Thanks for all of you sharing your situations. I was also abused as a child, and being a parent has been so hard.
Some things that stuck out at me as I read your posts- I too, feel like I am mothering my child in the way that I wanted to be mothered. I think it is healing, and it isn't harming my child, but making him thrive. I also feel like I feel children's pain more than most "normal" people do. When I hear about a baby crying it out, or being yelled at harshly, it breaks my heart. It is like it is happening to me again, in a way.
I also, after I had my son, wondered how on this earth could my parents have done what they did to me. I love my son more than anything, and I swear, if anyone laid a finger on him I would go ballistic. It hurts to look back and think that my parents were more absorbed with themselves than their children.
I also have a hard time understanding what is normal, and what isn't. I have a hard time with anger. I have yelled, (I said get your shoes! etc.) but I have never said anything specifically abusive or harmful. I have swatted on the butt a few times, and that makes me feel like shit. I do think that as our children grow up, our job gets harder and harder. They start pushing our buttons, and make us angry. (Well, THEY can't make us angry, we make ourselves angry, right?) I know at times I actually dislike my son for the way he is acting, and it makes me feel ashamed that I feel this way. It is so much easier when they are babies that have such simple needs.
What I have done is I read, read, read. All kinds of parenting books. I went to therapy, and would discuss how it is affecting my parenting. I talk online, and I have one or two friends that I can talk to when I really need it. Sometimes your radar can pick out the people who had a hard time growing up, too. I have also distanced myself from my parents. I only talk to my mom several times a year, and never to my step-dad.
I also think that we try so hard to be perfect, but no parent is. Whenever I mess up, I apologize to my son, and I talk about how to make it better in the future. How many of our parents even did that? I think in the long run, if we try our best, and show our children how much we love them, they will be ok. If we are getting violent or abusive with our children, we need to stop and find help right away. All of us moms on this thread are doing great just by stopping and looking at our own behavior. We are stronger from our experiences and can be great parents! We can break the cycle!
And I hear you! to whoever said that putting up with our parents declaring what a good job they did b/c look at how we turned out. It is a miracle that we survived, period. If they would only get a clue.
