Did your parents discuss relationships with you?

[Phyllissradishfarm]

When you were a teenager or even younger did your parents ever discuss relationships with you, or discuss how you should expect to be treated in a relationship?

My parents are quite uptight and didn't discuss anything. I'm trying to work out if that was normal for the time or are they just exceptionally uptight. They are very much in favour of schools teaching everything from cooking to making a bed to how to pay your gas bill. That seems to be quite a modern concept to me, expecting schools to do every bloody thing. I am wondering if they thought school was teaching me all this stuff.

I was a teenager in the 80s. I would be grateful for experiences from any decade. Probably no point to this thread really but I'm just trying to unpick stuff that happened.

Mum also had her mum, my granny, born in the first decade of the 20th century, who gave her some not helpful information when my mum had been young.

Mine never discussed relationships with me.. but then neither of them had much life experience to offer.. they met when young. Now my dd is in a serious relationship, isn't sure whether to commit but won't discuss it with me. At least she talks to my dh her step dad but it does upset me.

My gran and my mum both dinner into me that decent men never abused women and if a man once raised his fist you go straight home.

My grannie had many a tale about the farm workers and their families. There were one or two men who got pocket money with wages given directly to wives on Thursday afternoons.

My Mum had a lot of life experience to share (lived in several countries, had several relationships before meeting my Dad) and she emphasized that a partner must always treat you with respect and that you should never settle for anything less, which was valuable advice. I’ve passed it onto my DD.

Unfortunately, my Dad’s MH issues, which he wasn’t open with her about before they married, meant that she had a pretty rough time with him. But he did genuinely love and respect her, he just constantly needed propping up, mentally, emotionally, and financially, which was a big strain on her.

I deliberately chose someone who’s the polar opposite, so I suppose I learnt that lesson from my parents as well!

Not at all! Never.

My mum was very open (maybe TMI open) about her relationship life when I was a teen in the 90s. On the emotional front she was very big on 'compromise and be the peacemaker' and though she is amazing in most ways I don't think that was the best piece of advice and it didn't serve me that well in relationship with DH and things have only improved since I've been less compromising!

She did have some real zingers, though like 'Remember darling, all men think with their dicks' 😆

I never had any relationships in my teens, I wasn't remotely ready until my 20s so there wasn't really any need to have conversations regarding me and relationships at that point.

As a child, no. I wish they did because it would have saved me 20 years with my now ex. But I also don't think my own parents have a particularly healthy relationship either. They are codependent. My mum is emotionally cold and controlling. My dad literally mothers my mum - he does everything for her. My parents are of the mindset that you don't end it unless he's hit you or had an affair.

I try to talk to my kids about relationships. It helps because I broke up with their dad last year so I am explaining to them what didn't work with us in an appropriate way. I also try to behave in a way that I want them to emulate. I want them to see a healthy relationship in a way I didn't. Even if that is just how I behave with my friends and family rather than a romantic relationship.

80s child, so a teenager in the 90s. I don't think parents of that era actively parented beyond looking after the basics of making sure we were fed and clothed - there wasn't the level of planning, educating and role modelling as there is now. The few conversations we had were very much for my mum's benefit, not thinking about mine. For example she would rant about how shit men are and how I should avoid being 'trapped' by getting pregnant, but she also started telling me from age 14 that I should sleep with boys otherwise I wouldn't be 'popular'. She was genuinely perplexed that I wasn't interested in being popular (good job really!) and seemed to worry about how that would reflect on her.

The views she did have were standard at that the time but worrying - eg when I had 15 and 16yr old friends dating guys in their earlier twenties she would talk about how lucky they were, and how it was important to date someone who had a car and a job. There was a definite undercurrent of the importance of a) being grateful for men's attention and b) keeping a man happy, so although consent wasn't specifically discussed the ideas around it were very blurred into people pleasing.

Im late 30s so a teen in the late 90s, early 00s. My dad always told us if a man ever hit us, we were to go straight home too.

My mum always said if a man was really into you, he'd do all the running.

Sex before marriage very much frowned upon and we were told not to do it. I got pregnant out of wedlock but both were supportive.

My mum also held the purse strings, but never worked after we were born. Dad got a monthly allowance and never looked at the joint account until he retired.

I was a teenager in the 1980s. My mum is a feminist and she made it clear to me that I deserve to be valued and respected.

Thanks mum!

My Mother told me to always have my own income and I remember she said something like you never want to have to go to a man and beg for money for sanitary towels. She said let them do all the work but she also said don’t get fat.

My mum always said if a man was really into you, he'd do all the running.

@Dacadactyl My Mum said something similar, that if he wasn’t trying really hard, move on. Tbf, it’s not bad advice, because if someone cba to make an effort, they’re generally not worth bothering with.
My DD (18) dumped someone last summer as he wasn’t treating her the way she expected and tbh, I’d rather she had high standards. 😂

My DC were born in the 90s. I was a teenager in the 70s. What you experienced was not, in my view, the norm. I am sorry it was yours.

Teen in the late 90s/early aughts.

My mum was from the "no sex before marriage" school, which wasn't terribly useful tbh. I learned about sex and relationships from obsessive reading rather than from her. My parents' relationship was... okay, and they are still together. There was quite a lot of passive-aggressive bickering, though, which I always hated.

That said, one thing my mum was very clear on was 1) the importance of the man you chose to marry and/or reproduce with as possibly the single most significant decision for your financial stability and quality of life, and 2) the advantages of marriage as a stable basis for childrearing. She was dead right on those two, and I became an adult who expected to have a career and financial independence and who wasn't willing to settle for a partner who didn't make my life better. That has stood me in very good stead.

@RosesAndHellebores My mum suggesting I should have sex at 14 wasn't the norm, but the idea of being lucky to get older male attention from someone with a job and a car was the norm in our (working class) community. The idea that you needed a man was very much accepted, and getting one who had a job rather than being on the dole or spending all their money down the pub was what people aspired to.
My mum and her friends were all in low paid/part time jobs and no one had a career. Their mum's wouldn't have worked once married. The idea that you could be independent as a woman hadn't reached our part of town in that era!

My mother and grandma emphasised the importance of marrying someone with prospects and from a good family. My mother remains horrified that DH was working class.

They both dinned in the importance of getting engaged, married and having children in that order.

My grandmother's mantra was: same class, race, religion, politics and she maintained that the more of those that were not shared, the riskier the union.

Also having one's own money, independence and working for a living in a good job. Not so much going to uni as it wasn't a prerequisite so much in the 70s.

90s teen so quite old now. No real parenting from parents due to being the wrong child and mum sort of opting out when I was about nine. She was there in the house but not available if you see, and dad was always working hard to provide for everyone.
Everything I learnt about relationships and men was from magazines and books but men and life never married up with Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper and Mills & Boon. Ergo sex meant love, men were toys and I was nothing really.
It was what it was.

That last sentence did make me laugh! Blunt talking was the way, wasn’t it?!

I was a teen in the 90s. my mum told me to never marry someone thinking you would or could change them. I see now she’d made that very mistake. I didn’t.

She also taught me to always have access to your own money and to build a life for yourself outside of your children. Again, I made sure to do both.

having seen some absolutely spectacular fall outs over the years when my friends have had children with complete knobheads i have been very clear with DD16 that IF you choose to have children the person you choose to be their father will dictate how your life turns out. Be careful. Luckily she sees high standards for the behaviour of men in our household, I just hope that lesson holds.

70’s child here, teenager in the 80’s.

My parents never chatted to me about periods, sex, relationships etc. That was the schools job.

I remember getting my period and being upset as I didn’t know what to do and felt embarrassed. I hid it for some time.

Emotions were never talked about.

My mum was and is still difficult to talk to - she had a hard childhood and was packed off to boarding school at the age of 4. She’s never got over it and is emotionally stunted. She never showed any emotion at boarding school as you would be picked on / bullied and she could never break this cycle.

Now in my 50’s and I can’t tell her I’m upset / how I feel as she’s such a hard bitch.

I never had children as I felt I’d had a hard childhood and was terrified I wouldn’t know how to mother or I would make a terrible mother.

I was a teenager in the 80's and what you experienced is quite normal, most likely still is. Not sure what you are asking? If looking for reasons you got it wrong in relationships, it's not down to your parents not advising you otherwise as nobody's parents did, and its probably rare now tbf. Parents aren't the oracle on relationships, plenty get their own wrong and give bad examples and maybe that's the issue here.
I have discussed some stuff with my DS, but that's only because it came up at the time when he had a rough patch with his GF. But we have a very open and close relationship being just the 2 of us, so I doubt most families even now talk on that level.

Catholic school background in the 90s. Nice girls don't was pretty much the sum of our SRE both at home and school. And girls had the tampax lady in the first year of secondary to discuss periods. No wonder people thought things like you can't get pregnant if you cross your fingers or on the first time.

Also a teenager in the 80s.

My mum had a very cynical view of men but also couldn't leave them alone.
As soon as I showed an interest in boys she drummed into me that they were 'only after one thing'.
I think this had a very negative impact on my relationship towards men for a long time. I internalised her opinions as meaning that if I offered what they wanted then they would want a relationship with me. Deeper down, I think I felt that there was nothing particularly likeable about me, I was just a sex object.
I probably didn't do a brilliant job with my own daughter but did try to think about it a bit more.
I've had lots of therapy and have managed to turn around some of those early ideas I had.

No. We never discussed anything like that and sex talk was absolutely off limits! I remember one time doing my hair differently and saying i looked sexy (it was just high pig tails!) not really knowing what the word meant even - i was around 12. My dad went absolutely mental.

ive made sure im so open with my children about sex and how babies are made/puberty etc. Ive also spoke to them about relationships and whats right/not to put up with

My mum was a single parent and quite anti men and relationships due to her own experiences. She would always say they were a waste of time and make out that girls who worried about boys/dating were pathetic. If she found out I had a crush she wound mock me. I really wanted love and stability and was never really single from my mid teens on, but I could never really talk to her about any of my boyfriends and tried to hide the fact if their existence from her.

I get that she was just trying to protect me but I couldn't help wanting attraction/love (& later, sex)

Nope, parents didn't discuss anything with me. I grew up in the early 00s.

They did teach me basic life stuff though like cooking, laundry, cleaning, how to look after a house, etc from when I was quite young.