Did your parents influence you in any ways you regret?

Grandma70s

I don’t think that class in Britain is entirely about money. It’s education, speech, manners, assumptions. David Beckham, for instance, will never be upper class, or even middle, however much money he has. His children and grandchildren may be.

My father influenced my life, though I didn’t know at the time, by preventing me from applying to Oxford. I thought the school had decided I wasn’t clever enough. I had been ill a lot, and he wanted to keep me where he could keep an eye on me. In fact I went perfectly happily to the local redbrick, followed by a higher degree in London, where I was blissfully happy living away from home for the first time at the age of 22. Both my parents were graduates, so it was more or less taken for granted that me and my brother would be, too. No idea that university was only for males!

So although my father influenced my choices, I don’t really regret it. I doubt if I’d have been happy at Oxford.

Grandma70s I don’t think that class in Britain is entirely about money. It’s education, speech, manners, assumptions. David Beckham, for instance, will never be upper class, or even middle, however much money he has. His children and grandchildren may be.

I don't think class has anything to do with money. IMO, class is hierarchical. Upper, middle, working - no money involved in sussing out class.

Oh and adding to my previous post..Mum instilled in me and my sister a deep rooted dislike of cats ( still exists)!!

I was bright academically..passed the 11+ and headed off to grammar school. When it came to followup at 18 I wanted university,and I remember the day my mother said ' it's not for people like us'. They didn't make efforts to check grants etc as I am convinced mother was worried about costs. She was a housewife and Dad an engineer. Education didn't really hold much store for them * you need to get a job when you leave school*
I did exactly that , in a bank and married young ( late husband was son of Dad's work colleague) How I regret missed opportunities.
I ensured that all my 3 children could go to uni even though it was a financial struggle at times.
Different times we live in!

I don’t think that class in Britain is entirely about money. It’s education, speech, manners, assumptions. David Beckham, for instance, will never be upper class, or even middle, however much money he has. His children and grandchildren may be.

My father influenced my life, though I didn’t know at the time, by preventing me from applying to Oxford. I thought the school had decided I wasn’t clever enough. I had been ill a lot, and he wanted to keep me where he could keep an eye on me. In fact I went perfectly happily to the local redbrick, followed by a higher degree in London, where I was blissfully happy living away from home for the first time at the age of 22. Both my parents were graduates, so it was more or less taken for granted that me and my brother would be, too. No idea that university was only for males!

So although my father influenced my choices, I don’t really regret it. I doubt if I’d have been happy at Oxford.

I've always made my own decisions and my parents never told me what to do with my life. I feel sorry for those who didn't have that experience. I friend of mine studied for the same degree as me, despite wanting to be a nurse. Her parents insisted since she had stayed at school to do A levels. She got the lowest grade of all of us on the course, spent a year doing a graduate level job which she hated, then left to train as a nurse! Back then you didn't need a degree for nursing, only O'levels.

My paternal grandparents didn't belive in education. They allowed my dad to go to grammar school as he won a scholarship, but wouldn't allow his sisters to even take the exam. They left school at 14 and had much less fulfilling careers. My dad became an accountant, paying for his own training, as his parents would not have entertained him going to University, despite him being the top boy in the grammar school! In today's age he would have been likely to go to Oxford or Cambridge.

My maternal granddad encouraged my mum to go to college to become a teacher even though he could ill afford her fees. Fortunately grants came in after her first year, but he'd never have prevented her from fulfilling her potential. He was a lovely generous man.

Consequently my parents encouraged us to go to university, though if I hadn't wanted to, I'm sure they wouldn't have tried to make me.

One of my friends tried to influence her daughter's decisions about the school she went to for 6th form. I told her to let her daughter make her own decisions. She reluctantly did so and her daughter is happy and successful now.

i will quote dr tim cantopher,psychiatrist 'it is one of lifes saddest ironies that lousy parents gain the undying and devoted attention of their offspring throughout their lives,while really good loving and attentive parents are lucky to see their adult sons and daughters 2 or 3 times a year once they have left home' .why? , lousy parents often crush their children, who either walk away or constantly looking for their love and approval.Took me 40 odd years to realise i had lousy parents,it has taken a heavy toil on many members of the offspring.....

My mother loved me and I am grateful for that. She did give me some real life challenges and she didn't even realise she was doing it. I find I do not want to say, even anonymously, the things she did which left me less happy than I know she wanted me to be. She was herself carrying the challenges from earlier generations - who also wanted to be good parents. And so it goes. At some point we hope to break the patterns which lead to pain and create new ones which lead to happier lives. I am glad to have been loved.

Sadly I was orphaned at 16, so have little memories of my parents.

his, not bis!

Wanted to name our first child Jennifer, but FiL said Jenny reminds him of donkeys!
Also DH said we could have bis 2 younger sisters as bridesmaids without consulting me - I had to accept that much to my annoyance.

Yes, when I was in my teens, I so wanted to go to collage and become a vet - but my father said it would be a waste of time, for me because girls got married & had babies, so didnt need a career. always had a low confidence & asteam after that .

I told my mum that I liked the name “Deborah” for a girl and she told me I couldn’t possibly use it as it’s Jewish . Pointed out that my first name actually appears in the Old Testament.
But no, I am diametrically opposite to my parents in every possible way, and find myself caring for a 95 year old dad with whom i have nothing in common. It’s hard work

I was an only child. My sister died before I was born. My mother was a very difficult woman due to mental health issues. I encouraged my dad to enjoy a relationship with a lady friend of his. She was a lovely lady - very sensible type and called a spade a spade. I really liked her. I left home as soon as I possibly could and went into teaching in London and took up short time jobs during the holidays. I think my dad was my influencer - certainly not my mother. I changed my jobs several times and enjoyed each one and met my husband through friends and we've been together for over 50 years. I was inwardly scared of my mother but she calmed down a bit and lived on her own when my father died. She lived a long way away but I visited her several times a year and she had good carers. I learned not to be like her but her mother [my nan] lived with mum and dad for a bit and was not an easy person though I was quite able to stand up for myself and overall I got on well with my nan. It wasn't an easy time but I've survived and I've got a lovely family. Yes, we've had our ups and downs but who hasn't. I consider myself very lucky

So many ways!!! My mother instilled a real fear of spiders in me and my sister and that's still with me in spite of trying.
I think the real 'inheritance' is that my parents were shy and very deferential and they always made sis and me defer to others and made us feel that other people were better than us.

I know I upset my parents in many ways, marrying in a registry office in red, moving to the Netherlands, not spending more time with them when we had young children but they never held me back or complained.
I made up for it when they were old, however, by looking after them for 10 years having moved them to be close by.

Neither of my parents influenced my future life in a negative way. They certainly would have had no say in my wedding or my children's names. All they did was help in any way they could, my dad's cousin supplied the cars for the wedding for free, my aunt made my wedding dress, my sister's boyfriend's dad made the cake, mum and my sister did all the catering, great times and fully supported all the way.

My dear mum urged me to get married young. I've no idea why but maybe she wanted to see me settled. She had me at 35 which she thought was old. I married at 20 and luckily it worked out. I regret that I never had a time when I lived independently . I went from their home to my marriage home. I've never had a holiday with a group of friends.

My mother suffered from schizophrenia. My dad had two jobs, he was always busy working to provide for our family. As a young child, I knew he was a good man and had the patience of a saint. I do not have any mother /daughter relationship with my own mother.

As a result, my parents do not have much influence on me or my siblings. My younger sister said if one of us had gone missing as a child, it would be a few days before my dad realised one of us was missing.

My mother never thought us how to cook. As girls, we made several attempts to bake cakes, they all turned up flat as a pancake, sometimes burnt. We even served those cake to visitors during the religious festivals.

When it comes to career, we all done rather well. I suppose it was because we do not have parents who told us we are not good enough to pursue a certain career.

*Calendar Girl* That sounds like me, I thought about joining the Wrens and was told that I wouldn't like it and was persuaded to apply for a job in the local branch of Barclays!

I ended living at home, did think about moving away to work in a bank in the nearest city but somehow never did.

I always say that my husband rescued me as with him I 'escaped' and lived a very full life 😂

I've told this story before. I was born into a poor family; mother was a hard-working waitress and the main breadwinner, father was an impoverished but brilliant artist. Whenever I wandered into the kitchen as a small child my mum would say, 'I'm busy love. Go and paint with your dad.' Hence I became a useless cook but productive artist. Have always wondered how much it impacted on me and whether I'd have been interested in cooking (which I hate) if mum had had the time to show me the ropes. I watch TV cookery programmes in awe.

The more threads I read on GN the more I realise what good parents I had. We had our ups and downs, but essentially they were utterly unjudgemental. They accepted people for who they were. They were principled and honest.

They wanted their three daughters to get as good an education as possible and good careers. Both my maternal grandfather and great grandfather died in their 30s, leaving wives with children and very little money. So for my mother, in particula,r she wanted us to be able to earn ourselves a good living, so that we would never need to be completely dependent on a man for our support. Shem herself worked when she could. Not easy when, as a service wife, we were constantly on the move.

Indeed , Casdon.
Well said.
Mine too.

Labradora

Casdon

I can’t be the only one who had great parents, mine are both still alive in their nineties, and they have both always been very supportive, liberal, and caring to all their children. I hope I’ve done as well by my children as my parents have by us.

Skydancer makes a good point about the vast social differences and mores of our parents'eras .

"there are so many examples like this so it is no wonder that our parents thought differently to us. And of course our children will think the same about us".

Re Casdon's quote I wonder if people feel a bit reluctant to say that they had good parents as it seems a bit smug ( not saying Casdon "smug" at all plse read on) alongside , particularly anyone who had a bad time or difficult parents.

I had wonderful parents who are now both "late". They were true aristocrats being full of kindness and honest and hardworking.
I remain immensly grateful to both of them for looking after me when I could not look after myself and for giving me a good example of hard work, resilience, joy from simple things, kindness and honesty.
I am not saying I have always met their high standards!!!
RIP Mum and Dad

Sorry if i didn’t express myself very well - what I was trying to say is that my parents were modern in their approach to parenting, they didn’t try to influence their children in any way. They were late 1920s children, who were teenagers in the war, and when it ended their own parents gave them freedom, they passed that attitude on to us, so we were very lucky and chose our own four, very different career paths and ways of life. I can’t remember ever being told ‘you can’t’ or ‘you’re not capable of’.

M0nica I don't really know how the different classes are defined either.

I did a BBC questionnaire on the subject a few years back and I came out as "Traditional Working Class" so that is how I see myself. If I remember rightly it had little to do with parentage.

Casdon

I can’t be the only one who had great parents, mine are both still alive in their nineties, and they have both always been very supportive, liberal, and caring to all their children. I hope I’ve done as well by my children as my parents have by us.

Skydancer makes a good point about the vast social differences and mores of our parents'eras .

"there are so many examples like this so it is no wonder that our parents thought differently to us. And of course our children will think the same about us".

Re Casdon's quote I wonder if people feel a bit reluctant to say that they had good parents as it seems a bit smug ( not saying Casdon "smug" at all plse read on) alongside , particularly anyone who had a bad time or difficult parents.

I had wonderful parents who are now both "late". They were true aristocrats being full of kindness and honest and hardworking.
I remain immensly grateful to both of them for looking after me when I could not look after myself and for giving me a good example of hard work, resilience, joy from simple things, kindness and honesty.
I am not saying I have always met their high standards!!!
RIP Mum and Dad