My mother-in-law has said to me that being a parent now is more difficult than when she was parenting her children. She said that 40 years ago keeping them healthy, fed and clothed was enough. There wasn’t any pressure, or desire, to be a Supermom. She says that now she sees young mothers worried about so many things she just doesn’t understand.
Her children say that she was a great mother, but she never played with them, or brought them to enrichment type activities. She was pretty hands-off. Vacations or weekends did not revolve around the children and what they wanted to do. Children played with children and the adults hung out with the adults. Now adults are expected to play with their children, to entertain them.
For the record, I rarely play.
One of the things that I consciously chose to do differently than my parents is to take my children’s feelings seriously. I don’t minimize their feelings. I distinctly remember being a child and having my parents tell me to stop feeling whatever it was I was feeling whether it was being sad, or angry, or happy.
I also tolerate a lot more discussion on things than my parents ever would have– they would have called it answering back. Though I remember my mother saying the same thing when she was raising me, that her mother strictly adhered to the philosophy that children should be seen and not heard.
I never had chores growing up, my children most definitely have chores. I never had an allowance, my children do. I had no choice in my extra curricular activites, my children are allowed to choose. I took piano lessons I hated for years.
What about you? Do you parent your children differently than the way that you were parented? Or do you use your parents as a yardstick to try and measure up to?
Well, some differences I think are due to the number of children. Growing up, there were 4 of us, so we played with each other and mom and dad ignored us. I have one child, so I’m her only playmate much of the time.
For a long time, I thought my parents were cool, because they didn’t come down on us about grades and let us go off into the woods and the railroad tracks all day. Now that I’m raising my own, I keep contrasting it with my own childhood. When we were in the house, we were punished (usually spankings) for the most minor, unimportant, idiotic things. We were sometimes petrified to move or speak. When we were outside, out of mom’s hair, she didn’t care WHAT we were doing, so long as she didn’t have to hear us and we were out of her hair.
I usually don’t hold it against them – THEY were certainly raised in a different time, and moved to the English-speaking US very young. My mom was cooped up with 4 kids in a teeny cottage before she was 25. I’D certainly go insane. But when we visit and she tries to hold my daughter to those same standards, forgetting that I’M the mom and I’m right there – grrr.
Sorry, you weren’t looking for a rant!
Comment by Brigitte — September 18, 2009 @ 7:36 am
Do you parent your children differently than the way that you were parented? Thankfully-YES!
Or do you use your parents as a yardstick to try and measure up to? Oh no.
…and I’ll leave it at that.
lol
Comment by Anonymous — September 18, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
I’m quite different than my mom but much of it is circumstantial. She was divorced. I’m married. She is mentally ill. I’m not (at least I don’t think I am. lol).
So while I discipline quite differently, have help from my husband, and don’t give my kids as many chores as I had, I try to pull the positives that my mom did. I do crafts with my kids. I will take time to answer questions when they are searching for knowledge (which is much easier these days thanks to the internet) and I try to establish a bit of ritual with my kids. I also think by havin ga tough childhood, I have a greater appreciation of what it means to be a good parent, and it’s not always about the things you hear in the media.
I do agree that we are bombarded with so much more these days about what it means to be a good parent that it can be harder if you let it be. Mostly I try to keep it in perspective. I hope my kids look back and feel I did the best I could (as my mother did even if it fell short) and honestly feel like it was a good childhood.
Comment by Lucinda — September 19, 2009 @ 12:21 am
As much as I would hate to admit it, I am probably a mixture of my biological mother (alcoholic) and my adopted mother (martyr). Hopefully I’ve got the good mix and not the bad. If I tried to break it down into simple ideas – I try really hard to give them a positive childhood full of good memories, a love and respect of their siblings and family, and try to show them that they are loved. I also have great play fights and tickle fights with them…got to get in quick before it becomes totally lame and uncool!!!
I also use my husbands parents as a yardstick – they produced 5 fantastic normal productive members of society, I figure they must have known something!!
Comment by sarah — September 19, 2009 @ 8:12 am
Wow. I feel like the outsider here. I use both my parents and in-laws as yardsticks. they were wonderful in sculpting my life and that of my husbands. They were involved, sensitive, and nurturing parents. Some of the situations have changed – ie – more child activities are available to younger kids and teens that weren’t in my time. But some have stayed the same. There is still scouts and school clubs like band and chorus. We still do family activities, have family meetings, and they do only 1 summer camp where the kids are away from us. Chores are expected, and not rewarded with allowance, and punishment fits the crime (didn’t finish veggies- eat it for next meal, left your bike in the drive- locked up for 2 days, ect.) All in all, I think our parents raise us well, so why not use what worked?
Comment by Claire — September 19, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
No. I am teaching my children that it is okay to be angry and how to deal with it, i.e. not throw or hit. I stay home with my kids. My mom was a divorced parent and I went home to an empty house most days. And the biggest thing is that my kids have both their parents living under the same roof and are committed to staying that way.
Although, I have heard myself say a few things that my mom use to tell me when I was a kid. And yes, I am mortified.
Comment by SoMo — September 19, 2009 @ 8:18 pm