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Original poster

Do you think you're a better mum than your own mum? How do you feel about that?

97 replies

dreamingbohemian · 30/01/2012 13:00

My mum is currently staying with us for 2 weeks (not by choice really, got guilted into it). She's taking care of DS (21 months) while I work from home and DH is away.

We've always had a fraught relationship (long story of course!) but it wasn't until my 30s really that I started to think it's not really all my fault, and that in the end she just has not been a very good mother.

She was not abusive, I know she loves me and in some ways over the years has been helpful. But she is emotionally manipulative, melodramatic, chaotic, bitter, angry, handled her divorce very badly and just generally makes no sense to me. I left home at 17 and never went back for more than a few days at a time.

When I was pregnant and thinking about what kind of mum I wanted to be, I realised everything I thought about was how I don't want to do this like my mum. I could only think of one thing I would copy from her (she always made sure I had lots of books). That is literally it. This realisation was heartbreaking to me Sad

Having her here and seeing how she takes care of DS is giving me a lot of flashbacks and I'm struggling.

I don't think I'm super mum or anything but I do think in many ways I'm doing better than my mum.

I guess maybe this should make me happy but instead I just feel overwhelmingly sad. I wish with all my heart I had a great mum Sad

Just wondering if anyone else feels this way and has any coping strategies. I feel like I could never say any of this in RL because it's such a taboo to think badly of your mum.

OP posts:
OrmIrian · 30/01/2012 13:40

No. Sadly I think I have turned out to be very similar. In both good and bad ways. I just get on with it the best I can. So did she I guess.

upahill · 30/01/2012 13:49

Yes I think I am a better mum.
For many reasons (although I am sure my kids will have their thoughts on it.)

I would go as far as saying even DS2 has noticed and commented on it.

I was spoilt in many ways. i got a new outfit every week for the village hall disco and mum and dad were good fun.
However my mum is extremly opinionated and very critical. Even to the point of where she was highly insulting about my weight 3 weeks ago ( I am 5ft 5 and 10 1/2 stone and she said how hugely overweight I was and I really need to lose lots of weight before I get diabetes, heart attacks etc. This was said in front of DS2 who is a fretter and worries. When I challenged her about it I am accussed of being over sensitve and don't like hearing the truth!! 'Oh Upahill, you just like having your 'yes' friends around you. If your mother can't tell you the truth about how fat you are, who can? You have always been touchy andcan't take any thing said against you!!' (ffs!!!)

Dh was fuming and I could see him getting angrier and angrier. MY dad sat there agreeing with her. This is perfectly normal for them!

I have strived to push my kids with their school work and watched them like a hawk as DS1 is getting ready to leave and in year 10 he really took his foot off the gas and was heading for all round fail. For a while he was really resentful of us picking up on him but things have turned round, however I have also given him more relaxed rules than I had.

I had to be in at 10.30pm even when I was 17 and in before 11.00pm when I was 18. Then she wondered why I left home shortly after getting pissed off with these rules. I let my son out late ( as long as I know where he is, phone numbers etc) and always make a point of chatting and asking if he had a good time, did he have a laugh etc.

I like taking my kids out on social occasions, we eat out a lot as a family ( another critisim she has about us) ohhhhh I' going of on a tangent now never mind

God I get fed up!!

I was going to say I would hate to turn out like her when I am her age but I havae just realised that I am over the age she was when she was when I left home because of her critisims, nagging and opinions!!

chipmunksex · 30/01/2012 13:50

My Mum was crap, she didn't do anything but go to work, no housework, no washing, no cooking and by the time I was a teenager she was only there about once a month anyway, as she practically lived with her boyfriend.

It's not hard to do better than her.

upahill · 30/01/2012 13:50

Sorry mine ended up being a rant Blush
Just hit a cord with me that's all.

MamaLazarou · 30/01/2012 13:57

OP, your mum sounds a bit like mine.

I am a much, much better mum than mine was, and I am glad, in a way, that I had her bad example to learn from. I'd say that, as long as you have the self-awareness to learn from her mistakes, you should do a good job.

NotMostPeople · 30/01/2012 13:58

My Mum didn't show me any affection, but did to my brother. She had a hard time after she divorced my father,however she always put herself first. I do the opposite of her in almost every aspect of my parenting.

ReallyTired · 30/01/2012 13:59

My parents did their best. They also lived in a different age and had different values. Both my brother and I got smacked/ beaten quite a bit as children. Their opinon was that Bible told parents to use corporal punishment. However we had fresh home cooked, private education and a good house.

My children have a less materially, but I feel I have a better emotional relationship with them. I take more of an interest in the ups and down of their day. I listen to their moans when they fall out with friends.

Whether I am better mother I have no idea. I have to wait to see what happens when my children are 18.

EnsignRo · 30/01/2012 14:00

I hope to God I'm a better mum than mine was, I am trying very very hard to be. In fact, one of the things I've been wondering lately is what sort of person I would have turned into if my mum had been more like me....

fotheringhay · 30/01/2012 14:06

I can really relate to some of the bad experiences here (being ignored, criticised, vented at, etc).

I'm reading a good book at the moment called "Parenting from the Inside Out" which covers exactly this. It says you need to clearly understand the parenting you received, in order not to copy it.

EnsignRo are you going to try to become that person? I assume it's a happier one Smile

Original poster
dreamingbohemian · 30/01/2012 14:14

Oh god, we just had a huge fight, I can't take this Sad

Have to take DS to doctor's but will be back later -- thank you so much everyone for writing, it helps so much to know I'm not alone. Will be back...

OP posts:
EnsignRo · 30/01/2012 14:23

Thanks fortheringhay I am going to look up that book! As for trying to be that person, I am lucky enough to have a very happy life and on the surface a decent relationship with my mum now. But I guess anyone (like many of us it seems) who has been raised with that critical voice in their ear ends up with a similar voice in their head. It's learning to ignore that which I struggle with.

NoMoreMarbles · 30/01/2012 14:31

i hope soSmile

i really make an effort to be a good mum and i know im not perfect (is anybody?)

my mum (and dad) was very stand-offish and never said she loved me (or my 3 siblings) she hit as fast as she would say no. there was not alot of laughter or love in our houseSad my dad was slipper-happy and would make us line up- i was second in line as i was second-born- to be hit when we were "naughty", which was often in his opinionSad we got one hit per year of age. this included my 2 year old (at the time) brotherSad i was 6 or thereabouts from what i can remember. this was the year my dad became disabled and i believe he was clinically depressed but mum wasnt and just stood bySad

i sometimes feel the urge to hit but remove myself from the situation ASAP so my DD doesnt see this and i suppose this is my cross to bear. they have made me aware of my own behaviour and i try harder because of that so i dont make my DD suffer like i did. i tell my DD that i love her every single day and smother her in kisses and cuddles. she knows she is loved and wanted and her childhood is already better than mine(shes 6)

LieInsAreRarerThanTigers · 30/01/2012 14:37

I don't know I'll let you know in about...20 years?

chipmunksex · 30/01/2012 14:49

thinking of you dreaming.

SchrodingersMew · 30/01/2012 14:52

To those who replied to me, thanks. :)

It's okay (for me, not my brother) because I can't remember most of it and there is no way I will ever be a better Mother than my Dgm who I went to live with. :) Tbh, I think myself very lucky, my early years may have been messed up but later on was brilliant. :)

ProfCoxWouldGetIt · 30/01/2012 15:34

I wish I was half the mum, my mum still is, how she had the paitence to work and raise 2 children I will never know.

Hullygully · 30/01/2012 15:42

yes

but I know my mum did her best (under very trying circs)

upahill · 30/01/2012 15:50

D'yer know that despite the insults and how much she pisses me off I still get the urge to phone her. (alway me phoning never her, well twice in the last three years!

DonkeyTeapot · 30/01/2012 15:53

It's too early to say yet if I'm a better mum, as DD is only 6mo, but I desperately want to be.

She did very little housework, and would get me or one of my siblings to make dinner so that she could carry on with her knitting. I remember a few occasions where I sought encouragement, or wanted to show her something I was proud of, but was met with annoyance for interrupting her. She would not get out of bed until we had all gone to school. Occasionally it seemed as if she was struck by a guilty conscience, and would get up bright and early, hammer on my door and bellow "time to get up!" which just rankled as I'd usually be at least half dressed by that point. It never lasted longer than a week though before she was back to old ways.

Oops, seem to have gone off on one there, sorry. Suffice to say that I, too, use my mother as a measure of the kind of parent I don't want to be.

LostinLocation · 30/01/2012 16:10

Dreaming I sort of have a similar problem at the moment.

I am 22 weeks pregnant with my first and it has brought up all this stuff with my mother that I thought I had dealt with years ago. It's confusing me at the moment because it's come out of nowhere.

My mum, like other posters have said, had a difficult up bringing herself and was violent and emotionally very aggressive with me from a young age (2 or 3). I am the only one of my siblings who was treated in this way (with adult hindsight I realise it may have been because I look like a carbon copy of her- the only child with her hair colour etc).

When I hit around 21 I had a personal revelation that I had some control over how our relationship played out and that everything about my childhood wasn't my fault. Since then we've actually had a fairly workable, familial bond. It's not exactly close but it is loving in its own way.

However I have realised in the last few months that I simply wouldn't want her to look after my child because I fundementally don't trust her. This feeling has just arrived fully formed and I am seriously uncomfortable with it.

So no advice really- but I (kind of) know what your going through.

SilentBoob · 30/01/2012 16:21

I want to say how hugely encouraging it is to read so many people saying how great their mum was and is.

I hope I am a better mother than my mother was, but I often feel that I am doing it without a map. I find myself wondering if it is even possible to get to 20 years from now and still be a positive part of my children's lives, and still have them love me and want me and feel warmly about me.

unusualsuspect · 30/01/2012 16:23

I've never really thought about it tbh , my mum did her best, same as me really

PopcornMouse · 30/01/2012 16:24

My mum's amazing, like Kayano says, if I'm half as good I'll be happy :)

LieInsAreRarerThanTigers · 30/01/2012 16:53

I think I try to parent in a similar way to my mum (fun but firm?) but my children don't react in the way I did at all, so it doesn't work. So in some ways I am not as good as her. I think I lack the teacher death-stare of unquestionable authority, and my dc seem to carry on as if I haven't said a word when I have laid down the law very clearly. Hmmmph.

However I think I am a bit less dogmatic than she can sometimes be, with superstition and/or religion coming into play a bit too much, along with some DM reader tendencies!

exoticfruits · 30/01/2012 16:59

I am very similar-I don't think that you could tell much difference.

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