After having a child have you reflected ALOT on your upbringing?

[yoooop]

A lot of my maternity (baby now 11mo) I have reflected on my upbringing. Thought about things that I didn't even consider before having a baby regarding my upbringing.

Mostly I had a good and safe childhood, but I can't help to look back and feel disappointed with my parents over things they could have done, or taught me.

Does anyone else feel like this?

Honestly, one of my parenting rules is 'Am I acting like my mum?' and that normally stops me in my tracks!

Yes, absolutely.

I had a fairly poor relationship with my mother anyway, but now it hangs by a thread because I have so much unresolved anger. My biggest fear is history repeating itself.

TBH am guessing everyone can think of mistakes that their parents made.Every generation was different with parenting styles .
I really cannot get worked up about how my parents were .

Fundamentally they were fine and absolutely adored my childhood.
In fact the really wacky/ odd things they did my sister and I laugh about now.
I have a brother who has spent his adult life blaming my parents for all his short comings/ poor life choices and I actually have zero sympathy !
I do obviously sympathise with abusive and traumatic upbringings though .

I actually feel like I have a lot more understanding and tolerance of the mistakes my parents made now. I think as a child, and even as a young adult, I thought that they should be infallible and I don't think I saw them as fully rounded, imperfect people like everyone else. I do now, and so I think I have much more understanding that they were trying their best. But that comes with the caveat that I think mine really were trying their best - it must be very different, and much harder, to come to terms with it if they weren't.

I feel the same. I have a lot of issues thinking about my childhood that I hadn’t thought of before becoming a mother myself. I don’t think my parents done their best, but I suppose there wasn’t the access to the same resources that we as parents have access to now.

Part of my resentment is that DM either rewrites history or completely refuses to acknowledge what happened altogether due to her poor mental health.

Yes I went through this. My children are 6 and 4 now. But when my eldest was a baby and when I was pregnant with her I went through almost an angry, grief towards my mum. It did settle again after a year or so. I think looking back on that time, I had to for the first time in my life choose to do what I wanted and I knew my mums thoughts and ideas were not always going to match up to mine. It was my body and baby and I had to enjoy my pregnancy and settle into motherhood my way.

My mum is a complex character. She didn't ever want children but had 4 of us in total. She sort of knew how to keep a house running and keep us fed and clothed and in line. She wasn't horrible. She really wasn't. She was just no good at the stuff that mattered. Comfort. Praise reassurance. Compliments. I have not one memory of my mum hugging me. She never had that warmth or expressed love or pride. But she's always been very able to point out why we are wrong. What we should be doing. She has this way of making me feel small and silly and child like even though I'm 32. I know this isn't in my head. All my partners have commented on my mums behaviour. My latest boyfriend has said she treats me like a little girl still with how she talks at me.

I think at a guess my mums realised over the years she never lived much. Never did anything. Never worked. Stayed home. Routine and cooking and cleaning. She's never altered her routine or done things independently away from my dad. Friendships and things just were not a thing. She rarely had someone around got a coffee. But she just didn't mix. Which rubbed off on us. Our confidence. She was always so fast to put us down. Now she sees me doing my own thing. Living differently. Not commiting to cleaning and choosing days with friends over ironing. She gets sort of fired up and tries to bring me back into line. I often get a message from her saying are you going to get cleaned up today whilst the kids are at school. I will reply and say no I'm having a coffee with Jo etc. She won't reply always then.

She never ever built me up to be a woman in the big world. I've had to learn alot and I'm.still learning. I missed out alot from not knowing where I belonged as an adult. But I'm certainly getting there.

@HardbackWriter

I actually feel like I have a lot more understanding and tolerance of the mistakes my parents made now. I think as a child, and even as a young adult, I thought that they should be infallible and I don't think I saw them as fully rounded, imperfect people like everyone else. I do now, and so I think I have much more understanding that they were trying their best. But that comes with the caveat that I think mine really were trying their best - it must be very different, and much harder, to come to terms with it if they weren't.

I think mine were trying their best, too -- only their best was woefully inadequate, even by the standards of the 70s.

But their own limitations of experience, their own very poor upbringings, and the fact that they were and are both timid, socially-isolated people with little experience of other people and other approaches to family life, meant that they had nothing to compare themselves to. They had themselves grown up in conditions which made them feel our childhoods were fine in comparison.

I think I've realised how badly damaged my parents and MIL were by their upbringing and family dynamics - I think FIL is just diffcult as DH always said he was.

Most worrying is the don't seem to recongised reapting patterns of behavior - stuff they hated/dmaged them but then did to us DGC and found some new ones.

With both sides you do wonder if you're the problem but them find kith and kin have had same and even worse problems with them.

I think Philip Larkin was on to something:

www.goodreads.com/quotes/66966-they-fuck-you-up-your-mum-and-dad-they-may

But yes - try and replicate the good and seriously avoid the bad and hope you do better and put boundries in for you and your kids.

I think it did but mainly I focused on the brilliant bits and how fortunate I was to be loved, cared for and safe. They were very different times in the 60s and with a large family my parents did their best. As a parent I also recognise how challenging it is and that I have made plenty of my own mistakes.

Ne if my key reflections was that when I was brought up my parents loved me. In our generation we are in love with our kids and the downside if that is that our kids seem less independent s as bd resilient than we were in my day. So maybe less attention and a bit if benign neglect helped us develop better skills for life. Rather than kids who have been entertained all the time and over protected.

Yes, and its got a lot worse as my kids have got older. I look at my young adult kids and the thought of saying and doing to them the things my mum said to me makes me feel sick to my stomach. Its a huge part of the reason ive finally gone N/C .

I think - and I quite often bang on about this on MN, so apologies for anyone whose seen me say this before - that the single most worrying thing about current parenting 'best practice' is that it seems to really encourage people to believe that they can create psychologically flawless people if they just do it right. I see it a lot with people pushing attachment parenting - an idea that it'll be hard when they're little but that the pay-off is that you'll get these amazingly confident, secure, stable teens. I think that's so dangerous for people to buy into - huge pressure for the parents, and indirectly for the children. Absolutely every one of us posting here now will raise children that have some issues, and who will be able to trace some of those issues to how they were raised. We aren't going to make people with no hang-ups, because they wouldn't really be people. Part of what it is to be human is to be psychologically flawed. I'm not saying that we should therefore throw our hands up and say 'oh well, no point trying' but at the same time we shouldn't assume that we've got it 'right' and so our children will never feel as we do about our own parenting.

Yes. My DC are 12 and 16 and I realise that my parents were much better parents than I had ever given them credit for when growing up.

They were loving, kind and supportive and I take a lot of my parenting cues from them.

Some really sad responses on here 😔 I reflect a lot as I raise my girls & I see them as grandparents. As a teen/young adult, I thought they were boring & not as fun as other peoples parents. They are quiet, gentle people. But now as I raise my kids, I realise the huge sacrifices they’ve made to make my life happy. I had a wonderfully happy childhood. Yes, it wasn’t flashy but we had happy holidays in the UK & my parents scrimped & scraped to let me do dance classes & learn to swim! And they’ve supported me when I’ve frankly been a right teenage knob. I could cry with how I treated them even though it was nothing awful. I just didn’t go home much & clearly favoured my then boyfriends rich & flashy family. They must have felt so hurt. I hope I’m repaying all that bad stuff now as I moved back to my hometown & I spend time weekly with them & my kids ❤️ I love my parents so much. Becoming a parent myself makes that love stronger as I realise everything they did for me.

Yes, I have. My parents are good, nice people and we get on well. They dote on my son which is great.

I had a mostly happy childhood and they did, genuinely, do their best. Not perfect, but then, who is?

I think, looking back, I do feel I didn't have much one to one time with them (there were 3 of us children) and in a lot of ways, I have always felt that my younger sister was favoured. They didn't often go to parents evenings or support hobbies - I think they were overwhelmed with 3 children to be honest.

That has played a big part in my decision to only have the one child.

@Butteryflakycrust83

Honestly, one of my parenting rules is 'Am I acting like my mum?' and that normally stops me in my tracks!

Laughed at this. Me too.

It sounds like you might want to read the book you wish your parents had read.

Yes.

I forgive them for what I perceived were their failings.

Its only now I realise how difficult it actually is to parent.

I'm trying my best for my kids. I can only hope they forgive me for when I'm not at my best.

Absolutely. I ask myself every day how my parents managed to bring up three children. I need therapy but can’t afford it - DV, emotional, and to some extent, physical abuse and downright cruelty at times.

I have promised I will never treat my children the way I was treated

Yes, and wait until your child is older, you might be disappointed a lot. You hardly remember much about your life at 11 months but by 8-10 years you’ll have more examples. However don’t forget to be fair and to take into account financial, personal and other circumstances on both sides, also remember your parents might have had issues you know nothing about.

Yes it has. I appreciate my mum more. I had a great childhood and she was a single parent for quite a lot of it and we were on quite a low income. I also remember thinking wow my mum loves me so much! As it's not until you have children that you experience that all consuming love for someone! I base a lot of my parenting on how I was brought up.