Parents want their children to do the same as they did, and not to fail or succeed at it.

[Nightynight]

Do people think that there is some truth in this, ie that some parents try to create their children in their own image, and then get jealous if the child is more successful than they were?
come in all you OU psychology students!

Im interested because it sounds like my parents.

better add for copyright sake; quote is from Haneif Kureshi.

well not in my case either from my mother or from me as a mother.

Message withdrawn

My mum pushed me to do all the thing she wanted to do but never had the chance and then resented me for managing to do them. She is very competitive always asking how much money we are earning just to see how she is doing in relation. I can remember her being very smug when my marriage broke down as I had repeated her mistakes.

I find this very sad and also a bit worrying as I know I have encouraged dd to do things I wanted to do and never had the chance or give her a quality of life I missed out on. I hope I will always feel simply proud of her rather than competitive, threatened or jealous.

I know my grandparents on my fathers side came literally from abject poverty in London. My father, in comparison, was massively more succesful in his career / money-wise than they had ever hoped to have been.

My grandfather is as proud a parent of his son that I have ever been witness to. It has brought him to tears on occasion, but perhaps that's because when you come from such dreadful places, you would never hope for anything but your children never having to experience this.

Who knows how this has changed though, in the next generational set.

DHs parents are hugely proud of their 3 successful sons. DHs father and mother were RAF, father went on to fly with BA until he retired, so could be regarded as equally successful, and DHs mother was and is a high flyer in the computer industry, and so has always been interested in, and understood the areas in which her sons work.

Perhaps if they were less successful, they would feel differently, but then they were highly motivated people, and taught their children the value of working hard for a living - so couldn't surely be surprised or jealous and anything but proud parents.

Is this a generation thing?
I know my grandmother felt like this - my mum apparently "married above her station" and should never have furthered her education after school as it was a "waste of time" - yet I have heard her talking about her grandchildren going to university and saying how she never got the chance and we "young uns don?t realise how lucky we are..". Equally, she paid for my mum to have piano lessons, even when mum wanted to give up and they probably could do with saving the cash, as she had learnt the piano as a child and felt it important that she did well at the arts like her.
My mum has never been like this - far more open minded and never been limiting, never offered anything other than encouragement and support.
Hope I am never jealous or try to mould/limit in their dreams.

this is very interesting.

my mother once referred to a particularly good exam result I got as "flashy". I cant understand what was in her head. Like you twinset, I hope I will never be like that with my children.

I think there is some truth in it, actually.

My parents say they're not bothered what we do as long as we're happy blah blah blah, yet my sister dropped out of uni and decided to stay at her job as a bar person for a while and my parents were both disappointed. My mum, because she had to drop out of college to be a parent, and my dad because all his life he has done a boring-but-paid-well-and-secure job and I think he wants better for us. My dad also wanted to join the navy and is over the moon that my sister is now in the army.

With me, my parents had two children so wanted me to stay with two children. I could say they didn't make their views known, but they did, with endless comments on how people can only afford to provide for two children, that supermarket shopping is good for four and a bit of a pain for five, etc. Also, both my parents were over the moon when I had a boy (the first one that is) because they didn't have a son and would have secretly liked one. My dad went mad when I told him I was pg at the age of 19, and actually stated that "kids ruin your life". I don't think he regrets having a family (though tough luck if he does) but he does regret some of the things he hasn't done, and wanted me to do.

With studying, my mum has an OU degree and wants me to get an OU degree (having already done a few courses and considering 'conventional' uni), but because her degree hasn't gotten her a decent job like she hoped for, she now says any degree is a waste of time. My mum is an 'English' person, my dad a 'Maths' so we all frequently have the arts/science courses are better/harder conversations.

My mum and I are very (unspokenly) competitive, which is obviously good and bad...

So yeah, there's tons of other examples (smacking children, being a sahm, friends, routines etc) but I do think there is some truth in parents trying to compete with/recreate their children based on what they would have liked to do with their lives.

I don't know maybe it is what happens to people who for one reason or another just f**ed up their life.

My mum came from a very well to do middle class family but my gran ran off and my grandad couldn't cope so she had to bring her self up. My mum is very clever but has no qualifications. She then had two awful marriages and had to start from scratch in her forties, absolutely penniless with only a few suitcases.

Whenever she sees us do well she just can't seem to get over that feeling that she should have had the same. She is also a very lonely person with few friends so has time on her own to let things stew in her mind, reflecting over and over again on events and that tends to make her bitter.

I once bought a history exam paper home in which I had got 100%, my mum looked at it briefly before saying that the writing was untidy!

I suspect it depends on how fulfilled your parents are really (or how bitter?). My parents have never tried to create me in their own image and have always been proud that I achieved (on paper) far more than then (mainly because they were working class so had fewer opportunities).

I don't mind what the boys do- I hope they are happy. I don't need to live my life through them. I don't care whether they go to university or not, I don't care how much money they earn. DH says they can do what they like "as long as they're not a bloody lawyer" (being one himself )

agh- before I cause offence- they were working class in the 1950's so had fewer opportunities!

I really wanted DS to learn to rollerskate

As I wasn't allowed rollerskates

SO we got them for DS but because of his Dyspraxia and balance problems he finds it very very difficult and will only do it in the house.

I know that probably isn't what you meant but that is the one thing I wanted him to learn to do that I wasn't allowed. IYSWIM

I think parents who are psychologically flawed may feel that.

But most parents surely want the best for their children and do "just want them to be happy". I want my children to have opportunities I never had - totally understand Kanga's rollerskating thing - I want my children to learn to ride a bike, roller-skate, play a musical instrument, swim, do ballet, etc. etc. before they are adults, or at least have the opportunity to do that. If they don't walk through the door, at least it was open to them. But most of all I want them to be happy people when they are adults. And I know that having lots of opportunities doesn't necessarily make you happy, but I still feel I have to try and make stuff available to my kids as much as possible in case it opens a door which might make them happy long-term.

Yup.

My mother didn't want me to go to university because she didn't go. She wanted me to learn shorthand typing, because that is what she did.
She didn't want me to have more than one child (she only had one), thought it was "really stupid" to have two, "you could spend that money on going on really good holidays instead". Which is what she did, and why I didn't go to university because she wouldn't forfeit her expensive holidays to pay for my grant.

She doesn't like it that I have a successful career, I should have just got a little job and given it up when I had children. Oh, and I shouldn't have moved overseas (at the earliest opportunity!), I should have stayed near her so that I could pop in and see if she was alright every day.

FFS!

Not in my family. I should have been the first from our closest family to go to University and my dad was SOOOOO proud, bragging to everyone that I was SOOOOO clever. .................then I had a gap year, which I extended into 2 1/2yrs. Here I am 7yrs after I should have been starting at Edinburgh Uni with a DH and 2 DS's

I'd LOVE my children to do better than me, as would DH.

I would also love my dd to do better than me, although not quite sure what that means as I have done ok myself. I would love her to have more confidence than me.

When i started uni my mum told all her friends I was doing Law at Oxford rather than theology at Kings. I remember being really hurt at the time that she just couldn't be proud of what I had achieved rather than feeling the need to make things up to cover her embaressment.

But I think she must have been proud as her competiveness entered a whole new league, she started a degree with the OU as I started university and was determined to do much better than me. This meant that my youngest sister was practically ignored while she worked all day into the early hours of the morning studying. The sad thing was she never finished her degree as she burnt herself out. But as I have just started doing my OU degree she loves to ask what mark I get for my assignments and then takes great delight in telling me how she got higher marks despite having double my workload.

I can see much of this happening again with my younger sister who is about to start university, my Mum again is talking about doing a degree herself and is always making comments about how thick my sister is and how a university education is a waste on her.

This is quite scary as my Mum is not an unpleasant person and I am sure that when I was my dd age she had all sorts of ideas of how she was going to be a wonderfully supportive mother and yet it all went wrong and now that it has it is so hard to make it right again. Becoming like my mother does haunt me, I am always asking dp to stop me if he sees me becoming anything like her.

I want my children to be wildly successful and keep me in my dotage

My cousin, who is the same age as me but has no daughters, once asked if I was jealous of mine being so young, slim and attractive. Er - no! I can't imagine where that came from either...

I think you must be a deeply unfulfilled and unhappy person to be jealous of your children.

You are right Caligual, my mum isn;t unpleasant and I am certain she would never wish any of us ill but she is very unhappy and unfulfilled.

I have a similar ethos Janh, I say I named my dd Grace after Grace Kelly so she could beocme successful and keep her mother in hermes handbags in her old age!

Good thing you didn't call her Barbara after Barbara Streisand! (I read years ago that her mother was living in poverty in a shoe-box somewhere - but it was the News of the Screws, so it may not be entirely true.)

I would like DD and DS to be successful at what ever they choose to do.

I think that they need to define 'successful' for themselves, not by reference to us!

I hope they don't choose what we did for several reasons but if they do I would support them all the way!

I think the children of successful parents do face a lot of pressure anyway and I would not wish to add to that burden.

I think my parents are/were very proud of my achievements which is nice. I don't think they were jealous at all of my successes.

caligula, Im sure youre right about jealous parents being unfulfilled and unhappy. But ffs, my mother's life has been dedicated to laziness and selfishness and getting her own way. It is true that she didnt manage to achieve all her ambitions, but I have a pretty fair idea what they were, and they were completely unrealistic!

hmm - she is a total fantasist though, and can persuade herself of anything. small chance at this time in her life of fixing anything.