I'm an only child. My mother has always been very critical of me although she would fiercely deny it. Now that I have three daughters of my own I couldn't ever imagine saying the things that she did to me, to them. As a parent I never say anything negative to my children about who they are or what they do.
Examples;
I was good at art. Not as good as my dd but good enough to have got an A at GCSE. My mum said I wasn't very good at it and it made me decide not to study it further. My dad was a graphic designer so it was normal that I should have been interested in it.
Always telling me other people were better than me at things.
At school I was in the choir and in competitions she would point at another school and say 'they were better'
In dance competitions she would say to me afterwards 'don't do X, Y or Z - it looks silly'
I ended up feeling that I would never amount to much. And my parents gave me no direction or support. Because of this I worry constantly that I don't give my children enough support or whether I should be doing more to encourage them. This is partly because I've had various mental health problems and one of my psychiatrists said that my problems are partly to do with lack of support/direction from my parents.
I always tell my children constantly how good they are at something or how well they did at it. I never, ever compare them to someone else. It just feels so wrong to me.
Is this something anyone else can identify with?