I just had a kid of my own and I’m finding some feelings of resentment towards mom.
Like, there were some times where I didn’t receive the supervision I needed, or where I wasn’t taught certain life skills (because she was so busy with my siblings) and I just can’t imagine letting that happen with my baby.
Did you ever feel this way towards your parents when you had me? If so, how did you deal with it?
Thanks Pop.
I can’t speak to your exact circumstances, but I would caution against judging your parents too harshly. At least not until you’ve had more experience as a parent.
You might not be able to imagine doing wrong by your kid now, but we are only human. Parents fail all the time, even when we try our best. We hit limits. We lose our patience. We have bad days.
You need to ensure you allow yourself some grace as a parent. And that grace should extend to other parents, possibly including your own.
But if you were genuinely mistreated, abused, or neglected… then I think those feelings of resentment will only grow more certain over the next 5 or so years as your relationship with your kid puts your relationship with your parents in stark relief.
All to say, I wouldn’t rush to condemn. Offer yourself and other parents some grace. Be ready to possibly confront some really uncomfortable feelings as you reevaluate your own childhood experiences in light of your parenting journey.
Stay safe out there!
I really appreciate this perspective and you’re right. I want to be gracious and humble enough to recognize that the job of parenting may be easier right now than it is later.
I feel resentment now, and it makes me want to process it with her now, but maybe I should wait and see.
Just to clarify, your feelings of resentment are valid no matter what. And you can and should address those feelings. I would just advise that if you want to address the subject with your parents directly, try not to come in too hot. If you have a therapist or someone you trust, maybe run your approach by them first and see if they have any helpful feedback. Best of luck!
Excellent advice. Thank you :)
You said it yourself, some of what you missed out on was because you had siblings. Right now, no matter how exhausted you feel sometimes, you have the luxury of having just one child. Being tag-teamed all night and day by multiple kiddos with different needs can cause confusion beyond belief. You not only get the names wrong, you can’t remember who you taught what, and whether they were too young to really get it but just happened to be there when you were teaching an older child. And even though you love them all enormously, there isn’t always time to give them all the love you feel and they deserve.
Continue to give your child all the love and support you missed out on. And unless your mom was actively bad, don’t burn that bridge because she might actually be helpful, gaining you the time and energy to be the best parent you can be.
My goal as a parent is to be a better parent than mine were to me.
I’ll know I succeeded when my children are better parents than I am to them.
We have far more knowledge and understanding than our parents did. We all make mistakes. Acknowledge them and look to see if they were trying their best.
I will also mention that parenthood gets more difficult (though also more fulfilling) as they get older. Also, you can be excellent 99% of the time. That 1% bad day will be the one they remember.
My boomer parents were dropping me and my siblings off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house all the time so they could go do adult stuff.
Now when I had my own child, they were off traveling so much that they have been unavailable to help at all. That lets me feeling bitter at first, but for the most part they aren’t going to know my children as well, which is on them.
Good folks have each generation trying to do better than the one before.
When you were young I might’ve used a flyswatter to spank you. My dad got an actual paddle, and his dad got his ass beat. I HOPE you do better than me, but I was doing what I could, in the environment I grew up in, to be better than my folks. I was by no means perfect, and there might’ve been times when I slipped, but I tried.
If you grew up into an adult who sees my flaws and wanting to do better, that’s all I can ask for. That’s already the world. One step at a time, we’ll eventually get better at this whole “raising a kid” thing.
That said, as you move forward and have your own little family grow through it’s trials and tribulations, I also hope that you can come to understand some of the struggles we went through raising kids. God, I’ll tell you what, just as an example, having one kid is wonderful when you can give them all of your attention. Two kids usually has one parent wrangling each kid. When the kids outnumber you? The household is running on duct tape and a dream. It gets better as the kiddos get older though.
Speaking of them, hopefully you appreciate your siblings. For me, since I was an only child, sometimes it was rough not having someone who knew my childhood. As time moves on, nostalgia waxes, and I’ve found there’s a steep cliff between telling folks stories about growing up, and having someone who already knows being able to enjoy (or complain about) the deep notes of wistful yearning.
Hoo boy, sure went off on a tangent there. Raising a kid has can be tough, especially the first 6 months. Just remember that you’ll always be able to work through the lows. You gotta take care of yourself before you can be a good parent, don’t forget that. And that goes double for the rest of your team.
Over and out.
Wow, this really helped. Thinking about the deficiencies of YOUR parents and what you faced… you were doing better than they did, and maybe I can continue that legacy.
Thanks for telling me about what you faced :)
My wife and I asked my mum to come help with the babies and we would pay her as she would have to leave her volunteer job. We live 800km away and have no family here to help and my wife’s family live on the other side of the world.
I asked her several times and offered a great wage but she just said “you don’t have to pay me, I’d do it for free”
My reply “that’s just it mum you don’t do it for free and you won’t do it if you are paid”. She went quiet after that and I felt a little bitter.
When my kids have babies I really want to be there and help them.
I think this is just it. I wonder if we’ve matured in a way that our parents didn’t. I really hope it’s not the other case: that we’ll get more selfish as we get older.
Am I reading this correctly? You live 800km (497 miles) away? That’s pretty damn far. Based solely on what you’ve said here, I’m not sure she’s being unreasonable.
You are quite right, plane tickets to and from home were part of the deal though. As well as chef cooked meals every night.
I don’t think it’s entitled to want to have your mum around and feeling bitter that she doesn’t want to be with you and your family…
I see. Thanks for the additional information. That’s rough.
Yeah I had to re read that comment like three times to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding it. “Why won’t you accept my money to be 6 hours from home?” is entitled as fuck.
Yeah, a bit. I think a lot of adulthood involves reacting to our parents and their choices, consciously or not. Ultimately we’re all just people mostly trying our best with what we’ve got. You’ll be okay, just keep at it.
Thank you for the encouragement :)
Anytime, bud ;)
When I had you it was one of the most joyous moments of my life. Right up there next to when your siblings came. We spent many years learning about the world with eyes of wonderment. It wasn’t until you were old enough to start asking the hard questions about human nature and the fundamental fairness of the universe, that I realized just how much my own parents had failed me. In growing older and wiser with you I had gained a level of maturity my parents never reached. I hope that my guidance to you will not leave you ill equipped for this world. But I’ll always be here to support you.
🥹
Well, you mention siblings, as in more than one. Our second child made our life four times as complicated. So I am sure it is exponential, so the third child would make life 8 times as hard. Just sayin’, I am pretty sure our firstborn will sometimes later in life think the same.
Thank you for this insight (as we’re weighing whether to have another as well).
Well, to emphasize on that: your focus and what you can do for your children will suffer (for the first and the second). E.g. we don’t read as much for the second as we did for the first. The first hears more often “I can’t rn, the second needs my help”.
But I feel, as long as you get the core principles right, they compensate by learning about empathy, about being there for another constantly. And, more importantly, once we as parents are no more, they still have close family. That is the most most important thing for me and well worth the “price”.
For me it was both. I realized how bad some things really were like you but also understood and could forgive a lot of things better.
But anyways besides all the practical things about raising a child I want to leave these quotes here because I actually think the most important thing when raising a child is being as aware of oneself as possible.
“Whatever you repress, whatever you don’t recognize in yourself, is nevertheless alive. It is constellated outside of you, it works in your surroundings and influences other people.”
“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”
~ Carl Jung
Love these quotes and will consider them deeply.
Typical dad always quoting Jung ;)
Your dad quoted Jung to you, but was still that bad / absent?
I probably should have phrased it as “just like a typical dad, always quoting Jung” or something like that.
Not at all whatever shortcomings my mom had raising us, I blame on the crcumstances as a single mom with four kids. Sometimes we struggled to live up to that even with two parents and only two kids
Maybe I’m a bit unhappy about some choices my parents have made. When I’m raising my children, I often notice that I find it a self-clarity to do things in a certain way because anything else would be hurtful towards my child, and then remember that that’s not how my parents handled the same situation and that I’ve been hurt badly by that. And then I am left wondering what the hell was wrong with them?!
But also, I am sure I am making mistakes my children will be angry for. I don’t really know which ones, although there are some I can already see when I look at my parenting years ago from the current perspective. I believe my parents have done the same.
Also, understanding how much a parent actually loves their child has been amazing. Understanding that that’s what my parents had always felt for me is incredible! I thought I had understood what their “I love you” meant, but when I got my first child I understood that no, I had gotten it all wrong. And my parents were always completely okay with that. As am I with my own children. I know they will not know how important they are for me until they get children of their own. And that’s okay, because the important thing is that they are happy ❤️
So, I’ve gotten 145 units of bitterness towards my parents, but 833 units of gratefulness.
Does that mean I’ve been made bitter? Yes and no, depending on whether you look at absolutely bitterness or net bitterness :)Excellent insight, thank you. This captures a bit of my feeling on the bitterness, but I hope I eventually gain the appreciation that you feel as well.
Well, there is no point in being bitter. It isn’t going to make them better parents.
Everyone is screwed up, it usually isn’t their fault.
But we just try to do the best we can.
On days we are both sick or when life just beat the crap out of us and we just can’t be emotionally available right now. We just do what what can, even though we both know you deserved better.
Sorry kid,
still working on doing better
-Love Dad
I agree that bitterness is a poison you drink and expect the other person to die from. It’s not good for me to hold onto.
That said, I have an ongoing relationship with mom and the bitter feelings (about my childhood) that come up when she’s around don’t feel nice.
She’s proven in some ways that she wasn’t a great parent. It may mean she doesn’t get to be around my kiddo as much.
I’m wondering how you handled it as a parent when first encountering these feelings. Did you just decide to forgive and move forward with grandpa and grandma in the picture? Did you let us see grandma and grandpa less than you would have if you’d have had a better relationship with them?
I realized it was not about me but what was fair to you.
You might not have known healthy and safe boundaries, so you got to meet them under conditions that I felt was appropriate (no getting drunk, stopping them from giving you scotch sort of thing).
If they respected that you got to see them more but when they fell back into bad habits, you didn’t get to see them for a while.
I know they always tried to use ice cream and cake to bribe you into liking them and why you wanted to visit them.
So I am sorry if you feel you missed your chance to see them while they were alive because of me but I did it to protect you from their worst behaviors.
