Reply to It’s hard to be the best parent I can be when I wasn’t always treated well

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[quote=Anonymous]I get what you’re going through, OP. It’s not that I wish I could get away with being awful, it’s just  that I learned all the wrong lessons and didn’t have good examples. It’s hard to tell sometimes if my reaction to a kid issue is maternal instinct/moral compass or the influence of dysfunction and bad parenting. Basically, I don’t know what normal looks like. It’s almost like moving to a new culture or learning and new language, being a parent who’s kind, is concerned about more than appearances, and doesn’t rule by fear and violence.

I met a woman whose son was an artist. She helped him pay for supplies when he had a great opportunity come along-materials are expensive and he wouldn’t have been able to be in the show if she hadn’t given him assistance (probably a few thousand dollars). I told her I thought it was wonderful that she was so supportive and he’s lucky to have her as a parent. She said this has always been his dream so she had to help him realize it however she could. She told me about how her mom had taken money out of her retirement savings to send her to nursing school decades ago so she could live her dream, so she knows how meaningful her gift was because her mom gave her a similar gift. We both got a little teary eyed while she shared her story. It was so sweet and beautiful. Afterward, I really cried when I was alone because I don’t know what that’s like. My parents “encouraged” me to follow the dream they had for me and crapped all over my dreams. I remember the bullying I got from my mom when I didn’t take the foreign language she preferred when I was in high school, especially telling me I’d be a failure because it showed what bad judgment I had, even if I excelled in those classes.

I try to be the mom I wish I had, but it’s hard when you had bad parents to know how to get there. It’s hard not to react the way I was trained to react sometimes, and it’s even harder not to overcompensate when I catch myself leaning toward my parents’ methods or when I’m triggered by how my parents reacted in similar situations when I was a child. Like if a kid refuses to wear shoes I know the answer isn’t to beat them, nor to let them go barefoot in public. It’s tricky to figure out what a “normal” person would do and to do it consistently. (The shoe thing is a hypothetical-I don’t need advice for how to get kids to wear shoes.)

I think it gets easier with time. The more you parent and see that you’re doing well, the more confidence you’ll build. I also learned a lot from friends, seeing how they talked to their kids and handled different situations without yelling or being violent. Being around healthy people reinforced healthy behaviors in myself. Therapy helped too because I had to mourn for my childhood being so crappy, but I also found myself being triggered frequently by having to relive these traumatic events I experienced as a child from a different perspective and see how different things could’ve been. It’s tough but it can get better. [/quote]

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