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October 2011 Moms
missyishere
member
What are you doing differently than your parents?
missyishere
member
There is always the nature v. nurture debate, but what do you plan to do to change the nurture part of your parenting from what you were taught growing up?
I will say I didn't have a terrible childhood, but there was a lot of anger in my home. There are many other issues, but my biggest feat as a parent is to be much more patient and calm compared to what I witnessed.
Parenting Floozie Brigades official motto: We welcome to you the board with open legs. Also, open beers. ~@cinemagoddess
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Re: What are you doing differently than your parents?
TBH, not much. I mean there is obviously the safety stuff that has changed, but overall I think my parents did a pretty good job with my sister and I. There are little things like my mom (our DCP) wants to give DD juice and I don't want her to have juice, we did BLW and my mom wanted to give her purees (in the end she always respects our wishes) but other than that there isn't much of the "big stuff" that I would change.
This is what I aim to do as well. My parents (my mother and step-father) fought a lot, but rarely did I see them make up. Their divorce was terrible and still plays a part in my siblings' issues to this day. My mother passed away two years ago, so now I have to rely on my nature part of raising my daughter. It is also forcing me to take a big lean back to see where I stand as a parent and how I choose to make a difference.
My mom loved us and it was clear. My dad, not so much. I plan to make sure that my kids know their mom AND dad love them. I want them to grow up in a loving environment that is filled with patience, kindness and understanding (all of which was lacking in my childhood).
I also plan to throw my kids big, huge birthday parties for as long as I can get away with it. We NEVER had parties growing up. While I know my mom loves us, she never tried to make us feel special and never showed us just how special we were. I don't know if this makes sense, but I'm big on parties for their birthdays. It's something that should be celebrated and I want them to feel that special feeling when the day is literally all.about.them! I had one party growing up and I still remember that feeling of thinking I was so special to have a birthday party.
I had a good childhood and was raised in a Christian home. I still turned to drugs and alcohol and other things as a teenager and in college. I'm not knocking my parents, but from a book I am reading now, it seems that they may have been too authoritative which made me rebel. I had to to go to church as a teenager, it wasn't a choice. My parents never let us know if they made a mistake. They called the shots.
Basically, I want to be a parent, but let my child know that I also make mistakes. Include them in some decisions that are age appropriate and not just tell them how it's going to be all of the time. He will also be raised in a Christian household, but because my DH doesn't attend, DS can make a choice when he is older, so that he's not forced into church.
I had a pretty good upbringing but my mom wasn't there emotionally. She was raised in a very conservative family and they also hid their feelings and didn't really focus on other people's feelings. Don't get me wrong, they were nice to others.....but it when it came to things that involved talking and opening up about feelings....it was nonexistent. Like take my first big breakup for example: It was really hard on me, yet the day it happened my mom was demanding I get my chores done and not think about him and act like nothing happened and the relationship never existed. It was really hard on me, and I wish I could have at least talked to her about it.
So I am hoping that although Gator will know that I am the parent and everything, that she can still come to talk to me about things and not feel like I am judging her or thinking that her issue is petty.....when to her it is a big deal.
I am hoping to be very different from my mom / my upbringing. For once, I hope I can give my children a family. For me, there was just my mother, then a stepfather who I dislike to this day.
Then, I want and plan to be a mother, not a friend. My mom never found a balance there...she was either trying to be a cool friend or the overmother. I find both annoying and wrong and sometimes embarrassing. I still do, and she still does both.
I also plan to stay me. As in a woman, a wife, a friend. My mother was living to be a mother and expects me to be a daughter full time. KWIM? She also was shocked when I said that we would drop off the kids with the ILs and would go out in the future. She acted like I was leaving them in the woods and even said we, as parents, should not have the desire to go out without the kids.
Lastly, I hope to give my children a healthy view on sex. Mom is a prude and has always given me the feeling that I am a hoar for enjoying sex/that sex is a dirty thing we have to do to get kids and keep their father around. Her first reaction to the kids being this close together? 'great, then he cannot demand you to sleep with him, that was smartly done.' - I know she had a disturbing past, and I am sorry about that, but sometimes it would be better to not say anything, if there is no good message in what you have to say.
All in all, I would just like to be a normal mother. And hopefully a mom, where the kids don't dread whenever we get together....
For the most part, I'm following my parents pretty closely. My brother and I were really good kids and were/are very close with my parents. My parents were very involved in our lives, sometimes it felt overbearing, but looking back, it was clear that they did so because they wanted us to feel loved and interesting. And they always knew what we were up to, which kept us out of trouble. We felt comfortable talking to them about anything - sex, drugs, rock and roll. Neither my brother nor I ever went off the deep end with any of the above, but we knew that dabbling in it wasn't a big deal.
The one thing I'm trying to do differently, is being a little more relaxed around LBB. Both my parents passed their anxiety issues on to me and my brother. I'd love for LBB to have less of that. I know part of it is genetic - and DH and I both are anxious people, but I'd like him to not see it in us as much, so his anxiety isn't compounded by environmental sources.
Hmmm thats a tough one... my parents chose to live a very isolated life, so consequently I had almost no friends to compare my home life with - a deliberate choice on their part I?m sure.
My sister and I had lots of freedom to go off and explore the surrounding jungle - the usuall "just be home before it gets dark" type thing. We had no phone - mobiles hadnt been invented! No computer or internet obviously.
We had had many many pets - my mother prefered animals to people.
When I was 8 and my sister was 10 we were sent half way round the globe to an english boarding school and only came home once a year. So home life ended then I guess.
As far as parenting went... well they were kind of hands off. not affectionate. Yet very demanding in that we learnt to cook, clean and look after ourselves from a very young age. We were expected to do well in school - which we did, but they were never a part of our school life.
When I was 15 we moved back to the Uk and a few months later both my parents comitted suicide. It was something they had planned on doing for such a long time that I had become emotionally detached at an early age.
So - what will I do differently? Pretty much everything
Sad!
My kid will go to school, do her homework, and try her best, or she will face consequences.
I will do my best to instill that she needs to respect my and H's authoritah.
As a teenager, I never respected that my mom could tell me what to do, I rarely went to school, and bad grades were never met with consequences. It has affected my life negatively and things are harder for me than they would have been had boundaries been set for me early on.
I think it's good to be a hardass about a few important things and laissez-faire about the less important things. But being laissez-faire about everything is something I think my mom did wrong, and I don't want to repeat it.
I miss my mother dearly and wish I could turn back time before she passed, because she didn't get to be a grandmother first (at least to a blood born grandchild). That being said, there was definitely boundry issues with her and I. She was always either trying to be my friend or my dictator; no balance whatsoever, which is very confusing for a teenager. It will be difficult for me, I believe, to not carry on some of the expectations I was raised to have. In addition to having ridiculous rules in my home, I was forced to attend church with my grandparents. Mainly because my mom worked on Sundays, and my step-father was always hung over. I will ensure there is a real balance of choices for my daughter and expectations. I think maybe that is where my parents really struggled. Balance. I'm not entirely sure this paragraph makes sense...
Pit does make sense, I am not entirely sure why you quoted me though.
I am not imposing impossible standards on DS, nor am I going to teach him to fear what I fear.
My parents would carry on and lecture about my C (or D) in math, despite As in my other subjects. "You can get As in everything else, so why are you not getting them in this?" It didn't inspire me to do better, it just reinforced, "You're never going to be good enough, so why bother?"
When I lived with my aunt and I asked for a Cabbage Patch Kid, she said, "Yes, if you do all of your chores without reminders for six months." I understand the value in working towards something you want, but six months seems a little extreme for something as inexpensive as a CPK.
My dad was extremely paranoid about things, so I missed out on some stuff. I wasn't allowed to be in the marching band, because the daughter of a friend went on a band trip and was busted for shoplifting. She was innocent, but the friends were not. After he died, my mom gave me permission to join.
He was also convinced that every male on the planet was out to molest me, or once I hit middle school, convince me to have sex. I wasn't allowed to go to school dances until my junior year (also after he died - my (adoptive) mom is a lot more relaxed about that sort of thing).
Dad got his paranoia from his parents. When I lived with them, I couldn't go roller skating, because I might fall and someone could knock my teeth out. I wasn't allowed to play in the front yard because a car might crash and kill me. They tried to talk my husband and me out of going on various trips because it was too risky.
I want DS to work hard and to not do stupid stuff, but there's a healthy way to teach that!
That is sad. And I can imagine how it was, mom was similarly paranoid. She keeps telling me Shadow will maul A sooner or later and to get rid of her before it is too late. And the cats will scratch his eyes out and they should be given away too. She drives me bonkers. Obviously I would never leave a child alone with any animal, but hell! Shadow loves him! And they stay!
I hope not to be "old fashioned" when my children are teenagers. i think my parents were alittle strict which made me rebel a bit.
I will not expect my kids to eat "everything" on their plate or eat things the truly do NOT like.
Other than that i can't really say. I had a pretty good up bringing.
Same here. I have only seen my mother cry once and it was only for a splity second before she banished herself to a room with a locked door. I understand not wanting to have your kids see that you are upset but you shouldn't totally hide all emotions.I know she loves us but that was how she was raised as well. I'm not sure if it was also apart of her upbringing or that there were so many of us but we really weren't hugged all that often. It was mostly just when we were going to school or going to bed. There weren't any random hugging just to hug. I think the "show no emotions" part of my childhood is the reason I am not very touchy-feely and am a total awkward hugger.
With DD, I am trying to give her hugs and kisses all the time. I am not keeping hugging as only something you do when you won't see someone for a while.
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." -- Dale Carnegie
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." --Thomas A. Edison