What makes us the mothers we are?

[mears]

Right, I am looking for inspiration once again to help me with my assignments. I am researching women's approaches to motherhood. Is there anything you thought about your owm child experience that you were convinced you would try and avoid as a mother?
In my case, I knwe my mum loved having babies (I do too) but I remember thinking that she didn't have an awful ot of time for us as we grew up (there were 5 of us). I was determined to show affection which she didn't. I had absolutely no problems with the baby stage but am aware that my I did not enjoy toddlerhood vey much. Tried to conquer that but probably not very successfully.
What about you lot. What were your demons of motherhood in relation to your own experiences?

Oh too many to start on at this time of night, there was a thread very like this in january I think. Will try and find it before bossykate does

Hello, btwt, how's things?

Not too bad Suzy. Lee is doing really well after a minor setback last week with a raised temperature. He had his 4th lot of chemo satring Monday - only 2 more to go. Friend's mum died on Tuesday 8 days after a brain haemorrage- going to her funeral tomorrow. Other than that, things are OK - you did ask

to try and do things like show all the love to my child like my mother showed to me
i found little thing like how much time my mother pent with me i try and do the same for mine but there dont seem to be enough hours in the day dont know how she did it and worked
put mine into a routine where as my mother didnt belive in routine
apart from that try and be as good a mother to mine as my mother was to me

I wanted to give mine a stable home life with a mum and dad, which I didn't have (failed on that one already!)

I resolved to give my kids boundaries, which i didn't have. Still struggle with that one, it doesn't come naturally to me, but I'm learning.

I want to make sure they always know I love them, no matter what.

I wanted to have more time and demonstrative love for my children than my mum had for us four, although I know she didn't have it easy, with a massive crumbling house and also my crabbit grandfather living with us. But she did far too much housework. Not to have a favourite, which my mum did. Not to smack - I wasn't too good at that, to begin with, but soon learnt that there are other ways to discipline. Not to condemn and criticise but to have faith in my children and for them not to be afraid of me. And lastly, never to read my children's diaries or private writings.

Thanks very much for your posts so far.
Did anyone feel inadequate as a new mother with a new baby. Some of the info i am reading just now suggests that if your mum had problems with a newborn, you may well have too. I personally didn't now much about my mums experience with newborns except that she breastfed. She was actually shown off by the consultant as someone unusual who breastfed twins. I certainly had a confidence with breastfeeding, probably due to the support of my mother rather than being a midwife. She just believed it should and could be done. How did your mothers influence how you looked after a newborn?
Will bump this up in the morning

For older children (so from my own memories of injustices I suffered) I have resolved not to:
Drink
Smack
Pressurise my kids to be better at everything. (I once got told of for only getting 98% in a maths test)
Present a divided view from that of dh

With babies I had supreme confidence, but in a way it was because I ddin't have anything to live up to. My stepmother couldn't tell me anything about my own babyhood, and admitted to not particularly enjoying db and dsis's. So I felt that I couldn't possible be worse than her, and that she wouldn't be criticising me, and that lack of pressure helped me to relax and enjoy the experience rather than strive to live up to her ideal (which is my normal pattern in life)

I will not get my children to behave by making them terrified of the way I will react rather than being concerned about the real consequences and moral outcome of behaviour. (Will try anyway). I was terrified of my mum and was really well behavied most of the time - for all the wrong reasons. She never hit me and loved me loads but was absolutely the most scary person I knew as a child and that is just not the kind of relation I want with mine.

On a positive note, my dad always listened to me and has never pre judged or interupted me, regardless of what I might have done wrong or what jibberish I am spouting. He remains calm in almost every situation and I would love to emanate his peaceful nature as I always gravitate towards him in a crisis as he is my rock. I would love to be my children?s rock and lifeboat in their life?s crises and do try to take a deep breath and stay calm.... (I did say try...)

blimey, what a badly written post that was - sorry mears, hope you get the jist of it!

One more point about newborns (sorry for hogging this post but it is interesting). My mum is supremely confident around new babies, always makes a bee line for them and coos and goos successfully. Has had the opposite effect on me when around her - her over enthusiasm and confidence makes me unnecessarily nervous around my own, I feel all fingers and thumbs when she is watching. However, when she isn?t around I admit that I am quite similar to her in the way I talk and behave with young babies - not sure if I am copying.in built or what, just how it is.

My mum was always very anxious, or is very anxious when we are sick. Perhaps because my sister was sick quite a lot. I think she has passed some of the anxiety on to me as I tend to be quite worried when mine are ill and always think the worse. I am very conscious of not passing on my anxiety to my children.

I'm the opposite really. My Mum had a hard time with me when I was a newborn, she was made to feel very inadequate by her own Mother who is a very domineering woman. When I had ds my mum was so concious of not making feel like she was made to feel, she never criticised and only offerred advice when I asked for it. She was extremely supportive of everything, even when I had PND and thought I wasn't coping.

I would never smack my children, whereas my brother and I were smacked a lot, even with slippers and shoes. Up to being quite old - say about 10 or 11. I also want my children to feel totally secure in the family unit - my parents had lots of problems getting on when we were little, and I'm sure it leaves a legacy of insecurity. So things like not arguing in front of the children - don't manage that at all, but it's an aim.

My list of how I will bring my children up to avoid how I was brought up is as long as my arm, the most important aspects are:

I will give my love abundantly to my children - always ensuring that they know they are the number one priority in my life. Something my own parents never did - they were always too self absorbed
I will tell my children I love them and show them affection everyday - this is so easy and one of the best bits about being a parent. I just don't understand how my parents couldn't show me affection or tell me they loved me.
I will never play favourites - speaks for itself!

When we were tiny we were literally dragged up - my mother freely admits to leaving us in our cots until 10.30am. She proudly tells anybody who will listen that she never gave up her lie ins for us and that we never cried or complained. She also used to put 2 tablespoons of brandy in our night time bottles to knock us out - apparently both of us slept through the night from the day we come home from the hospital (either that or more like we were ignored if we cried). I swore that I would never take that approach to parenting my own child and whilst I believe in strict boundaries - something my parents never erred from - I always tried to give my baby/child the benefit of as much love and contact as I could even if that meant bending the boundaries.

This is a subject I could go on an on about - did you guess

As a result of my own childhood, am determined to do the following differently:
1 Never, ever smack
2 Not row with dh around children as far as humanly possible
3 Welcome friends to our home and make it a friendly place for friends to come
4 Physically and verbally express love with hugs and 'I love yous' with older child as well as baby.
5 Never shout or punish for accidents (eg broken plate) - I have broken this one and still feel guilty about it. It's not fair.

Positive things I want to emulate

1 Read to him, have lots of books in the bouse
2 Encourage cultural experiences - museums, galleries, theatre
3 Let him do adult things with us - meals out, see our workplaces (easy for me as work at home!).
4 Have seaside holidays with whole days on the beach looking at minnows and tiny crabs etc
5 Take the time to do things like shell peas in the garden together and just hang out.

Books in HOUSE, not bouse!

BTW, she's a wonderful, committed and besotted grandma and ds worships her. I know she'd never, ever smack him.

Agree with this thread that the example our own mothers set us, both positive and negative, is hugely influential.

For me the biggest thing I want to do differently to my own mother is that I want to show them that my relationship with their father is secure and loving and mutually respectful and that they were conceived in passion as well as love. My mother has always given me the impression that she hated sex and that for her the experiences of conceiving us were tantamount to rape and I have struggled for a long time to overcome that.

My mother was fantastic, I can never remember thinking she did anything wrong. She was an incredibly loving, fair parent who had all the time in the world for us.

My father however, despite being very loving and having lots of time for us had a very short temper and would often become enraged in seconds about something relatively trivial. I hated this and I have vowed to take deep breaths and count to 10 before chastising dd about something.

I want to listen, properly listen, to my children, something I don't think my mother did.

When ds was first born (ie when I first became a mum) I had a lot of problems dealing with my relationship with my Mum. I loved ds so very much I couldn't imagine loving any other child that much. To me that translated as "Mum loved my brother as much as I love ds, so couldn't possibly have had as much love ready for me 15 months later." The really shocking thing, though, was to realise that the 15 months my brother had alone with my parents was a long long time (I'd always thought of it as being so short as to be negligable, but going through it in reality it jutst seemed so long). And I became intensly jealous of the time and love and fascination I realised he had got, which I figured I had missed out of. My Mum always rates my brother above me, and here was the proof and reason why!

So the other thing I am determined to do is to treat all of my children equally. No, not equally, but as their own individual self.

Oh, and I won't even consider using a childminder because of mine and my brothers' awful experiences.

Message withdrawn

I want to take time to play, talk and just "be " with DD rather than be obsessed about tidying up.

I want DD to feel able to have friends home as she gets older.

I will take DD to ballet, swimming etc for as long as she wants to go.

I will try to provide a settled home environment.

I will not use DD as my confidante as she grows up.

I will feed DD a varied, healthy diet.

Should our marriage fail I will consider DD at all times in any subsequent relationships.

My mum freely admits that she like babies but goes off the whole thing from about age 3 onwards. She also admits that she wishes my bro had been another girl (there are 5 of us in total). I have an amazingly complex relationship with her, most of the time i feel like i'm also responsible for her and her kids, which is ridiculous. I know that I made a conscious decision to put lots of effort into my marriage when DD was little as mum has a tendency to get absorbed in new baby and exclude everyone else. I think fear of relationship melt down was a big factor in my decision not to breastfeed at all, not to let DD sleep in our bed etc.

I hope my relationship with DD will be "healthier" and more supportive. DH has demons of his own with regard to his parents so I think we're both super-conscious of wanting to "do better" and what we think we should do to achieve this.

My mum and I were not only generations apart but worlds apart - she tried to do her best for us but never accepted change and attitudes in the world (eg tried to make us live like 1920s/30s children). So I want to try and keep up with my children's beliefs and interests and appreciate that the world and its attitudes and abilities change all the time.

I would like to bring up my children to feel they can talk to me about any issues and not dismiss their views because 'I know best'.

I want to try and do things which we all enjoy, and not just the boring 'adult' stuff.

But I would also like to carve out a life as 'me' and not just 'mum' hopefully to set a good example to my children and to make me a bit more interesting!