Mummies & Daddies

So many of us find ourselves as one at some stage of our lives, (some people to pets not children!) We all had them, biological or not, we all had at least one role model bringing us up.

In my case I am so extremely lucky to have two amazing parents.

There are very few people in the world that could confidently say they knew/know exactly what they are doing as they become parents. We go into it blind, the only experience we have is how our parents bought us up. So we decide, do we want to be like our parents or not? How much advice will we take from books and online (essentially, strangers.) Then we muddle through parenthood the best we can just kind of making it up and hoping for the best. (If you’re a parent and you think this is untrue good on you for knowing exactly what you’re doing, I certainly don’t and I’m not judging anyone.)

As previously mentioned in my opinion my parents were & are amazing. Which is clearly something a lot of people think of their own parents, so let me elaborate. I have two sisters, one 2 years older, one 3 years younger, my parents were 22 & 25 when they had their first child. All three of us have been fully supported in everything we have done in our lives. My older sister wanted to play the drums, so she had lessons at school and was bought her own kit, I wanted to learn guitar so had private lessons for years. We never really wanted for anything, don’t get me wrong we weren’t spoiled & if we needed it we were punished, (me being the only one to ever get grounded.) My parents both worked extremely hard to be able to provide for us and for that I am eternally grateful, now as an adult I truly know how hard it is to juggle working and bringing up a child in a way that the child doesn’t feel like anything in their life is missing. We were never rich but it didn’t ever feel like we were poor either, and all three of us have turned out to be pretty great people (modest aren’t I?) so they must have done something right.

On a very personal note – I gave my parents more trouble than they ever deserved and they dealt with it the best way they knew how, which is what my husband and I will do with our daughter if we have to. My parents dealt with me being an extremely anxious child, to the point where I was physically ill, and a somewhat troubled teenager thinking I was older and more responsible than I was. Throughout this I never once felt unloved or unsupported, I didn’t feel like a disappointment or even a trouble. I am truly amazed at what my parents put up with but it let me enjoy my life, I don’t really have any regrets except for maybe the fact they might not know how much I truly appreciate them.

On a slightly different subject:

What I do find strange is that two people bought up in the same way by the same parents can have such different opinions on their upbringing and such different parenting styles once they have their own babies. I understand to an extent there will be a difference because of the fathers input but the difference in my family in quite bewildering.

My husband and I adopted a fairly relaxed parenting style, we encourage our daughter to be independent, she’s allowed to try things out for herself, obviously we are aware of her safety but we aren’t ones to follow her around always 2 steps behind, if she gets hurt she will recover and learn not to do whatever it was she did again. We have always been happy to accept help from family and friends with looking after and bringing up Taylor, if someone was babysitting, especially one of our parents, we didn’t offer them much advice, they bought us up alright so why would they need it?

My sister and her husband on the other hand are almost polar opposite to this, their daughter is not allowed to be around or exposed to any negatives. My mum and dad had to be shown how to bath and put her to bed before they were allowed to babysit. My brother-in-laws mum looked after their daughter everyday while my sister did a PGCE, she had to write down when she was fed and changed and report back everyday. Their daughter is very protected.

I’m not saying either of our styles are right or wrong, they are just what suit us, how we are most comfortable. It is just surprising that even though we both had the same/ extremely similar upbringings, we have grown into such completely different parents, completely different people, this just shows that although your parents have a huge part to play in your lives, actually you will grow up to be whoever you were going to be.

So when you are parenting the most important thing to do is trust youselves, try your best and make sure your kid knows how much you love them.