Looking back as a parent

Indeed, out role is to start letting go from day on to some degree; and there is joy in seeing our young ones make their own lives.

I guess my OP was really about the distress my DD was suffering as a young person and our impotence to do anything about it. The extent of her suffering is only just emerging, and I cannot help but wonder if I would have done things differently had I known; or indeed whether I should have pressed her harder to try and get her tom open up then - but it might have just pushed her away.

Thank goodness she is well now.

Yes, I agree with bags...sometimes love is holding on, and, equally important, sometimes letting go.

Well said, gaga.

I have always thought that a major and essential part of parenting responsibility is to push one's children away, inch by inch, towards independence from a very early age so that growing up to become independent just, as it were, 'happens', just as growing up physically does. I don't mean that one loves one's children less as time goes on, only that one has a duty to help them become independent animals. I'm always reminded of this thought of mine when I see wildlife films that show how other animals do this same thing. It looks like parental rejection sometimes, but it isn't, it's parental teaching. It's parents saying "time to do it yourself. You'll be glad you know how some day."

Printmiss I feel very moved to read your heartfelt post about your lovely boy. I think feeling guilty comes with motherhood. It never feels that we have done quite enough or done or said quite the right thing. You did your best - and still are doing. You prepared your fledgling to cope when you edged him out of the nest - and he has coped and will continue to do so when you are no longer there to watch over him. So I say "Well done you".

P.S. Hope the new specs help you to see things more clearly!!

It is strange that this should come up now, because I just recently have been feeling really guilty about sending our son away to week-day boarding school at 10 years old. If you read my blog you will know he has learning difficulties. He is now 56 years old and has been without speech all his life, and since he cannot write, has difficulty communicating. It has always been a fact of his life, and accepted by the family, I use my hands when talking and he learned a sort of sign language from me, but it is only during the past few months that I have thought how unkind I was to throw him into the world where although people were trained to help him, he had to make himself understood without words. Then, I look at him, living what they now call 'independently' (in the broadest sense of the word) and know that I was cruel, but he has a better life because he has had to learn to cope. I love him to bits, very proud of him, I think he loves me, likes us to visit him and take him out. We are not the hugging kissing type of family, and the only time he has actually hugged me was when we accidentally bumped into him in the foyer of the local theatre, when he had just moved into a new house with new people, and was obviously a little worried. The look of relief and pleasure on his face was something I had never seen before - although I knew that he had moved in with people who knew him and would care about him. My daughter and I smile at each other when I mention 'tough love', because she went through a rough patch in her late teens, when unfortunately we could just not see eye to eye about anything, but she fortunately had a lovely boy-friend (now our lovely son-in-law), and as she says herself I was always there. Would I have done things differently? We can only act on what we have at the time, and hopefully make the best of that, so probably not.

At least we're honest, nightowl. And we know our children love us, failings and all.

Ana .

I do try to forgive myself and it's not about self-pity, or beating myself up, but it's a horrible feeling isn't it? I'm trying to be a better grandmother than I was a mother

nightowl, I feel much the same...

I know I could have done better, and I can't console myself with the thought that I did the best I could at the time. I could and should have tried harder. I couldn't have loved them any more than I did and do - they are my whole world - but love is definitely not enough.

Grannyknot

I completely "muddled through motherhood" without much of a plan. So far we've had a few hiccups with our son, our daughter has never given any trouble and is a well rounded, well grounded, terrific woman. So it can't be me because I raised both of them the same.

Lona I could have written your post.

So much I would do differently. My DD is a far better mother to her DD than I was I think. I was married at 19 and had my DD when I was 20. I was rather selfish at times as I hadn't really lived. Because of my dreadful childhood, all I wanted for my own daughter was that she was well turned out, well mannered, had family holidays, went on school trips if we could possibly afford them. Everything that I didn't have basically. I was never ambitious for her academically. Her own daughter is very bright and my DD has made sure that she works hard to achieve. It was never important to me with my DD, I just wanted her to be like the other kids which I never was. I also sometimes regret only having one child although my daughter only has one, so she can't have been unhappy I suppose. I have told her in the past that she is a far better mother than me and she says 'don't be ridiculous, I get my mothering skills from you' but she is just being kind I think. I should have made it less about me and more about her which is how she is with her own daughter.

Choose a father for my kids a lot more carefully.

There is nothing I would change, I did everything I could to educate DC and make them independent. They are loving and caring and because I chased them out of the nest at 18 they keep coming back and back

Yes, quite right Anno - just have to show them a wide variety of ways to cope - though those often aren't learnt until long after their childhood. Kids who've had a perfect life often can't deal with what comes their way as adults. Also if you did one thing with one child, the same probably won't work with another. It's as much about their perception of what happens as much as what actually happens. I beat myself up for ages that I didn't pick up my DD2s leukaemia earlier, blaming myself for being very busy getting a business going, but then neither did GPs & she was doing things that you wouldn't expect a very ill teenager to do.
If either of my GCs inherit SiL's ADHD then I tell their parents that it will never be so bad as for their Dad as they know how to help them whereas he had 35 years of negative reactions on top of the untreated condition.
Maybe Mishap it will be the same for your GC - you have all that experience to draw on, so better to do that than dwell on a past through the specs of hindsight & more wisdom. To all who feel guilty, turn it into something useful & be compassionate to your old selves.

I too have bouts of guilty feelings on how I handled my ex and his alcoholism while my children were small and then our divorce when they were teens.. I know they felt I abandoned them when I left him and them , my excuse was they needed to stay in the only home they had ever known just a few minutes walk from their school and near their grandparents while I had to move into my Mum and Dads spare box room... its a long tale but needless to say they don't blame me and have all grown up healthy and balanced and have given me 8 wonderful grandchildren who are all very loving .

I don't know what I could have done differently so I don't feel any guilt. My sons have turned out well, with a few hiccups on the way; they have settled with lovely partners and are proving to be first class dads. It isn't the fact that there are hiccups in their and our lives, but it's how you deal with them at the time.

I also have guilt feelings about what I and their Dad put them through as children. He had/has severe psychiatric problems, and I probably wasn't as understanding as I should have been. And the poor kids got the brunt of it. We should probably never have got married, but then we would never have had these lovely children.
To some extent parental stress strengthens children, as long as they know they're loved.
We both remarried and the children have survived fairly well TG.
I know I behaved selfishly for some years and recently I've apologised to them for this, I think they were surprised but pleased.
They're all 45+ now btw.

Oh Mishap we've been in a similar situation with our DD - and sadly she's going through another bout at the moment. My son too went through a bad patch too but seems to have come out the other side now. Looking back I don't think I could have done anything different although perhaps I shut out their problems more than I should have done because my mother was depressive and took to alcohol and a couple of suicide attempt for Good measure. Perhaps I couldn't and didn't want to believe I was going to have to put up with it all again. Very selfish I know. Luckily DH is more grounded than I am and is superb at supporting DD. I do my best with the GC and do worry about how it affects them. I found it very difficult to be a parent but I'm glad to have had the opportunity - although you never stop being a parent do you?

Mishap

I so understand where you are coming from.

I vividly remember sitting at our kitchen table having tea with my DD. She was about 9 years old at the time and I looked at her hands and saw scratches on her fingers.

I asked her how had she scratched her hand. She quickly shoved the other one under the table and said nothing. I asked again and she broke down in tears.

She held out her hands and it was obvious she had been 'self harming' and had 3 cut marks on each finger above and below the knuckle. I was beyond shocked as I thought I was the best mum in the world, don't we all.

She was being bullied at school and outside of school. I never got over that episode of our lives and neither has she, although she is now a lovely 36 year old mum herself.

The feeling of being a bad parent lasted for a long time until I had to rationalise the situation and see it for what it was. To this day I worry about the same thing happening to DGD. We never get over it as parents as it simply goes against all expectations of ourselves as being our child's guardian and protector for life.

I suppose the feeling of mental anguish is hard to relate to others and that compounds the problem and makes it worse. I think it is more common than we think and perhaps that is the best way to for us to stop taking it so personally.

Hugs to your DD.

We can't re-wind; there are many things I wish I had done better but it is only with hindsight that I realise how I could have handled things in a different way. It was very difficult at times with DH away a lot, an elderly mother to care for, a job and two spirited teenagers and a younger child. I know I acted instinctively a lot of the time when I should have counted to 10 and thought before speaking or acting, but what's done is done and they seem fine now I hope.

I am always looking back and wishing I had done things differently. There is a picture of my 4 children aged from 5 - 12 standing in their new school uniforms about to enter their new schools post divorce. They must have been terrified. I feel so guilty and could have handled it all better. I have spoken to them (some of them) about my guilt and they said that I did the best I could and that they are fine. I hope so.

I know that I was a loving mother and they were well fed, clothed and I spent time with them ie picnics, walks, playing with them but I still have this terrible mother's guilt.

yes I agree with a lot said here, but mostly I want a `re-play' to not only adjust the mistakes- but to enjoy again those days of sharing work and laughter; we learnt as they our children were learning, it was great fun, but also hard labour!
my eldest daug; at 16 yrs said to me ---oh house work is easy !!! oh thought I she has a low respect for me?
many years later , I asked her if she still thought the same? her answer brought tears to my eyes, no she said, you made it look easy ! we never question what it was like for our parents? but I remember saying I will never do that to my children!
we all do our best most of the time, its nature to fail at some things!

good health to you all, this we can never control! only try too.

Oh yes, there is so much that I would change if I could re-visit the past, but that's not a luxury I have and so I remind myself that I was a 'good enough' parent to my children. If I hadn't made the mistakes I did then I'm realistic enough to know that I would simply have made others. C'est la vie! (rueful )

Well done to both Mishap & dorsetpennt for coming out the other end so well,I sometimes wish I had handled the situation better when DD met her 1st partner and did not make such a fuss about him being unsuitable in every way, I am convinced it drove her further away at the time and made for quite a few stressful years but then I can say if she hadn't done so well at school and went to college she wouldn't have met him in the first place so sometimes fate takes over and there is nothing you can do as a parent just sit back and pick up the pieces,I do think I have faired better as a nanna than
a mum sometimes but put that down to experience and learning to keep my thoughts to myself.