylikeahungrywoman · 17/07/2013 23:05

What a lovely thread. I cannot add to it as I don't have that kind of relationship with my parents but I hope to high heaven that my children remember me as fondly as some of you remember yours.

Quangle · 17/07/2013 23:15

gah! wetness all over my face now....

We used to visit my grandparents on a Sunday and all three of us kids would fall asleep in the car on the long drive home. My mum, a single parent, would carry us all into the house one by one, up the stairs and into bed. I was the eldest and I must have been around 7 or 8 at this time (so quite heavy!) and if I did wake up, I used to pretend to be still asleep just so she could carry me upstairs to bed so I could have that feeling of being looked after and loved. I still have that feeling - I'm very lucky.

PS, love the OP's "Music Centre" and the Worzels LP. We had both of those... "I am a cider drinker ooh aaar oooh aaar ay"

SunshineBossaNova · 17/07/2013 23:22

When I stayed with my grandparents she'd make us hot milk at bedtime. In the morning she'd make me scrambled eggs on toast and cut it up into squares for me.

grants1000 · 17/07/2013 23:24

I bunked off school a few times in 3rd year of secondary school, hated it for many reasons, one day I was sitting on a bench near my house and my dad drove past in his work van and saw me. He u turned and rolled down the window and said 'get in' he took me to a local cafe for tea and cake whilst giving me a gentle but firm talking too about sucking up stuff we don't like and getting on with the stuff we do like because that is what life was all about. He wrote me a note for school the next day explaining I was off the previous day due to illness.

learnasyougo · 17/07/2013 23:28

grants1000 Shock that's a horrible way to behave no matter how much your ds liked it. Not to mention dangerous, aggressive driving. You behaved like a bully, intimidating a kid on a bicycle (vulnerable) with your steel box of a car. Angry

ExcuseTypos · 17/07/2013 23:28

My mum used to wake me up every morning for school and bring me a nice cup of coffee. I'm terrible first thing and still am so it was a very kind thing for her to do.

grants1000 · 17/07/2013 23:32

Good I'm glad I was a bully, gave him a taste of his own vile medicine, he would have felt the same way my ds did when he kicked him to the floor from behind for no reason & split his head open. it was a quiet little suburban road and he was in no danger so cool yer boots!

ExcuseTypos · 17/07/2013 23:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Kiwiinkits · 17/07/2013 23:46

Too many lovely things to list really. But one thing that sticks in my mind was the willingness of my mum to drop everything and take a whole pile of neighbourhood kids on adventures. After school in Summer she would take us all up to the lake for an afternoon of swimming and fun. And in Winter we'd go and visit the hot pools. We're talking 8-9 kids in the back of a van (illegal now, of course) all having a whale of a time. Bless her.

They ALWAYS had time for us, my parents.

NorksAreMessy · 17/07/2013 23:51

I have something wet in my eye
Thank you
Flowers

RetroHippy · 17/07/2013 23:56

Lovely thread. Making me well up in my insomniac moment.

Since I started drinking tea, my mum, without fail, has brought me a cuppa every morning. If she was up before me, she'd wait till she heard the shower. When I got back to my room there'd be a brew waiting.

She is fab in too many ways to list, I love my mum.

trice · 17/07/2013 23:58

My dad loves his garden. When I was small he used to let me write my name in flowers every year. Think purple lobelia among white. It made me feel very special.

I was always allowed to help him in his building work, painting, pointing, putting putty around windows etc. He was endlessly patient and never minded when I made a mess. He is a great dad.

sallysparrow157 · 18/07/2013 00:11

My mum died when I was 6 so all my memories are pretty special. A couple that I've thought of whilst reading this thread - I was off school for some reason so came to work with her (she was a secretary for a uni prof), I drew a poster telling people to put their rubbish in the bin, she printed a few off for me on the xerox machine and took me round some of the local shops in her lunchbreak and got the shopkeepers to put my poster up in their windows (imagine the mums net thread! 'Aibu to be annoyed that this woman wanted me to put her pfb's crappy picture up in my shop window?!)
We had a Christmas activity comic book thing, after we did the activities we hid little messages to each other in the pictures of the book, writing 'I love you' and suchlike in little corners - I still have the book (my dad also joined in writing things like 'sallysparrow has a stinky bum'!)

OrangeLily · 18/07/2013 00:13

When I was little my parents split and we moved away with just DM. That summer we went on picnics all over the place and had great fun paddling in lochs, playing in parks, going on walks, etc. It wasn't until years later that I found out that was because picnics were cheap and things like a chicken lasted a few days that way. We were also out the house and entertained for free. She was literally so tired at work each day she slept on her desk at lunch to make sure we were happy and didn't know how poor we were.

ThePigOfHappiness · 18/07/2013 00:13

I was bullied terribly in primary school but my younger sister was really popular and had lots of friends and play dates and sleep overs so I spent a lot of time being sad with my mum. I remember we had a little secret handshake we did where we linked baby fingers, meaning we were in it together.
One New Year's Eve my sister was on a sleep over, I was about 8 I think, and at midnight my mum woke me up so we could listen to the boats blowing their horns in the bay.
She worked really hard for us and after being in after school she sometimes would borrow my aunts car and we'd have a picnic on the beach all wrapped up in jumpers :)
She used to dance with me, singing a song we called "dance in the old fashioned way" and now she does it with dd1.
When we were getting the kitchen extended and a wall knocked through we spent all weekend drawing pictures on the wall.
I had a terrible accident when I was 7 and had to have loads of stitches, I can remember her buying me a Care Bears chocolate bar and magazine to distract me. We never had sweets or chocolate as she couldn't afford it. Definitely not magazines.
Another day my mum took the afternoon off work and collected me from school in my aunts car and had fresh hot cross buns in a brown paper bag waiting for us.
When I went out as a (wildly permiscuous) teenager, my mum used to text me and say "remember you're special". I bet I was breaking her heart really and I used to laugh at the text when I got it, but now I think it's lovely. The only way she could say anything to me about the situation.

Actually, I've quite a strained relationship with her now, but it has been lovely to think of these memories Smile

sallysparrow157 · 18/07/2013 00:14

Oh, and when I was about 3, again in her office, I was clattering about on the typewriter, she looked at what I had written and in the long stream of letters I had randomly happened to type the word tree, she and the other lady who worked in her office made a big fuss of me for typing a real word!

mathanxiety · 18/07/2013 01:09

Mum used to take me out to Switzers cafe (RIP Switzers, sadly missed) in Dublin for a huge sticky, sugary meringue filled with whipped cream and a cherry on top after my dentist appointments Smile

Horopu · 18/07/2013 06:53

My mum used to wake me up in the middle of the night (well probably about 9pm) when I was little and carry me downstairs to look at the hedgehog in the garden.

I remember going to the Isle of Wight and sleeping in the car over night in the middle of nowhere. Then the next morning Dad digging up the some turf, lighting a fire and us having a cooked breakfast.

On the beach in Northumberland Mum and Dad used to make a fire with the coal that washed up from sea and we would have sausages and baked beans for lunch.

middleagefrumptynumpty · 18/07/2013 08:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

dotty2 · 18/07/2013 09:29

My parents are very reserved and not given to being demonstrative, or to overt fun or spontaneity of any kind, but they are lovely people and exceptionally tolerant. I realise how tolerant now I have children of my own. I remember once spilling a whole tin of emulsion paint over the living room carpet and my dad cleaning it up without any fuss or histrionics or shouting. (I am more fun and spontaneous with my own children but should perhaps learn a little of their calm kindness.)