Has becoming a parent changed your relationship with your own parents?

[wildpoppy]

I'm close to my parents and still am and see them at least a couple of times a week but it hasn't given us the deeper understanding thing they'd I'd hoped for. In fact it makes us a bit irritated with each other. I feel my mum is always making judgemental comments about us such as what we let dd do or eat and although in some ways she is a great help eg babysitting she also makes me anxious by always raising potential problems and by also causing more work than help eg coming to look after dd so I can rest or cook but making demands the whole time. Sorry it's turned into a whinge - on the whole my parents are great. But it definitely hasn't bough a new understanding...

I'd say that it's brought my mum and I closer to each other. She was quite interfering when I was younger but thankfully her approach now is not to judge but to support us when needed. She is also great in terms of babysitting. Being a mum has given me a greater understanding and appreciation of the sacrifices she made for my brother and I.

OTOH.....I have scant time for my dad. He was and still is very selfish and unreliable. I didn't have much choice about that when I was young, but don't see why his grandchildren should put up with it. He adds absolutely no value to mine or my dc lives.

Not sure whether age has anything to do with it but I was 30+ when I had my children. Are you young? I think my mum may have been more intrusive if I'd had children at a much younger age. She was still trying to tell me how to lead my life when I was 22 for instance!

We irritate each other in lots of exciting new ways

...but mainly it has been positive. And when my mum tells me I am a good mum I believe her in a way I wouldn't with anyone else.

I think that all of your relationships tend to change when you have kids, purely because you're no longer negotiating them as an "individual" in quite the same way.

I have got a lot better at asking for help/support since having DS - whereas before I used to shut down / tough it out more. Now I have him, my priority is to be as good a parent as I can be - and if I need some help to do that I will ask for it. My pride is much less important than it was! As a result I've seen a lot more of my parents and although they drive me up the wall sometimes I am really grateful for the help they've given me.

It has definitely brought me closer to my mum. She has been really helpful despite living far away and I love that there is someone else obsessed by my child who thinks he is the messiah. I am also kinder when she annoys me as I remember that she loves me the way I love my son.

And actually my dad was a terrible dad for most of my life. Expressed no interest, saw me once a year and generally missed my whole existence. He started making reparations a couple of years beforehand but having a child has really accelerated our relationship. Before having a child, he'd visited me once in 15-odd years; now he visits every few months. He has set up savings for my DS and emails all the time to find out how he is. It is like having a grandchild is a second chance for him (and perfect because you get to love someone without responsibility!). So yes, that has really changed.

Even my relationship with my in-laws has changed. My MIL loves my DS so much that it has brought us closer - as mothers together, we can share something when we are otherwise very different. Not so much with my FIL because he is terribly caught up in his social life and while it doesn't bother me too much that he doesn't make a big effort with his adult kids, I wish he would be more involved with my DS.

Er, so now I think about it, yes, all those relationships have changed. And I seem to have drivelled on a lot now....

Yes, it made it much harder to find any excuse for how they behaved when I was growing up.

Hi inhibernation. Not young alas - mid 30s

Gringos you describe my relationship with my parents but you do it more articulately. I feel better now.

Grumpla not Gringos. Phone!

Yes, in good and bad ways!
I have renewed respect for my parents, and more sympathy for the bits they struggled with, but, I have found it very difficult to understand some of their choices as I can't imagine doing the same. My Dad has been very selfish in his life and has said some awful things to me and I hate to imagine I would ever have such a bad relationship with my own child. My Mum is also the only other person who quite shares and understands my love for my child.

Not on topic, but I think it changed (I think for the better) my relationship with my step children.

Glad you feel better wildpoppy. It is complicated isn't it? Only this evening I had to phone my mum to find out where the heck she'd stashed DS's crayons. Very very irritating - but then again, she had tidied my whole house last week for me so that was why they were no longer in the pile of random crap art stuff next to the fruit bowl.

She has always been a neat freak and I have always been messy, but tend to know where everything is at the same time IYSWIM? So that aspect of our relationship hasn't changed much...

I'm in the same position as you op

In fact I now often feel quite bitter towards my mother because she was never able to show me the love that I find it so natural and easy to show my dc. for years I thought there was something wrong with me, now I know it was just because my mother was a shit parent.