Does your parenting style differ from your parents?

[MarioandLuigi]

Was thinking today how different I am to my Mum (this is deliberate). I hate shouting, dont smack and am much more laid back than my own mother. My own childhood was quite stressful and we never did very much together. I am trying to change that with my own children.

I'm sort of a more exaggerated version of her, probably the person she would have been if she hadn't been in abusive relationship after abusive relationship. My Mum is great now she's in a good relationship, but can't be without a man and totally changes herself to fit with the man she is with.

She tried so very very hard, sneaking up to kiss us goodnight when her H thought she was in the toilet (aged about 4), she stood up for me when her H found out that I was on the pill (aged 17 and in a stable relationship, we're still together). But her H was a truly dreadful bully and what she could do was limited while she was stuck in the relationship. She did eventually leave (when I was 18) and I really admire her for it.

I hope I can have the kind of relationship with my DDs when they're grown up that I have with my Mum now. She's great, sat on the sofa with me every day for six weeks to look after me when DD1 wouldn't latch and we were trying everthing. She came round every day for a month after DD2 was born to hold her so we could eat dinner together, she rocks!

It's so sad reading some of these posts, and it makes me realise just how lucky I was to have the relationship I did with my mum when I was growing up, and still do to be honest.

I try to replicate her parenting style as much as I can, not because I think I turned out great (I'm the first to admit I'm far from perfect) but because no matter what I've done in my life good and bad, my mum is the one person I can always turn to, and now that I'm a parent, I'm often in awe of the things she did for us as children, and how she handled a less than easy life.

Maybe I should tell her this more often.

My mother was fabulous until my brother was born, she was shortly after that diagnosed with MS and really was not an able parent, she was always right, very manipulative and prioritised education over everything.
Even now if I dont succeed at something I feel this is because I didnt try hard enough, I was bought up to believe that failure was the result of not working hard enough and anyone was capable of anything.
She ruined my younger brother and he totally lost it after she died but has turned out OK now, even tho it has taken over 40 years :)
I hope to be a more rational parent and to be able to pass on some of that working hard gets results along with a bit of we cant all win gold at the Olympics IYSWIM.

BlueberryPancake - that's so sad. You poor little thing.

What's good about this thread is the determination not to repeat mistakes and downright nastiness. The point that MamaLazarou made about not 'mocking' your child - oh so true! The number of times my mum and dad thought that teasing or laughing at my tears would shake me out of it. Instead I felt humiliated and utterly alone. My childhood was spent in a knot of anxiety.

When my daughter cries I tell myself that it matters very much to her, even if to me it seems trivial. And I have to tell myself this stuff, because my default reaction is 'oh come on it's not that bad'.

I praise my children when they've tried hard too. Not every time they do a stick drawing over-the-top way but my mum and dad seemed to think that either any brains or talent I had came from them and there was no need for praise and if they did praise me I might get spoiled! I clearly remember running home from school to tell mum that I'd won some writing competition age 9 and mum said: 'Oh you get that from your mother' and she and dad started a row about where I got my writing ability from! I ended up going up to my room feeling depressed and ignored. Sounds quite funny now but it wasn't then.

I tell DS at least once a day I love him and it is the last thing he hears from me at bedtime, he reciprocates because he wants to.

I can't remember ever being told that I was loved by either of my parents.

I wish I could be more like my mum. She was the kindest person you could have met. She encouraged us to do our best, but without pressure, and was there to dust us down when it didn't work out, and was proud as punch when it did.
All she wanted was what was best for us, but not in an over-protective way.

Unfortunately she was diagnosed with alzheimer's at the age of 57 not long after I had dd, and died at Christmas 2009.

There's not a day goes by that I don't envy people who still have their mums, and feel frustrated, jealous and bitter that so many people seem to have poor relationships with their mum, particularly over issues with children when I never got that chance.

I know that some mothers are crap and don't deserve the love and respect of their adult children, but mine wasn't and there's not a day goes by that I don't ache with missing her.

Like everyone, I would like to keep the good bits and change the bad bits. But I am afraid I might be doing it the wrong way around.
Except - one big (positive) difference in dd's life is that her dad is really hands on. When she wakes up she is as likely to call him as me. I barely noticed the existence of my dad till I was about 12 and then I became dimly aware that there was a sarcastic presence behind the newspaper that no one else was allowed to read.
dd is only 22 months and I haven't made many parenting decisions yet. Most things have seemed obvious. I think the hard part is to come. I would like to be strong and positive like my mother (I am afraid I am too emotionally fragile) but I would like to have an honest warm relationship with dd in which we can talk about bad things that she might feel or that might happen to her and I can help her feel safe (we were not allowed to tell my mum bad things or if we were unhappy). I want to be less uptight about things like sex but already I have shamedly realised that she learnt words for nearly all her other body parts way before her bottom or genitals (she now says "bottin" and I think she is a bit confused with "button")

I will never tell DS that he's stupid, and DH and I will never argue (constantly) in front of him. If I had an 'accidental' DC I'd never tell the DC that.

Smacking was down to my Dad and mum had nothing to do with discipline. My mum even stood back and let my Dad beat the crap out of my DB (dad's step-son) on several occasions even in front of me and didn't ever stand up to him. I've since mentioned it to her, she said she loved him and with 3 DC's she couldn't afford to leave and had nowhere else to go. The difference is I'd always put my DC's first.

Oh, and I've never tell my child that they have 'no redeeming features'

I like to think my mum did a good job with the exception of a couple of minor things. What I would like to emulate is her sympathy which was also coupled with a fairly robust view of life - if she thought we were being weak we were always told to pull ourselves together.

In fact the only way she failed me was the fact that I was exclusively bottle fed from birth. I like to think I would have been a genius had I been breast fed (tongue is firmly in cheek).

Oh, , she sparkles. My mother died last year and I also miss her terribly. For all I've complained about her parenting, she was a good woman who suffered more than anyone should and for some reason struggled with being a mother. She was certainly the only person who was interested in the minutiae of the dcs life, and I do kiss that.

More or less the same.
I am more inclined to change my mind- once my mother said 'no' it remained 'no'.
I also think it important to let them fit in with their peers in terms of dress etc.and not think that it doesn't matter.
I am more inclined to foster friendships with invitations to tea etc.

I don't know that it is better-maybe my mother's way made us more self reliant.

I just think 'What would my mother do?' and then just do the complete opposite - has worked for me so far.

My biggest fear as a parent was to be like her.

I think there is a danger in going too far the other way as a reaction.Your DC may be more like your mother than like you!

Like a couple of the other posters this makes me sad, because I realise how lucky I was. My Mum was and is fantastic - I aspire to be as good a mum as she was. My DC are 4 and 2 so its early days yet and although we do stuff differently I hope the core principles will turn out the same.

It's hard to put down what makes her special. We were bottle fed, and Dr Spock kids. She wasn't artsy or particularly good at housework, she was a single parent from when we were in primary school and we were latch key kids both before and after school for most of time.

But she taught both my sister and I to be independent, confident and aware of the world around us and how we impact it - both on a big scale and also just by our interactions with other people. She taught us the value of money and hard work. And the big one is she never once said a bad word about my Dad, although she had more than enough cause.

She treated us differently but in a good way - because we were so different. My sister was academic and a goody two shoes and I was a born rebel. She gave me the freedom to think I was rebelling whilst in hindsight she did have a degree of saefty net there for me. I don't really remember her telling me off apart from once when I lied to her (aged about 16). She told me she was so upset at the lying she didn't even want to talk to me about a punishment - I never lied again, but also always told her everything about my life (she claims this is way she is prematurely grey!)

Actually writing this has made me realise I don't tell her all this enough. Think I may give her a call.

hmm I am certainly finding similarities between mine and my mums parenting style. I seem to be 'functional' although I do have fun times with my son most of that falls to dad whereas I fulfill the feeding, homework, etc. roll. I was one of four so she didnt have much time for me - I dont have that excuse so I guess I use the housework, full time job, etc. instead. It's weird because when we do spend quality time together it is wonderful but I seem to have an amazingly short fuse when it comes to bad behaviour and his apparent lack of fear of discipline. I guess kids nowadays know that we are not going to do anything physical and that I cant stand the thought of him being miserable for a week when I deny him tv/Wii or whatever. I guess I am a much lazier parent than she was in many ways I want an easy life so maybe we are not that similar?

My mother breast fed, didn't smack, put us first. both my parents went to college in their forties to better themselves and took it in turns to be the breadwinner and go to college. and this was in the 60's and 70's so quite groundbreaking stuff. I think I was the only child at school who'd never been smacked.
The worst part of my childhhood was the dreadful period with no telly as they disapproved of adverts etc.

Not having the same technology as other children can be incredibly isolating, I remember clearly not being able to join in with media based conversations at school, which face it is almost every conversation.

What I do differently - not much - I push the value of education more.
But the big but thing I do differently is we have a massive 42" T.V. laptops, mobiles whilst in year 6, X-box and online gaming.

I don't smack either, but this is the norm now.

And I have just forced my son into a Holister top because everyone else has one - he doesn't give a monkeys, but I would have loved to be the same as everyone else with the overpriced fashion clothes and a T.V. - I wonder what he'll be complaining about in the future - my mum made me wear clothes I didn't like.

At the moment it's hard to tell - DS is only two, and I don't remember how my parents were with me then. But in general, I really want to emulate them. I learned to be independent and entertain myself (in a good way, not a resentful way!), I was very happy at home and have a good relationship with them now. They didn't 'play' children's stuff with me, but gradually introduced me to the things they loved - so I shared my Dad's huge SF book collection, and went mountain walking and biking with him, things like that.

The only thing I want to change is that they didn't really 'teach' me some life skills, like cooking or looking after money. They pushed me hard at school (which was great), but didn't really teach me stuff themselves (once I was past the 'helping to read' and 'introducing to algebra' stage). My Dad recently made fun of me because I didn't know how to make a cup of tea until well into my teens, but surely that was their fault more than mine?!

My Mum's life revolved around my father more than us. Whereas my focus is much more on our children. See DH largely as co-parenting partner if I'm honest

My Mum was almost always calm, but didn't let us in on her emotional world much, or talk about feelings with us much either.

I'm more emotional, but also more emotionally intelligent and think that's an important area to explore and develop with the DCs. ( If you get my drift)

My Mum grew up in the war, and especially as a granny is always giving the DGs sweeties and ice-creams. Also makes and ices cakes with them, which they do love. But I've got a lot less of a sweet tooth than her, and worry a little about that much sugar in their diet and on their teeth (DS has had trouble with dental carries (sp?))

I think that gives you a fair idea

I'm sure my Mum did the best she could, as I do too.

We are just different people, with different experiences to draw on, and different cultural expectations especially regarding relationship with partner and children.

One more thing my Mum judges people a lot more according to how conventionally successful they are.
I try not to do this as much. I don't judge my children so much for sure on how much they're "achieving"

I see life far more in terms of experiencing all it has to offer. I love traveling, meeting people, and making connections and friendships as I go along in life ! I enjoy music and humour more than she seemed to. Generally she was either too busy, or always focused on something serious that had to be done.

I've probably rambled a bit here. But it's been an interesting one to think about.
Especially how I'm sure she has a much sweeter tooth from growing up with rationing - a real generational difference

very little different, I shout at, occasionally smack and generally snap at my children just as my Dad did at me (mum shouted less, nagged about mess more and smacked only if pushed hard.)

And I hope DH and I provide as much love and hugs, as clearer boundaries and as greater feeling of security as my parents did!

(But my cooking isn't as good as my mum's, my house isn't as tidy and I can only hope I am as patient a late night taxi service as my Dad)

I'm the opposite, thankfully - I have tried to emulate a lot of my Mum's parenting techniques as I feel she had a really good balance between being kind, loving and affectionate, but laying down boundaries at the same time.

However, what is MIND-BOGGLING is how her "parenting" skills have done a complete 180 degrees in the face of a grandchild! She lets my DS get away with murder, never tells him off and generally panders to his every whim. I have to remind myself frequently that it's the same person that raised me!

Yeh, NowayNohow,

I'm sure we never got all those sweeties and ice-creams !

Seem to remember they were always a treat .. Oh yeh, especially when the ice-cream van came round at Granny's house LOL
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i hope i am like my mum in most ways, she is the best mum you could ask for she did everything she could for us growing up, my dad was awful and eventhough they were going through a hard break up i never heard my mum and dad argue or snipe at each other, i only found out recently that she had depression for 10 years growing up being a good mum made her strong enough to get through the day

I think in many ways its hard to compare,my mum had 6 kids (am eldest only girl) stayed at home to rear us all.Whereas I have 2 kids am single parent and have always worked outside the home.

Writing that has made me think some of the reason i am so fiercely independent is because I always felt my mum felt trapped.she was great ,plenty of food love etc but I always felt that she wanted more.This sometimes led her to being forcibly happy and she didn't tolerate angry or sadness very well.This is something I have tried to change and to let my kids know all feelings are ok.

i think my mum struggled to let us all go and always wanted to know every detail of our lives and was terrified that we would make what she called mistakes.She is still like this but I am better at brushing it off.
I have become more tolerant of her little foibles now as my kids have got older as I'm sure they will have plenty to say about me!(all good ofcourse

LOL at MarioandLuigi mum. My dear MIL (a proper old fashioned school mistress) always promised she'd spoil her grandchildren completely and when they were totally wild hand them back, smile and say "Yours".
Sadly, she died suddenly when I was expecting DD2 (who is named after her) and never got the chance.
(We always went to see her at Easter, she loved the spring and I miss her )