Does anyone else worry about this...

[maxsmum]

I notice posts here complaining about our own parents.
We try to do so many things NOT like our parents did them. We know a better way.

I have my issues with my parents, DH with his (although I have more with his than he does). Over the years there have been serious strains in these parent/child relationships. they loved us no doubt, but still we hold them accountable for so much. I have made peace with much of it and moved on but really held a chip on my shoulders for years and many times made them miserable. (I was not abused or anything - pretty typical parenting).

In additon my parents have their issues with their own parents and so on.

I so worry that someday my son will see us in the same light, criticize us for the damage we did despite our very best efforts and intentions. That someday we will have a strained relationship with him, which would be devastating and makes me feel that this time with him is so brief and fleeting...

I know that parenting is a selfless act and I can't go into it expecting my son to turn out a certain way and have a certain type of relationship with us, but I can still hope can't I?

Sometimes I feel that there is no real way to escape this and perhaps that it serves a purpose to constantly improve the state of parenting and families. a sort of evolution.

any thoughts on this?

[Qestia]

As the poet said,

They f*** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f***ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

(Philip Larkin)

I think I know what you mean, but what can we do? My mom was a better mother than her mom, I hope to be a better mother than her, so we just do our best.

[RubyWild]

Yes, I think of that. I think about the ways in which I'm close to my mother and the ways in which she irritates me and I wonder how to avoid these conflicted feelings in my Dd.

[Lady Lilya]

maxsmum,

I have no negative feelings towards my mom at all. My husband has no negative feelings towards his father at all. It IS possible. It doesn't have to be that your children will look back on you with negative feelings.

[hippymomma69]

I posted about this on the GD threads but I highly recommend reading some Alice Miller! It's been so enlightening to me about one's relationship with one's parents. The book I read was "for your own good" but I've also heard The Drama of the Gifted Child is excellent also (gifted for her means kids who overcome bad backgrounds - not smart necessarily). While she is mostly interested in the legacy of abuse, much of her work points to problems with more "benign" forms of child-rearing too...

Anyway, I've found it pretty interesting....

I too am hoping for release from the "hate what your parents did" wheel!

peace,
robyn

[Terabith]

I have made peace with the fact that we ARE going to make mistakes with our children and mess up. I certainly try my best, and I am trying hard not to make the same mistakes my parents did, but yes, I am sure that they will have issues with things I do. I am striving to 1) be good enough; be the best I can and 2) put money in a therapy fund just like I do in a college fund. I hope I don't screw up my kids, but I suspect I will, despite my best efforts. It's kinda what most parents do. I figure it will just be in different ways from the way MY parents screwed up.

[maxsmum]

Originally Posted by hippymomma69

I posted about this on the GD threads but I highly recommend reading some Alice Miller! It's been so enlightening to me about one's relationship with one's parents. The book I read was "for your own good" but I've also heard The Drama of the Gifted Child is excellent also (gifted for her means kids who overcome bad backgrounds - not smart necessarily). While she is mostly interested in the legacy of abuse, much of her work points to problems with more "benign" forms of child-rearing too...

Anyway, I've found it pretty interesting....

I too am hoping for release from the "hate what your parents did" wheel!

peace,
robyn

I read the drama of the gifted child years ago, don't remember much now. I will have to revisit it

[krisw]

I would be lying if I said I never worried about it, but I try not to think on it too much. I also see there being a big difference between the kind of parent much-complained about here and one who is open-minded enough to accept that perhaps someday our kids will know things which we are not fortunate enough to know now, just as we have learned things which counter things our parents were taught and believed when they were raising us.

Speaking for myself, my parents weren't perfect but they did their best. I have more issues with their resistance to a different way of parenting than I do with the way I myself was parented.

There's also a vast difference between being involved in your kids' and grandkids' lives and attempting to run them/make choices for them, which I see a lot in the complaint threads.

Some things I do the same as my parents did (extended nursing, cloth diapering at least part time, cosleeping) and some things I do not (circumcision is a big one, we aren't doing all vaxes or on "schedule", but also I am not so domestic as my mom).

All in all, I'm sure I'm nowhere near perfect. All I can do is my best, and some days I don't even do that. I just keep trying, and I hope that when my kid(s) are grown, I can have a good relationship with them.

[chinaKat]

I'm not perfect... I'm sure I'll give my kids plenty to complain about as a mom.

My goal is to have a far better relationship with my kids than I have with my parents.

I do believe that some of the parenting style decisions I'm making now will have a lasting impact on that goal.

That's all I ask for.

[velochic]

Because of some feelings I have about my own mother, the thought crosses my mind, but I try to not worry about it. My mother was a REALLY, REALLY bad mother. It wasn't enough to hit and spank and slap us. She emotionally slapped us down every day. She would threaten to "call the welfare to come take [us] away" every time we did something that she didn't like. We were told all the time that we were all accidents and that she never wanted kids. I stood on tippy toes with my nose in a circle until my feet went numb. I was told I'd be shipped off to boarding school a thousand times. I was pulled into the middle of her fights with my father with all of the name calling and was even told once as a teen that she wished she'd aborted me like my dad asked her to (and I was a really good kid!) She tried very hard to destroy my relationship with my father after he divorced her...


yet I still love her.


I love her enough to have taken her in to care for her in her old age. Yes, we've had some issues. In particular, I overheard her saying some things to dd recently that brought back a lot of painful memories of the way she "disciplined" me. I had a rip-roaring, tear-filled, yelling LECTURE at her that she is not to even come close to trying to "discipline" dd. I explained GD to her all over again (as I have many times in the past) and told her exactly this: "Mom, you were a rotten parent. I know that you said your mother was a rotten mother. But it stops right here with this generation. I refuse to be the parent you were and if you cannot treat dd with love, respect, and gentle guidance, you cannot stay. I will not have dd be subjected to the same kind of childhood I did."

She backed off and our relationship is slowly improving. I still harbor some bad feelings, though. I probably will never get rid of it short of therapy. It doesn't affect my life, and if anything, the memories make me a better mother.

Bottom line... your kids don't have to resent or dislike you. If you're 100% honest with them when you make mistakes and apologize and be sincere about not making the same mistake twice, they will know. I already have the most awesome relationship with my 5 year old dd. She has said things to me that I never remember feeling about my mother. I don't have a happy memory from my childhood. Every day I build great memories with dd. I'm confident that as long as I work on it, she'll look back at our times together fondly and not with resentment.

[Tigerchild]

I have peace in the knowledge that it's unavoidable that I will piss my kids off, and they'll have some critques of me.

I know that it's likely that I won't have exactly the relationship I want with them, as they get older...because a) I don't have control over them and b) unlike now, they'll have lovers, perhaps children of their own, and careers in their lives as well.

I had a pretty yucky childhood, and still maintain a distant relationship with my mother. Though then again, she lives in denial that she ever did anything that could have possibly hurt me. I think apologies along the way and listening go far.

Plus, I have a deal with several friends and my partner that if I ever start to become a nagging/bitchy MIL/mom-to-adult-kid that I expect them to ream me out and put me in my place. I plan on telling my kids that too.

I used to worry about it (well, not sure worry is the right word. Haunted, maybe). But meditation and consciously living in the present moment AND recognizing that I cannot control all pathways to the future has helped. Along with preparing myself for the possibility that my kids may rebel against what they were taught/experienced growing up...or that something that I unintentionally did may have long term impacts that we'll need to work out later.

I've gotten a lot of reward and self-confidence out of working through the issues in my own past. If I have to do that again because one or more of my children asks me or needs me to walk down that path with them, if I'll need to apologize, if I'll need to let go of some of my fantasies so that they can have their best reality...then so be it.

I will not live my life, or parent my kids, out of a root of fear. I'm not afraid to make mistakes, I'm getting better and getting up again, apologizing, and doing better. I expect this to keep happening in all my relationships, especially something as intimate as a parent-child one, for the rest of my life.

[kkeris]

On one hand yes, I did think about that couple of times. On the other hand, I really dont think I'll be treating my child/dren anything like how I've been treated. I am not perfect and will never be. I will still lose my cool and yell, or even handle my DD a little too roughly at times (yes I am ashmed of it, and no its not acceptable), and I am not sure that I always say the right thing when it matters most even though I really want to.

BUT I will be a very supportive mum, I will always believe in my child, I will see/treat my child as an equal member of the family and give them due respect as a family member when decisions are made. I will NEVER abuse my child/ren, I will do my best to give my child/ren a childhood that they will look back fondly on and feel like they want to do the same for their kids. I strive to parent in a way that I would my kid/s to parent their kids in future. I will not judge my child/ren negatively for who they are and what they choose. I always do and always will admit my mistakes and talk about how I could have handled it better so that we all learn together. In short, I really doubt that my child/dren will feel about me the way I feel about my parents.

As long as I share a close relationship with my kid/s when they are all grown up, thats all I need.

[Demeter9]

Yes. I think it will happen, and it is going to hurt like hell. I'm going to practice being gracious and happy with the product standing before me, complaining or looking at me like I'm an idiot.

[BelgianSheepDog]

I think some of this is the side effect of the way we overvalue the importance of parenting choices. For instance, CIO is horrible, I am somewhat maladjusted, I was allowed to CIO, therefore CIO made me maladjusted and my parents are EEEEEEEEEEEEvil. That sort of reasoning happens a lot. There's a culture of psychoanalysis where we assume any problems we have as adults traces neatly back to something dumb our mom, or maybe our dad, did to us as kids.

With that in mind, we should be conscious of what we are modelling. Limiting contact with truly abusive relatives is good, mild avoidance of those we simply don't get along with is fine. But demonizing people over parenting choices is bound to come back and bite you in the butt. Just wait for the study in 2056 "proving" that cloth diapering causes depression and anxiety. Hahaha. We'll get ours, then.

[eightyferrettoes]

If you'd asked me five years ago whether my mom or my dad was the better parent, I would have said my dad, hands down.

Ask me today, and I'll say my mom was the better parent, hands-down. I see her in better perspective now, flaws, failings, and all. So much of the way you see the past is influenced by your present reality.

So, add me to the list of people who think that my kids will probably have issues of some kind or other with me.... but goddess only knows WHAT those issues will be. The stuff my mom worried I would hate her for is a non-issue today.

The issues I have with my parents are because of things they did/are doing NOW, not 25 or 15 years ago.

[Ilovelife]

I think about this a lot. I do know people, relatives who have wonderful relationships with their mothers, so I try to emulate their mothers moreso than mine in hopes that I can keep an open relationship with dd. But there is no guarantee either way. We do the best we can.

[Finch]

:

My MIL has a good relationship with my dh. My step MIL has a great relationship with her sons. I take my cues from them and try to be like them. I try to be unlike my own mother, who is toxic and enmeshed and just...ugh.

I realize that one day my son will be talking smack about me. That's his job. I just hope that he can still LIKE me at the end of the day. I love my mother, but I don't like her....that's the difference that stands out the most.

The biggest failing my mother ever had was not being able to say "I'm sorry" and "I was wrong." Those two phrases alone could have undone so much damage if only she was willing.

[choli]

Originally Posted by BelgianSheepDog

I think some of this is the side effect of the way we overvalue the importance of parenting choices. For instance, CIO is horrible, I am somewhat maladjusted, I was allowed to CIO, therefore CIO made me maladjusted and my parents are EEEEEEEEEEEEvil. That sort of reasoning happens a lot. There's a culture of psychoanalysis where we assume any problems we have as adults traces neatly back to something dumb our mom, or maybe our dad, did to us as kids.

With that in mind, we should be conscious of what we are modelling. Limiting contact with truly abusive relatives is good, mild avoidance of those we simply don't get along with is fine. But demonizing people over parenting choices is bound to come back and bite you in the butt. Just wait for the study in 2056 "proving" that cloth diapering causes depression and anxiety. Hahaha. We'll get ours, then.

This is so VERY true! I am sure that my dds will have issues with some aspects of my parenting, just as I have issues with many aspects of my mother's parenting. I hope they look at me as I look at my mom - she did the best she could with the tools, information and examples that she had, and her shortcomings as a mother were not intentional.

[maya44]

Originally Posted by BelgianSheepDog

I think some of this is the side effect of the way we overvalue the importance of parenting choices. For instance, CIO is horrible, I am somewhat maladjusted, I was allowed to CIO, therefore CIO made me maladjusted and my parents are EEEEEEEEEEEEvil. That sort of reasoning happens a lot. There's a culture of psychoanalysis where we assume any problems we have as adults traces neatly back to something dumb our mom, or maybe our dad, did to us as kids.

With that in mind, we should be conscious of what we are modelling. Limiting contact with truly abusive relatives is good, mild avoidance of those we simply don't get along with is fine. But demonizing people over parenting choices is bound to come back and bite you in the butt. Just wait for the study in 2056 "proving" that cloth diapering causes depression and anxiety. Hahaha. We'll get ours, then.

So true. One of my BIL who I have written about before still has DEEP resentment over the earthy, crunchy, AP way he was raised.

Yep, he does. (Don't EVEN get him started on the Loom his parents bought him for his birthday when he was a kid!)

He is now a mega, mega sucessful guy with a big emphasis on rules, orderly household, consumer goods, and a lux lifestyle.

My DH also "rebelled" a little against the crunchy NFL life, though he has a better relationship with his parents that his one brother.

Two other brothers are married to a woman just like thei mom in alot of ways and are happy with the way they were raised.