Moms, childhood issues, and certified letters

[lph]

As an aside, having kids (kid) of my own has changed my perception of my mother and how I was brought up quite a bit. It's been easier for me to see how she was just an imperfect person, most of the time doing the best she could, and the rest of the time just muddling along. As a child, and especially as a teenager I think I felt that my parents were all-powerful and omniscient, and did everything deliberately, with full knowledge of the consequences. Not least I viewed them solely as my parents, and not as fallible, complex human beings. As a parent myself I've discovered that even your own kids can be immensely annoying at times, that it can be hard to balance your own needs with those of your kid's, and that your temper doesn't magically disappear once you're a mother. I am very very thankful that I have a compassionate, stable, patient dh to back me up when I need it, and to step in and be the responsible one when all I want to do is yell and throw things.

[OakLeaf]

LPH... I'm one of those who's just sane enough to know that I would have been (hopefully almost, but quite possibly entirely) as damaging to a child as my parents were to me, so I refrained.

I have no doubt that having a child changes one's perspective - I have no doubt that that's a lot of where those looks of pity come from (Oh, man, those looks of pity, and IMO there's a good bit of judgment and accusation mixed in with the pity, too.)

But. My adult life and my healing has largely been about getting past the excuses, rationalizations and justifications that my parents always had. They were under stress, they were abused children themselves, yada, yada, yada. Understanding what happened to them in no way diminishes or invalidates my pain or my sisters'. They're different events that happened in different peoples' hearts. There's a causal relationship, sure, but the fact that my parents were abused as children doesn't mean that I wasn't.

[Tuckervill]

As an aside, having kids (kid) of my own has changed my perception of my mother and how I was brought up quite a bit. It's been easier for me to see how she was just an imperfect person, most of the time doing the best she could, and the rest of the time just muddling along. As a child, and especially as a teenager I think I felt that my parents were all-powerful and omniscient, and did everything deliberately, with full knowledge of the consequences. Not least I viewed them solely as my parents, and not as fallible, complex human beings. As a parent myself I've discovered that even your own kids can be immensely annoying at times, that it can be hard to balance your own needs with those of your kid's, and that your temper doesn't magically disappear once you're a mother. I am very very thankful that I have a compassionate, stable, patient dh to back me up when I need it, and to step in and be the responsible one when all I want to do is yell and throw things.

So true. It is easier to be compassionate towards my mother (and the poor beset woman with the screaming kid at the grocery) because I have kids. I understand why my mother so emotional about the welfare of my no-account brother, for instance. She doesn't want to out-live him, which I totally get. That doesn't negate the fact that she has some real boundary issues when it comes to her divorce. I just try to deal with the compartment at hand.

re the bold part: I don't remember feeling this way as a child or teenager. But one of my sons DID feel that way about me when he was a teen, and I was flabbergasted when I found out. He's a parent himself now, and I'd bet he doesn't believe that about me anymore.

Karen

[Selkie]

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. Raising kids is the most important job in the world and I know my limits. My mom's illness has a genetic component, so in addition to my and my DH's personal preferences, having children was not right for us. I could not knowingly take that chance, after seeing my mother's suffering.

I've had a great deal of compassion for my parents and the very difficult challenges they faced dealing with my mother's illness (it was serious, required multiple commitments/hospitalizations, and during the 1960s-1970s, not much "social" understanding or compassion for the person suffering and their loved ones...but I digress). I don't know how I would have reacted, given the same circumstances. Mental illness is terrible, particularly when untreated or inappropriately treated.

I don't think having children necessarily is a prerequisite for empathy when it comes to one's parents, as Karen pointed out about her son.

[lph]

For the record, I certainly wasn't offended Not did I mean to imply that my experience was or should be universal, just telling it the way things panned out for me.

Having kids or not having kids is such a personal choice (and in many cases not a choice at all) that I'm just flabbergasted by people who feel the need to be judgemental about it. Would you believe I got approached once by a total stranger, who admired our single child bike trailer, and then demanded to know why we weren't planning on more kids??

Unfortunately I had no snappy reply ready, like "and exactly why is that any of your business, my dear?", and was just left aaah-ing ineffectually.

[Crankin]

Yes, the comments about one's state of child rearing never cease to amaze me. At various points in my life, I was absolutely firm in the belief that I was going to have no kids, one kid, two kids... people had comments about every one of those decisions.
Now, people comment things like "Oh, you must have been a child bride. Your sons are so grown up."
My DH often gets things like, "Are those your brothers?" when people see pictures of the kids in his office. When he says they are his kids, the response is usually silence, or "How can that be?" This, in spite of the fact he is quite bald on the top of his head, with a lot of gray.
Now people ask when I am going to be a grandmother. It never stops.

[Becky]

Yes, the comments about one's state of child rearing never cease to amaze me.

People astound me when it comes to the topic of children. It's even more "fun" when it's your in-laws who won't leave well enough alone.