How has your childhood affected how you bring up your children?

[bohemianbint]

I'm curious, as it's struck me recently that my crappy childhood has come back to haunt me and I am doing the exact opposite to what my parents did, on the whole...

mytwopenceworth - I think I'm another lost sib! I also love to be sure we have groceries in the fridge and cupboards - we never seemed to have any food when I was a kid - it was all spent on catalogs: clothes and home decoration etc. My mom got them both into a lot of debt using a Peter to Paul credit card system.

She didn't take me upstairs (it was a bungalow) - we hid under the dining table by the front window.

And I will not smack.

I wonder what terrible new mistakes we will make trying to avoid those of our own parents? The shocker is - mom thought that's what SHE was doing. Scary! Jill

Nothing quite like that feeling of opening a cupboard and stroking 30 rolls of lovely soft loo roll, is there?!

Message withdrawn

I could write a bit of an essay. I am really worried about the long term effects of the extremes of my personality on dd. But I am trying to recognise what were the really damaging bits and avoid them.

To listen to her, to make her feel she has a vote, yes even now, at 6 months.

To let her know how special she is, but for that love to be as uncontditional as possible. I think that my parents love was very conditional, if you do well, etc.

To have happy times together. To teach and allow her to express herself. And to see her as seperate and independent from me.

I do worry about it a lot though, I so hope she has happy memories when she is my age.

The main affect my parents' behaviour had on my parenting was how I handled my divorce from 1st DH. When my parents split, they never mentioned each other's name again - I guess they must have communicated re money etc but never mentioned it. It was so bad my father didn't even come to my mother's funeral (I was 16). In contrast, I speak to my ex everyday, he comes around for a cup of tea and a chat regularly, he's had joint custody with the 2 kids we have together and a great relationship with my now-Dh and younger kids. This took a lot of working at initally and when we first split I hated seeing him, but it's been so worth it and was a very deliberate attempt to not make things so shit for my DCs.

Not really sure yet how it is affecting me as a parent as DS is only 9+ months old.

I like to think I had a happy, stable childhood, yet do remember running up the 3 flights of stairs to my bedroom with my Dad hot on my heels ready to smack me!!

My parents never actually told me they loved me, yet we knew we were loved. That is one thing I will be doing differently, actually saying the words rather than just assuming.

i refuse to buy a chip pan.

i always try and have a well stocked, healthy fridge, always have time for dd (well, try to) and always tell her i love her and will bloody well do so when she has grandkids of her own

i buy clothes for her as well as books for fun and other educational stuff.

God I worry about this. I hope though, that if you are conscious of the mistakes your parents made, and the crappy times you had as a child, you will not make the same mistakes?

hopefully. i thinki am doing ok, tho on days when dd won't listen or doesn't eat properly i do wonder.

I had a pretty good childhood and lots of how I am I model on my mum. she was a good mum and is an ace granny. but I am/will be a lot more open about the "difficult" subjects - sex and drugs in particular but others too. I may well get it wrong but I really do want dds to be able to talk to us. the other thing about my childhood that has had a huge impact on me is the fact my parents got divorced. it would take a nuclear war for me to leave dh or agree to split.

Never smack

Tell them at least once a day that they are loved and are clever, beautiful, pretty, good etc

Will never favour one over the other

Always have time for them

Try to buy them things they really want within reason, e.g, I had no trainers and desperately wanted a pair I think they were £10 and was told we couldn't afford them yet then seen parents spending £20 on fags

Try not to argue with DP in front of DCs, nearly every night it would seem I woukd be woken by parents screaming at each other.

hassled - good on you. my parents had a pretty shitty divorce - in the sense of trying to pretend the other didn;t exist. mostly it was my dad that did this, whilst asking me not to make him compartmentalise his life - but apparently it was fine for me to compartmentalise mine. he couldn;t bring himself to even ring the doorbell if he picked me up. he never rang me. he declined mum's invitations to birthday parties. he never went to parents evening. having said I hope to god I won't get divorced I'm sure, if it happened I'd handle it better

I respect my dcs opinions and feelings. The disregard my parents had for mine still rankles deep decades later and they are both long gone.

I delight in my dcs achievements - but don't make them feel they have to achieve things in life in order to be accepted.

Although they are growing up in a very similar environment to the one I did, I make sure that the things I hated about my childhood are not repeated. (eg,Socially isolated/no special family times/never went out as a family or on holiday.)

Our dcs are indulged at Christmas/birthdays, which is something my dh grew up with as a norm, but I did not.

But most of all, the thing I absolutely HATED as a child was that I was not listened to, never mind my opinion given any value. That has left deep scars and other nightmares that self esteem may well have prevented.

Who was it said you become the parent you wish you had had??

i can understnad the self esteem issues. i can remember ebing told i was nothing special, although i think mymom (god rest her soul) probably meant that so that i didn't turn out to be bighead, it wen the wrong way and now have trouble believing in myself, so much so i rarely if ever feel like a yummy mummy

I'll never say to my children, "After all I've sacrificed to pay for your violin lessons/pony club blaa blaa".
My mother never socialised - apart from in her role as vicar's wife. I encourage my children to be far more sociable.
I've never packed belongings in a box and made my children wait on the front step while I pretend to phone the children's home to have them talken away because they are naughty.
Even if I was a vicar (HUGE if!) I wouldn't come home from evensong, take off my vicar belt and use it to hit my child of 7 or 8.

I'll never say that my children's behaviour has caused high blood pressure/ heart problems/would kill my father. This was her response at finding my contraceptive pills when I was 20!! I'll attempt to be just a little bit more tolerant.

I'll never tell my children they disappoint me, or what they could have achieved.

That felt cathartic! Though MTW, still shocked at your lack of loo roll. Useless as I feel sometimes, I do think I'm doing a better job than my mum.

Yeah, fransmom - in our house praise was thought to cause a child to become bigheaded.

In my last year of primary school, I came second in the class at the Christmas report and fourth in the Summer one - my mother went mad over it. When I was about 16 an otherwise wonderful school report had just one less than lovely comment - 'occasionally careless with grammar'. It was THE ONLY THING my mother commented on out of the whole thing. I felt like I could never be good enough - this was not an odd occurrence, it was the way life was, always.

The self esteem issue is real, very real. To allow a child go grow up feeling they have no right to protest leaves them horribly vulnerable. There are people in this world who can spot such vulnerability and exploit it for their own ends. When being accepted = pleasing people, that is extremely dangerous territory.

TBH, I'm trying to copy everything my Mum did with me (single parent). I knew I was loved, she made me feel beautiful, she made me feel loved and I knew and know I always have her love whatever else happened/happens. She was the best mum in the world and I can only aspire to have my ds say the same thing about me
Thank you Mum. I love you more than you'll ever know

just want to say what a fantastic, and moving, thread!
I will try not to bitch about all my own friends and my child's in front of her.
I will not use my child as my confidante to confess and discuss problems with my marriage/life/financial problems in general.
I will not have a hobby that is so important that I choose not to be with my child on her birthday.

I can't believe that at 30 rs old I'm just starting to realise that my mother actually did alot wrong! And yet she tries to tell me how to bring up my dd!!

i tell and show my kids that i love them every day.
i tell them how beautiful they are
i talk to them and i listen
i never tell them they are stupid/worthless
i give them lots of hugs
i respect them
i never hit them
i never send them to bed upset
i am very proud of them and the way that they achieve things that others may take for granted as they have autism.

1. I will never assault spouse in sight/earshot of my children
2. I will never smoke in a car with my asthmatic children
3. I will never throw meals against wall because my football team lost
4. I will never drive at 100 miles an hour down M56 because I don't want to visit in-laws 5)I will never drag my kids to the pub on a sunny Sunday afternoon so they can watch me get slowly drunk
5. I will try share the principles and values of my mother, who despite the above (and more) was - and is - strong, honourable and inspirational.

My mother hated any physical contact, as a result I am a very tactile person and mother. I was never told I was loved so I try to tell my dcs that (although still find it hard as it was never expressed to me).
Praise my children all the time as nothing I ever did was good enough for praise (I come from a family of over achievers)
I want to try to give them confidence and self esteem over anything else.

I will never:

Hit my children
bully them
Make them so scared of me that they're walking on eggshells
Get steaming drunk and shout in their face 'You're not my effin Daughter'
Argue in front of them
Make them choose if they love mummy or daddy better

I will
Tell them everyday how much I love them
Cuddle them, listen to them, encourage them to do well at school (this is a big regret of mine), try to surround them evryday in love and happiness

My mum was very hot-tempered, physically abusive and never said sorry. I consciously try and do the opposite.

I am like meandmyflyingmachine.
I think my mum was a good parent. People think I look at her with rose-tinted-glasses, so I am trying to address that. I am trying to enjoy ds more, trying tnot to kill myself when trying to be an 'ideal parent'.

Twopenceworth, was not shunning you, had to work :-( Had to hid jewellry from bayliffs(sp?) once:-/

And that bit about the keeping you off school, my god!

I love my parents but bloody hell, I am not going to be going down that road!