Are you a victim of your own parents? Does it affect your relationship with your own children?

Have you heard the saying ‘kids are victims of their own parents’?

Do you make decisions based on your own childhood and does this affect the decisions you make bringing up your own children?

As a child I tried to do everything I could to live up to my parents’ and indeed grandparents’ expectations. I was the 7th born of nine children on my mother’s side, but the eldest of three on my dad’s side (mum had been married previously and had six children). This meant I often struggled to know my place in this blended family.

My paternal grandparents (I was their first grandchild and first girl after 3 generations of boys on my granddad’s side of the family), were amazing grandparents and always there for me (albeit we had a fractious relationship at times). They had very high standards (a great sense of right and wrong) and very high hopes for me, especially with me being their first grandchild. High expectations of the way I should behave, and what I could achieve!

The pressure of this left me feeling that I could not live up to those expectations, and that they thought I was much more clever than I thought I was. With the best intentions they would say things like, “Well you’re the clever one so…” I always worried about letting them down.

My Mother

My relationship with my mother became more toxic as I got older. As a child I thought she was everything, and wanted to be just like her (she taught me how to survive no matter what life threw at me).

My parents split up when I was 11 and divorced by the time I was 13. I loved my dad very much, but wanted to live with my mum. My dad was a womanizer, and had affair after affair, breaking my mum’s heart time and time again.

Her first marriage had ended after years of abuse, and this affected her – she became more aggressive and a lot less tolerant! She sacrificed a lot for us, but she also never let us forget it… She would often say hurtful things like, “Well your sister is the pretty one!” This would make me feel so retched and unloved, and caused no end of rifts between my siblings and I. There seemed to be jealousy from the older children of us younger three. All this meant that we grew up not being very close at all.

My mum (like many of us) still lives in the past to some degree, and has never really moved on. Yes she had a terrible life in her younger years (things that most people could not even imagine), but one thing I have learned is that you have to learn from your life experiences and move on if you are ever going to have the life you truly want and deserve. You can’t change your past but you can change how you react to it, so that you don’t let it shape your future.

Being a different kind of Mother

As I grew up and had children of my own, I had very definite ideas about the type of parent I wanted to be (and indeed, did NOT want to be): strict but fair, kind and loving, and there for my children – not to put too much pressure on them to be what I wanted them to be, but instead allowing and encouraging them to be their own person…to teach them a strong sense of right and wrong…to always be kind to each other… And be a close family (something I never had). I’m pleased to say that my own children are very close, and there is no sibling rivalry or jealousy, just well-grounded, kind human beings.

As mentioned, as my own mum became older, she got more and more aggressive in her nature, with very little patience, quite rude, stubborn, and very intolerant! There is only one opinion that counts and that’s hers! As time went on, I learned to distance myself from her emotionally.

All the things I loved about her versus all the things I no longer liked started to make me realise that actually, I was much more tolerant and kinder to others than she. Yes I was strong minded, and following my divorce from a toxic relationship, I was able to bring up my children and hold down a full time job, keep house and pay a mortgage. Just because I was scared and unsure, didn’t mean I wasn’t capable.

The older I’ve become, the more I have distanced myself from my mum and my siblings. More for my own mental health than anything. I feel as I get older that I’ve grown less like her (we do have the same sense of humour though and still at times really laugh). I realised that I care about people and have time for them, and that I am happy being me, not my mother’s daughter.

My Father

Then there was my dad. A handsome man, very well-mannered and clever; he could turn his hand to most things. He was kind and gentle, but his womanizing had a profound effect on me and our family life. He remarried, three months after mum and he divorced, a woman with three kids, of similar ages to us.

His new wife hated us kids, and did everything she could to keep us from our dad, and to stop us having the relationship we should have had with him. We would see him only briefly, weekly if we were lucky, and always with her, never being allowed to be on our own with him. Consequently her own kids had the life, the holidays, the family occasions with him that we should have had.

So all in all, it meant I grew up with a lot of insecurities…and dare I say, a degree of resentment. But I now realise that my dad should have fought to have a life with us also: we all have choices to make and battles to fight, and he was too weak to fight for us. Although this influenced me a lot in my younger years, I realised that that was his problem; his choice not mine.

Unfortunately, my dad passed away early in 2016, leaving so much unsaid and unresolved… With help I have managed to let go of so much of the hurt and heartache that shaped my upbringing, and now have the life I want, and the relationships I want, on my terms.

Being Me

Using techniques I learned during my training, and by working with fellow coaches, I now find myself in a good place and happy being me. (Being me was something it took me a long time to accept and be happy with, as I always felt I had to live up to other people’s expectations).

Fast-forward and I am now married for the second time. The first one didn’t work out, as he thought he could control and abuse me (how wrong was he!) I’m now married to a kind and loving man, who respects, nurtures and loves me for me, and above all, makes me laugh daily.

If any of the above resonates with you and you would like to learn how to put your past behind you…to stop allowing the past to affect you and your decisions and your relationships, then let’s chat.

Let me break through your limiting beliefs and decisions, and give you the life you truly deserve…to put down the boulders that weigh you down once and for all, and stop yourself making the same mistakes with your own children.