I understand what my mother did even less now that I have children. What about you - more or less understanding about their decisions and choices now you are a parent?

[thenewme]

Just wondering - no idea why this has suddenly come into my mind.

I definitely used books as an escape mechanism. I even used to read them while walking to school, I bumped into a lamp post once! I just didn't want to return to reality. Books are amazing.

SaF, I also had the "that's because they don't know you like i do" line thrown at me when I gave her examples of friends who seemed to like me

Much less understanding. I was an abused child, I suffered every type of abuse from my parents. Now I have children of my own I can never imagine treating them the way I was treated. I can't understand the logic of those people who were abused and go on to abuse their own children, it's an abhorrent idea to me.

They weren't strict, my mother ruled by fear, attacked me if I challenged her and called me stupid so many times that I'm still sure I must be, and I haven't had any contact with her in 19 years. My dad was the typical henpecked cuckold and took advantage of the relationship between me and my mother to keep the secret that he sexually abused me on a regular basis. They both repulse me and will never have contact with my children.

I was a bookworm too, I would sit with my headphones on listening to the radio with my nose in a book for hours and hours on end. They were my escape route too, and oh how I dreamed of being sent away to boarding school like Mallory Towers!

I remember the very last time my mother slapped me in the face. I was fifteen and I slapped her right back. What could she say? "Don't slap people on the face because it's wrong?"

In fact, writing that tells me how truly shit parenting it actually is to slap a child or a teenager in order to control them. Parents are role models FFS

MissQuee and your parents certainly do not deserve to have any contact with your precious children.

My DH and I allowed our mil stay once, and it will be the only time. She was quite awful to our beautiful baby, she used to hit my DH and his brother every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, like clockwork. It did not matter what they had done. I too felt repulsed and she will not have anything to do with us now, thankfully.

See my mum wasn't a disconnected parent at all. Apart from the harsh discipline and that hitting, she was a very involved, loving parent. There was certainly no lack of physical closeness. She took interest in everything my brother and I did.

She wasn't often respective of what we wanted. Such as, if I got invited to a fancy dress party she would choose who i was going to be dressed as and that was it. But alot of paretns culd be like that. SHe still has this thing that continues today, apaprently my choice of books, tv, music is rubbish and hers is impecable. Sick of it.

The smacking was very random. It was every now and again and it was completely uncalled for. Once I had a friend around to play and we were playing with plasticine in my room. It doesn't stain so it was fine in the bedroom. My brother wouldn't leave us alone as the older one he always monitored me so he could report any trangressions back to mum. I stodd on my bed and realised I could reach the ceiling with my hand if I stretched. I put the plasticine on the ceiling and it stuck. I thought it was funny. I took it off again and there was no mark and no colour on the ceiling. So it wouldn't stain. I put more on and laughed and my friend thought it was funny. My brother told my mum and she sent him back to tell me to stop. It was making my friend laugh so I wanted to make her laugh more. I was enjoying the audience. My brother kept telling my mum I wasn't stopping. I probably would have stopped a child doing that but I would simply have taken it away from them. My mother eventually charged in to my room, flinging the door open so hard it hit the wall and slapped me over the head about 3 times. After that the mood with my friend was very different. She and I were very quiet and she was asking me if I was ok and did it hurt. I was trying not to cry in front of her.

So for me the punishment didn't match the "crime". Why slap the hell out of child for an action which is barely naughty at all and is causing no harm?

Weirdly though today, she is VERY anti child smacking. She thinks it's absolutely disgraceful. I've often said to her look who's talking. Either you've forgotten or you're lying about hitting us. She said to me in utter shock, I neither deny it no am I lying, I never touched either of you.....?!

Same as Sakura I began to hit my mother back when I was about 17. You cannot use slapping to control a teenager or to silence them when you don't like what they have to say.

So when my mum hit me I hit her back three times as hard as she hit me. She soon stopped.

But now though when it comes to talking about the past, she said I was the abuser. She only remembers me hitting her and she doesn't seem to remember ever hitting me.

Funny that

How weird. I saw this in Active convos and thought that sounds just like a thead title I once used. I clicked on and it is an old thread but it is mine.

The escapism is a common feature.

Have any of you ever seen the film Amelie? After her mother dies and she is left with her distant father, her mind creates a fantasy world. That's what I did. Along with the walkman and books. I was away with the fairies most of the time.

I loved reading as a kid. Books made me happy and were my friends .

I love Amelie, it is a great film.

SAF my mum is similar - I think if you asked her she would say that she was a good mother and that I had a good childhood.

She has absolutely no self awareness about the way in which she behaved then and continues to behave today.

If I did confront her (and I wont because it has taken me my lifetime to realise that she will never admit that her treatment of me was anything other than exemplary) she would consider me to be the delusional one.

I read somewhere that denying your child's truth is the cruellest thing a parent can do

I believe this wholeheartedly. I believe many children would forgive their parents in a heartbeat, even sexual predators, if those people showed remorse . They might still not want to see them ever again, but they could forgive and find closure.

If they deny the abuse (as they all do) , the adult child remains in limbo. they either have to cut the parent out of their life to regain a sense of integrity, or reality , or they spend the rest of their life trying to make the parent love them, endlessly reliving the hurt

Sakura I am sure that is true.

I feel very fortunate in that my sibblings recognise how dreadful my mums behaviour was towards me, so whilst I will never hear her say that she is sorry I know 100% that she treated me poorly because of her issues not mine.

Sadly I know at least one of my sisters suffers an awful lot of guilt because she was encouraged as a child to side with my mother.

And still today my mum wonders why she is not close with us.

I will never forgive my mother for what she did as that put my situations which have caused me life long pain.

I'm firmly in the less understanding of what she did camp.

My mother was neglectful, allowed us to be abused repeatedly, showed little affection....

She still harps on about all the great sacrifices she made (like, if she hadn't have had kids she'd have been this, that or the other), loves to tell us how much she worried about us all (that may well be the case, but worrying about your kids isn't the same as protecting them), congratulates herself on how well we've all turned out (we have all turned out ok despite the shitty upbringing and years of abuse we all suffered).

One thing good to have come from the way she treated us all is that none of us would ever allow our children to go through what we did. We are aware of the signs of abuse, we are protective and nurturing and caring, and for that I am thankful.

NOt sure why I did it, or how I managed to gauge that she wouldn't knock my teeth out. It was as if that was all the fight left I had in me, and I simply didn't care what she would do to me. Statistically she should have leathered me. BUt I think she sensed that in me, that recklessness with my physical safety, and that's why she didn't hit me back that time. I think she thought she'd knocked all the fight out of me IYSWIM

so sorry for garbled post. DS and DD are running around me