Hellobee Boards

Definitely! My mother is a good person and I love her but she isn't very motherly. I was always with my grandmother and great aunt. My mom didn't want me to cook with her, decorate for the holidays with her, she's very particular about how she likes her house, etc. She's never gone to a salon or had her nails done, so we could never have that together. If my interests were outside of what she likes she wouldn't support in any way.
I make a point to let J be very involved in household things, cooking, cleaning etc. I try to give him 100% my attention when I'm with him. (I WOH)
Sometimes I catch myself being particular about something and if it doesn't matter, I nip it right away. I want J to have memories of having fun with me and doing lots of things together.

I very much have the same fear, but moreso about my parents' marriage than about their parenting. My mom belittles my father all the time, and he purposefully irks her and lazes around. They argue about 50% of the time..... but they also get along fairly well, still go on dates, still hold hands, still plan and look forward to vacations together. They're like two old siblings.

As for parenting, my ILs and my parents had very different parenting styles, and DH & I fidn that very interesting to talk about and analyze. I really hope we can emulate the different positive things they did, and balance out each other's styles.

I fear becoming my mom. She did the best she could but I got a lot of coldness from her sometimes. I was a very emotional child (and adult) and she would never try to help me through my emotions or try to understand. She'd just say "suck it up. Get over it". I want to never do that to T but I find myself getting to that point when I'm really frustrated. Toddlers can be irrational

She also chose her religion over my well being and I know I will NEVER do that.

I just want T to feel like he can always come to me and will always get love and understanding. I don't feel close to my mom and I want to be close to my children.

I try not to be like my dad. He is a good dad and I love him but he used to have a nasty temper. I never ever want to yell at my child the way he used to yell at my brother and me when we were kids. I work very hard not to get too riled up when my toddler is misbehaving. I'm lucky because my dad has mellowed out over the years and I don't have to worry about him losing his temper at me (or LO) these days.

@artsyfartsy: Your description of your mom sounds like how my mom used to describe my grandmother (both the coldness and the religion). My mom worked hard not to be like her mom. She was warm and loving and we had a great relationship.

Your self awareness of your mother's behavior will prevent you from turning into her. My mother has very similar tendencies, and it is very frustrating and manipulative to whoever is on the receiving end of it. My parents have given me many examples of what NOT to do in my own relationship/marriage, and how I am raising my children. Granted, they did the best that they could with the resources and lack/refusal of much needed therapy for themselves.

When I hear stories about how terribly my grandparents treated my parents as children, I realize that my parents are a vast improvement over their own upbringing. We also have a different set of resources these days (Internet, childcare literature, parent groups, studies on child psychology & development etc) which enable us to problem solve issues with our children more easily. I think (for my own mother at least) that the frustration of not knowing how to handle situations and feeling overwhelmed caused a lot of her resentment and coldness towards us as her children. She also is very passive aggressive and never learned how to communicate effectively. She always goes back to her old staples of mean comments, silent treatment, gossiping, and harsh judgements.

I know it is so hard sometimes though. I promise you will not turn into her!

I have a difficult relationship with both of my parents. Most of the time I have issues with my dad, but lately its been my mom that I've been super hurt and disappointed by. My brother and I have always worked hard not to become adults like my folks - we're financially responsible, we're in stable, loving relationships, we work hard on communicating with our partners and each other, we strive for stability and peace in our homes and careers. So I think naturally as a parent, I believe I will be different from my parents. But my issue with my parents has manifested in different ways since becoming a mom.

I've known my parents are dysfunctional most of my life and I've tried to be understanding (their own upbringing, circumstances, etc.) but once I had my own kid I guess the stakes got higher and my disappointment with them grew deeper. I couldn't imagine doing some of the things they did to me to my son, so it would make me angry in a new way. And I didn't want their dysfunction to bleed into my son's life and I just cared less about the reasons WHY they were messed up because I just felt like I didn't have time to be sympathetic when I had my own family to worry about.

Don't get me wrong - my parents adore my son. But it causes more friction between me and my parents because now their dysfunction is aimed at my parenting, what I'm not doing right, how I should be this or that. And then that drives me absolutely nuts because I feel like compared to them, I'm doing leaps and bounds better. Every time they challenge my parenting or they pull the age/experience card on me, I want to have less to do with them, but then I become the arrogant prick that keeps them from their grandson. So I feel even more resentment since they are now creating more issues for me to have to deal with. Its like, you screwed up my childhood, leave my parenthood alone.