Raising a child is one of the greatest challenges you'll face.
What did your parents do to you that made you promise that you would never do that to your own children?
You won't be in charge of your child forever. At some point, they're going to go out into the larger world, interact with other people, and suddenly all those little tics and quirks they developed at home will start to hamper their social progress.
Never Able To Hit The Pick-Up Time
"They always had me late or last minute to everything. I'll never do that to my kids because, having it done to me, I know it's all the parents fault."
"That feeling, when you are the last kid to be picked up after a school event that they didn't attend, and my teacher asking if I called, and if she said she was on her way, and how far away we lived, and then a big sigh while we continued to wait, in the dark, outside school, after everyone else has gone home, and me just wanting to disappear."
Forcing Them To Miss Out
"I was never allowed to hang out with friends outside of school. I had to go straight home and couldn't stay and hang out or go over to friends houses after school or on weekends. This went well into my senior year of high school. It sucked constantly feeling like I was missing out growing up."
Definition Of Overprotection
"Isolate them from the world."
"Growing up I see now that they wanted to protect me from how sh-tty things were, but now I feel a useless idiot. If I would've known as a kid that I had violent gang-related family, addicts, or that we were on welfare I could've found a desire to do better."
There Has To Be A Reason For Things
"Using the phrase "Because I told you so" as a response to things. Never used it to this day and was the only thing that would drive me crazy when my parents would say it."
Yeah, This One's Probably Good To Leave Behind
"I wasn't allowed to befriend black kids that my parents called "n*****" or kids that came from a "lower social class" that my parents called "dogs". Most of my friends were in my private school and 99% of them were spoiled a--holes. I've only stayed in contact with one. Today, I befriend everyone especially those my parents kept me away from."
Taking on the care and responsibility of raising another human being to be a smart, compassionate, and well-meaning member of society shouldn't be easy. It should be a tough. Most important things are.
Downplaying Their Accomplishments
"My parents never thought anything I did was a big deal. I LOVED art class but I remember showing my mom artwork and she'd tell me she could make that herself, ok thanks."
"Ouch, this brought back a painful memory. I always loved to sing but I was shy. I was also bullied and made fun of quite a bit. In highschool I finally joined choir and it helped me come into my own. I won first place awards at State Solo and Ensemble competition, student of the year in choir and even the Directors Award which was the highest honor given. My mom came to none of my performances. Not until Senior Night when I was the only performer singing a solo. I did the cliche song...Memory from the musical Cats. I got a standing ovation!"
"People who would typically refuse to speak to me approached me to tell me that they never would've dreamed I had that big, powerful, voice in me. I was just about floating with happiness and pride when I walked up to my mom and asked her what she thought. Her face twisted like she'd bit a lemon and she wiped out all my good feelings with the words, "Well, it probably isn't a good song for you. You sound like you were ATTEMPTING to sing opera and it's not supposed to sound like that."
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Saying They Don't Quite Stack Up
"Compare them to other kids!!"
"This needs to be higher up. It's soooo insidious. Undermines so much about you, engenders the tendency for you to compare yourself to others, makes you needlessly resent the people they compare you to, but most of all, creates a sense that you'll never measure up or be 'good enough', not just for them, but in general."
Unable To Keep Their Minds At Peace
"Financial insecurity."
"The amount of anxiety I have/had from money related things is ridiculous. We were never poor, we were broke they just made bad decision after bad decision putting us in a stupid amount of debt"
When That Little Time Spent Together Is Terrible
"My mom used to beat us when we were younger. Most of the time it was with a thick metal pitchfork. Other times it was whatever she could find. It was more than a little hit or smack on the hand for sure. She also worked a lot and barely spent time with us because of it. She did buy us whatever we wanted. Because of that though our babysitter's son abused us. When I became a mother a few years ago I made a promise to my daughter that I wouldn't do what my mother did to us. I also ended up staying home with my daughter because I can't trust anyone watching her."
Dealing With Problems From Nearly A Hundred Years Ago
"My issues are all similar to others in this thread, and then I think about the time that my parents were raised in, my parents were born at the start of the '60s, their parents at the start of the '20s... so the mistakes my parents made were ones their parents made but mine should have known better considering the BS my grandparents grew up in - 2nd World war, great depression, their own parents going through the first world war. Even technology! It's the ideas and 'good old days' that most of 'our' parents needed to get over."
Perhaps the most important part to remember when raising a child some adults might forget: You are the adult.
Deal with your adult matters and let your child be a child. Don't bring them into your petty squabbles or unresolved affairs.
Keeping Secrets For No Reason
"Not tell them important things that they probably should know like their grandfather's terminal brain cancer and or their uncle's skin cancer which are both things my parents never told me about until YEARS AFTER they died"
Can't Control Your Drinking
"Get drunk. I remember as a kid my mom would drink a bit and it was always scary when she fell over, as she got mad when I asked if she was ok"
"She's clean of alcohol now and has been for a while. I'm proud of her!"
Avoiding Conflict
"My parents refused to address issues between my sister and myself. They hate conflict, so it was easier for them to guilt me into doing whatever my sister wanted and then praise me for being "good" than to ever put her in line. Being praised for always giving up what you want can really mess you up."
Lashing Out At The Other
"My parents were divorced since before I can remember. They did not get along very well when I was a kid. There was one weekend in particular where on the way to drop me off my Dad told me "whatever you do, don't end up like your Mother." Get home to Mom, she tells me "whatever you do, don't end up like your Dad." Best advice either of them ever gave me."
Asking The Child To Be The Adult
"They made their problems into problems for the whole family."
"They pulled us into everything. That's not fair to a kid. F-ck, I was straight out asked to fix things between them sometimes. No kid should be even the remotest bit responsible for their parent's relationship or fixing things that are wrong between them. That's f-cked up."
"We all have problems. We're human. No one expects perfection. But if you have a problem with your wife/husband? Don't bring the kid into it. Don't make it the kids' problem. Don't make the pain of the household -- which they're going to feel anyway -- somehow the kid's fault."
Don't want kids? Don't have kids.
Want kids? Be prepared to do everything you can to make sure that child has a supportive, strong upbringing. Don't let the mistakes of the past become the present.
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