To finally be able to say fuck you to my parents

[Now5sos]

My parents always had high expectations of me, I'm one of 4 but the only girl.
I fell pregnant at 17 to a boy I had been dating since I was 14, in my parents eyes he wasn't good enough, from a council estate and rough.
My parents told me I would live to regret it and I had ruined my life and my children's future by not marrying better.
We split after 25 years together, all amicable, he's still the most amazing man and father.
3 children later and our youngest has just recieved 3 offers from universities dependent on A level results.
Our eldest is settled with a great career and boyfriend, our middle child is living abroad, working a dream job.
I know I don't need to prove a point to my parents or anyone else but I just want to be able to say fuck you and look at what you told me we couldn't achieve, that a teenage mum and a council boy (My parents words) would never amount to anything.

@chattycaterpillar and yes, my personal success is something I am happy with. Thanks for asking

To be fair we don’t actually know what OPs personal successes are, there may be many
I think it’s a shame though if women consider their personal success to just be marrying a nice man (and then divorcing him) and having children that have good jobs.

@Hoppinggreen

To be fair we don’t actually know what OPs personal successes are, there may be many I think it’s a shame though if women consider their personal success to just be marrying a nice man (and then divorcing him) and having children that have good jobs.

Absolutely. There is more to life than marrying good men and raising good children.

I would have been upset and very concerned if I had a daughter who got pregnant at 17.
Your 3 children seem to have made it past that date without getting anyone pregnant/being pregnant - aren't you pleased about that?

Yes your parents were snobs and I'm sure they are horrible, but after 25 years I find this a really strange post.
My parents weren't great (my sister got pregnant in her early 20's out of wedlock - she even lived abroad so it really didn't affect my parents lives very much and they were absolutely horrible about it they were such snobs!) but it was a whole lifetime ago.
I can't imagine holding on to all that resentment all that time. You sound like you've had a very ordinary life, maybe they wanted more for you, but that's not a crime?

Do you realise you disagreed with your parents point of view - but the first thing you choose to mention was your youngest had three uni offers? You put higher education achievement in front of your other two kids achievements. And even then you are seeing good jobs as a measure of success. In the nicest possible way as you are understandably traumatised by what your parents said to you - but do you realise you are measuring your own kids success by either their academic or employment achievements? For me the best thing about your post was how happily married you had been and that he was a great dad. That to me is your measure of success.

My parents told me I would live to regret it and I had ruined my life and my children's future by not marrying better
Sounds like they were of their time. They grew up at a time when it was harder for women to get a good job, and being poor was more likely to mean being cold and hungry and living in unsanitary conditions. Was your mum a SAHM or reliant on your dad's wages to have a decent life?

Did they just criticise, and provide no support at all? Did you go no-contact, or why can't you remind them of their criticism back then?

I can see both sides. When I was a kid, I hooked up with a lad from the most rough family on the roughest council estate possible. I am still friends with him now but I'm so glad I listened to my parents now, mostly my Dad. He started smoking weed and that led him to try everything you can inject, inhale or shove up your nose. He lost his job and his health and is a mental and physical wreck from being an addict these 40 years.

I thought I was a good judge of him back then and he is still the best of a massively bad lot but ...bullet dodged quite honestly.

I would be really upset if my 17yr old got pregnant, I would do my best to help her keep herself on track though.

You really can’t see why your parents were not exactly thrilled when their 17yo daughter got pregnant?

To be fair, your 'fuck you' is because your own children haven't followed in your footsteps - don't you see the irony?

I’d let it go. I was 15 when I got pregnant. My parents (rightly so) completely flipped out. I ended up in a mother and baby home. They tried their hardest to force my to put DD up for adoption. When I refused they didn’t have anything so do with me for almost 2 years.

Nearly 30 years on life is good. I’ve been successful and DD has done very well for herself-I’m so proud! I was tempted many times over the years to say fuck you to them, (especially my mum) it was really difficult, especially when my daughter turned 15 and I could see so much of myself in her.

My dad died 21 years ago-I’m glad we were on good terms. My mum died 4 years ago, again, I’m glad we had a good relationship. She did say to me once, that they just did the best they could during a tricky situation. I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I let it go.

Success = happiness. Are you happy?

You are contradicting yourself.

No one wants their 17yo to become a parent. If it was so great why are you celebrating that your DC's haven't followed in your footsteps?

@PingPages At 17 a child should be getting a education and learning a skill or trade. Not getting knocked up fgs
Horrible things to get a child pregnant
Its not the middle ages you know, one can have children at a later stage in life when you have means to pay for them. Hows a 17 year old child going to support a child?

I'd let it go. People and times change No happiness is likely to come from it.

@Jessasamantha

Tbh if my 17 year old got pregnant to the boy from the local council estate I’d have low expectations too. You got lucky with the way your life turned out. It could easily have gone the other way. Your parents were right to be concerned. Great it’s all worked out but saying fuck you sounds a bit spiteful and pathetic.

I agree with this

Op it's great that you are in a good place in your life and raising a family is never easy but personally I think you should be grateful you had parents who cared enough to have high expectations for you. Can you not see the irony that you are celebrating your dcs' 'great career' , 'dream job' and '3 offers from universities' which are probably the same things your dps wanted for you?

Say it how you like, to whom you like, OP, and enjoy it. Well done.

To the people (and one person in particular) who said my dd would grow up a 'delinquent' because her father and I divorced when she was four, FUCK YOU! Thirty-six years later, she's doing fine.

I meant to add to my post that you obviously have a lot of unresolved hurt from the way your dps handled the situation when you were a teenager. And you obviously still feel the need for your parents to acknowledge their part in what went wrong.

It's not unusual for seventeen year olds to find communicating with their parents difficult and vice versa, even without a pregnancy and a relationship they didn't approve of on top of everything else.

If you are serious about repairing your relationship with your parents and getting them to acknowledge some of their mistakes then you need to do it in a much more mature way than saying "fuck you". You need to put aside your anger, take them out for a coffee and engage with them adult to adult. Acknowledge that you may not have behaved in the most emotionally mature way possible at the time. And see where it goes from there.

I suspect they were so upset partly because in this scenario, grandparents, usually the maternal ones, are often left to pick up the pieces.
How much input did they have into helping you as a teen raise your baby, financially and otherwise?