Parenting - where I went wrong

There really isn't any need for shame.
One thing our children learned is that nobody is perfect, that parents are fallible too, and life isn't always fair. (Ok, that's 3 things)

They're invaluable lessons though, and they can't be taught in a classroom, or online.

I'm ashamed of my parenting or lack of it. I have severe mental health problems, and was unable to provide any real stability. Add to that an inability to express emotion and a lack of role models, I was a walking disaster.

I did and still do love my children, more than any way that I can express. I'm still close with my oldest daughter and son, but my youngest daughter hates me and won't have anything to do with me. Funny thing is, out of the three of them she had stability, and I'd believed us to be close. Just goes to show

Terribull. So interesting. My first son was forceps delivery, and although a lovely charming amusing man, can be “difficult” and was a pretty challenging teenager! Second son easy birth, easygoing good natured no trouble ever !

Like most of you I was far from a perfect parent. Terrible relationship with my ex for a start. Then younger son returned to his Dad at age 17.
I re-married and he brought his daughter - she and I had a difficult relationship but we tried. I think she always wanted
her own mother, where she returned at 17.
But when she eventually had her own child we got on a lot better.
Now thank God, they've all got their own lives and we visit eachother so best to forgive and forget.

It sounds as though you had the patience of a saint Paddyann! But it paid off in the end and, on the plus side, you'll be better experienced for how best to deal with you GD when/if the time comes.

Maybe you could say how well she manages and how fortunate she is to have such a pro active support network jenpax.

Oh your poor DHand what an excellent example his parents were of how not to be a good parent. You both have a lot to be proud of, doing your best for your girls in the most difficult of circumstances.

These were their stated reasons not my surmising!

Smileless2012 Good point! In fact youngest DD has 3 children with same age gaps as mine and she is always pointing out how much better she manages than I did and that she is a single parent! not however taking into account that she has huge practical and financial help from me and practical and emotional support from her two sisters and their husbands which I did not have the benefit of! My DM was a widow living over 100 miles away and DH’s parents cut him off when he became ill MIL “to protect her own mental health” and FIL because having a son with MH issues was an embarrassment to him with his friends in the law society!

You did what you were supposed to, and by the sounds of it, did a good job. Your grown up children sound lovely. Most of that will have been down to you?

I do think it's extremely important if and when an AC is criticising how they were parented, they took a realistic look at their parents' personal situation and how that may well have impacted on the way they were raised.

You've posted jenpax you had huge financial pressures which included nearly losing your house to repossession, a H with severe mental health issues and no family support.

It does make me cross when what was done by some, in extremely difficult circumstances isn't deemed good enough. I wonder how well your D's would have coped with all that you had too, and how they would feel if their children were to voice their disappointment in their parenting skills some time in the future.

I never thought much about whether we were good parents or not. We did our best, enjoyed bringing them up most of the time and they now have happy marriages and good careers.
I'm not saying we were perfect but now both our daughters have children of their own and we see them doing the same things with their children that we did with them. They tell us they remembered how much they enjoyed doing those things as children. So we must've done some things right!

Mine were a breeze until hormones kicked in...well my daughter was .Then she became the teenager from hell .Tried climbing out an upstairs window to go to a "party" when she was 13 ...then called the Social work dept when we dragged her in and locked the doors .I should mention the "party " was in a bad part of town in a known drug dealers house and that the social worker told me I had to let her make her own decisions.I disagreed and she didn't go. That was the start of 4 years of misery, added to madams issues we had a very small child and an elderly parent who demanded attention at all hours ...and two businesses.
Honestly if I wasn't the most patient easy going person on the planet I'd have left home
.As it was we learned to never say Yes or NO right away,tell her to give us time to think about the "rave" or the " weekend with friends " or the many schemes she came up with . She usually changed her mind before we had come to a decision and now uses the same tactic with her kids
Hard work was my girl .
By 18 she was herself again ,loving, kindhearted and hard working and thankfully thats how she stayed.Shes a wonderful woman loved by many and still has a heart of gold even though she is chronically ill .
My son 10 years younger has never really been any bother ,he has my nature and the only problem we had was when his relationship broke up when his child was a year old .There may well be another wild child in the making as she is her aunts image in looks and actions .
My kids took a lot of getting and I cherished every day with them though maybe not some of the teenage girl ones.

I dont know if I was a good parent ,I do know I have great kids .

My 3 DD are critical of my parenting to various degrees, and judge me by today’s rules of parenting, which weren’t known when they were growing up. Some of their criticisms I do agree with, although there were reasons (which they don’t really understand thankfully )
I think I have been a decent parent overall, and certainly I know that I tried 100% and always, always put them first especially as we had limited resources.
Interestingly their criticisms are all different! Eldest DD has had the benefit of child development training as part of her social work degree, and she says I was too critical, snappy, stressed and obsessed with education; this is true! I was under huge pressure with finances( narrowly avoided the house being repossessed) and had an DH with severe mental health issues, with absolutely no family support! I was snippy, stressed and emotional and having been lucky enough to have had a public school education myself, I tried to make up to my 3 with extra curricular activities some of which probably felt like pressure to them, I now see!
Middle DD says I attended to all physical needs ok and was loving, but did not teach her emotional resilience or mind her mental health enough!
Youngest DD is angry that we were not very well off and she now says she felt like a second class citizen in her leafy suburb secondary school! It’s made her a bit money obsessed.
All three think they will do a much better job of parenting that I did and I hope that they do.
I regret very much the mistakes I made, even though at the time I didn’t realise them as such,however I know I tried my best and have to be content with that.

Your post @ 13.02 was fascinating TerriBull. Our eldest was forceps delivery after an extremely long and distressing labour. He was a blue baby and had to go the the special baby unit.

The ward sister at the time was a big supporter of breast feeding but he was 'breast shy' and wouldn't feed. After a couple of very frustrating and upsetting days, following an awful delivery and blood transfusion for me, she eventually came to the conclusion that we would both be better served if he went on a bottle; bliss.

Always more challenging than his younger brother and there have been times when I wondered if that had anything to do with his delivery. The spoon marks on either side of his face lasted a few days and his poor little head was the shape or a cone.

Hetty58 sometimes doing my best is hiding in my room with a lot of chocolate... Its all relative really and self care and having a happy (chocolate filled) mum is good for children too lol

jeanrobinson, don't we all just muddle along and try to do our best? I know I made efforts not to repeat the mistakes of my parents - but made others instead!

We don't always instantly bond with, or love, our children. A caesarean is a major abdominal operation so, of course, recovery is our first priority. Perfect motherhood, right from the start, would be a superhuman effort on top.

My four (one caesarean) all turned out very well, either due to or despite my efforts (who knows?) but have very different characters. I can forgive myself for not always doing my very best - I'm human after all.

I find it very odd that anyone would say I cannot mention estrangement when it relates so strongly to my relationship with my parent and my relationship with my children and the lessons it has taught me.

If I am to be welcomed into a discussion anywhere, I would hope it would be also welcome to mention what is relatable for me under the topic as we all have very different circumstances, upbringings and parenting styles for all sorts of different reasons.

Most complex job in the world with the least amount of training, not even a manual.
I must admit I never gave parenting much thought, just winged it and have been fortunate that they all turned out okay, more by good luck than good management.
I have a calm and lovely husband who can probably take most credit for their attitude and good parenting. I was the more irritable, less patient parent but I was also the one that helped with homework, ran them around to various activities and encouraged them to strive for the highest, the pushy one.
We both have always shown our love for them and always had their back. Have had fun along the way. Pretty good on the whole but not without regret.
My advice, if ever asked, would be just hug them, let them know they are loved unconditionally and hope for the best.

Oh if only we could go back and do it again.
When I look back, I think I should have been more loving and less agitated. Running round coping with 3 children was very stressful. Not being very well off added to it.
I was an only children, and my mother was quite a hard mother, not one to give me a hug. I think this affected how I was with my children.
I watch my daughter with her son, and she’s very loving, so maybe I wasn’t as bad as I think I was.

oops that should have been Sheilasue.

Cannot imagine how difficult everything has been for you Sheilssue and your lovely GD.

I agree totally with Absent. My adult children have both done well educationally, have jobs and friends and their own homes. They both still talk to me and they choose to spend quite a lot of time with me and their dad, so we must have done something right

Sheilasue I'm very sorry to hear about your DS and the ensuing heartache from that. I hope that your DGD receives all the help she requires but just wanted you to know that I admire all you GPS out there who are parenting their GC, in frequently very sad and difficult circumstances. Not an easy row to hoe.

Sheilasue How dreadful. You sound as though you've done a great job with your granddaughter.

I put my hands up, there are a lot of things I would have done differently and I appreciate the phrase "horses for courses" one of mine has been "challenging" and still is to a certain extent and with my other, thank god, pretty plain sailing. Sometimes I wonder whether my son's personality was shaped by his entry into the world, difficult, forceps delivery, I also had pre eclampsia carrying him, thankfully, in my ignorance didn't really appreciate that's quite a dangerous condition and do wonder if babies can be affected in the womb by what's going on with the mother during pregnancy. Anyway, I know from my own mother, my late brother, also forceps delivery damn difficult person, my best friend, her eldest again traumatic forceps birth, by far the most troublesome of her three children.............and Frank Sinatra, not that I knew him allegedly his entry into the world was not easy and I think from all we read about him, his character suggests he was a difficult sod! So yes number one has been hard work one way and another, our relationship tends to ebb and flow and he's had to have a lot of help both emotional and financial. My other son is so much easier and his transition through childhood, teen years to adulthood has had a few of the inevitable peaks and troughs along the way. Calmed down when he went to university and has had a happier time altogether with his choice of partners. Graduated, eventually managed to establish himself at work, bought a house with girlfriend who he has happily lived with for five years or so now. Unlike brother, early fatherhood, broken up and down relationships, periods of calm before the next inevitable bout of turbulence which seems to be the nature of how his life pans out.

I'm far from the perfect mother, and yes I'd have done things differently, but quite honestly most of us don't know what to expect and have some idealised notion that parent hood will be wonderful and we'll do it differently and far better than our own parents. Well for me being brought up as a strict catholic, I knew that was at least one thing I wasn't going to foist on mine. I was early 30s so when I gave up work, I felt I was ready for motherhood and for my life to take a different direction. I did try to pour myself into keeping them amused as children, usual stuff swimming, other sporting activities. Read to them for hours, got number one son reading before he started school, ironically, number 2 son resisted that a bit in the early days but he is the avid reader of my two now. I still have loads of their childhood books, my granddaughter has enjoyed some of them, and my grandson a couple.......but sadly they are children of their time and it's the age of the screen Both my boys got heavily into roller blading and skateboarding, My husband and I often look back on that time when we see other kids doing exactly what they did wearing the obligatory "Nivarna" t shirts we sigh remember "The Skateboarding/Nivarna" years that seemed to go on forever. Kurt Cobain had recently ascended it to immortality providing the anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit" when number one son took it up, that was and possibly still is the anthem for that rite of passage between childhood and early teens with some boys. We took our kids abroad quite a lot whilst they were growing up, mainly to France, Italy and the US, but also lots of places in Britain, Scotland, Wales and the West Country. They both tell me now how lucky they were, but at the time didn't appreciate it. Both also tell me that they had a great childhood and my older son, laments the fact having split from his childrens' mother they won't have the nuclear family around them as he did, their lives are more fractured than his was at their ages. Although at the time, from where I was standing it was a period I had to get through!