I am fairly open-eyed (I think) about my parents' parenting, which wasn't great. In many ways they were abusive, which they wouldn't ever recognise, but my mum has occasionally let on that she knows things weren't ideal at times. She used to get incandescently angry on a regular basis and physical punishments/being shouted at were the norm.
My DD is rising six. I found being a mum very easy until she was about 4 - I don't mean that smugly, I just mean, I had expected it would be extremely hard and that I would be terrible at it, and it was an enormous relief to find I wasn't constantly furious with DD (in fact I don't think I ever was), and I didn't find it hard not to shout at her.
I worry more about my parenting now. I just feel that bit more out of my depth and worry I am not quite giving DD the sense of love and security she deserves. I love her enormously, but when she was smaller, I found it almost instinctive to figure out where the line was between showing her love, and ticking her off when she was naughty. Now she is that little bit older I find it much harder. I put work into reading parenting books and listening to advice about what I should be doing, so I'm not just winging it, but it's a bit unsettling that I no longer feel as if it's so obvious what's right to do.
The issue I have is that my mum has started telling me I am far too strict. Almost as a reflex, she will remind me not to be too strict, or to be more gentle with DD. If she visits and I do something like telling DD to go to her room because she's repeatedly been naughty, or insisting she sits at table to eat instead of wandering off, my mum will start telling me DD is a very good girl and I need to be gentler.
I could imagine this might be her way of correcting things, and trying to get me not to repeat what she did with me. But, it makes me feel really unsettled, and I end up in a cycle of worry that I have got it wrong with DD.