If you have kids, is your relationship with them better than yours was with your parents?

If you have kids, or plan to have kids, do you think you get along or would get along better with your kids than you did with your own parents? Think you'd 'get' them better? Know more where they're coming from? Be more open with them, that they'd be more likely to talk to you about something than you were?

I don't have kids yet and don't know that I ever will, but if I do I actually HOPE I get a kid like myself because then I will know exactly where she's coming from when she's being a pain in the butt, and I'd remember how hard I had it because I wasn't like anyone else in the family, nobody ever got why I was so mean and angry all the time and it was just like I was mad at the world, which I wasn't, and the things I was angry about there wasn't anybody who could calmly and be level headed in explaining the things I needed explained to me. I get NOW the things I was going through, and it would've been better if somebody had been able to better explain everything to me then.

Also, I wouldn't take it personally when they do get like that, I wouldn't get all offensive because they don't say what I want to hear or it's not in a nice tone, like I always got when I mouthed off as a kid. Now, getting somewhat off base here, Roseanne has been credited as the most realistic sitcom made, and one thing I liked about her, whenever her kids were being smart asses she was just sarcastic with them and always cracking jokes, like they couldn't rattle her no matter what they did, or it had to be something huge, that's what I always wish I had with my mother, and that's how I intend to be with my kids, that I wouldn't just be a ticking time bomb that any little thing could set me off, because while my mother is a great one and for the most part she's very easy to talk to, there have been plenty of times where it was just easier not to say anything and get in trouble for that instead of getting in trouble for something I did say, and I don't want my kids to be like that, that they have to censor themselves constantly or else, that's no way for a confused teenager to live in my opinion.


Another thing I won't do, and I hate this one, the kid listens to a certain kind of music or watches a certain kind of movie, 'Do WE like that?' well I don't know about you, but yeah I do. Did anybody else get that as a kid?

My relationship with my dad has always been lackluster, but my relationship with my mom makes up for it. We've always been close and so I hope (plan) to have a similar bond with my own child. I'm pretty sure my BF will be better than his parents were as well.

My relationship with my daughter is a bit more relaxed and affectionate than the relationship I had with my own parents. I'm not quite as critical and domineering with her as they were with me.

Eh, I'd prob. be a little bit more strict with my kids than my parents were with me....on the flipside, I think I would be closer to them as well. As far as the coolness factor however, I think I'd be the same way with my children the way my folks were with me.

Nystyle709 wrote:Eh, I'd prob. be a little bit more strict with my kids than my parents were with me....on the flipside, I think I would be closer to them as well. As far as the coolness factor however, I think I'd be the same way with my children the way my folks were with me.

Which is?

Supernova wrote:

Nystyle709 wrote:Eh, I'd prob. be a little bit more strict with my kids than my parents were with me....on the flipside, I think I would be closer to them as well. As far as the coolness factor however, I think I'd be the same way with my children the way my folks were with me.

Which is?

My folks were cool. I didn't have 'mean' parents. Not to the point where I would be hesitant to invite friends over or friends didn't want to come over. They were the type that would take me and my friends out for dinner, to parks, the movies, etc and foot the bill. Dad especially.

My relationship with my kids is much better. I barely had a relationship with my dad and my mom who has since gotten her life together, wasn't always stable when I was a kid. Sadly history repeated itself because my parents divorced and I'm divorced from my kids mom, but unlike my own dad I'm still involved.

Mine is 100 times better. We have much more communication and affection.

I'm a much better father to my daughter then my father was to me. He was way too young. He's a pretty good grandfather though.

alan smithee wrote:I'm a much better father to my daughter then my father was to me. He was way too young. He's a pretty good grandfather though.

They usually are, that seems to be an unwritten rule, people who sucked as parents are always VERY nice to the grandchildren. For some I guess it's like their second chance, but for others it's like by being nice to the grandkids it can erase all the crap they put their own kids through, and it doesn't, they still remember.

Supernova wrote:

alan smithee wrote:I'm a much better father to my daughter then my father was to me. He was way too young. He's a pretty good grandfather though.

They usually are, that seems to be an unwritten rule, people who sucked as parents are always VERY nice to the grandchildren. For some I guess it's like their second chance, but for others it's like by being nice to the grandkids it can erase all the crap they put their own kids through, and it doesn't, they still remember.

Very true. I used to feel a simultaneous sense of satisfaction, bewilderment and quasi-resentment with how affectionate my parents are (my dad, especially) with my daughter. They are very patient with, and accepting of, her in ways that they weren't with my sisters and me when we were growing up (and even as adults.) But they understand that it is not their job to raise her, only to love her. So without that added responsibility, they don't have to be as critical or controlling where she is concerned.

Or as Bill Cosby told his children, "Don't let them fool you. They're just old people trying to get into Heaven."

alan smithee wrote:Or as Bill Cosby told his children, "Don't let them fool you. They're just old people trying to get into Heaven."

Sounds about right.

Actually this takes me back to Roseanne, during the middle of the series when they changed the writing so her parents, her father particularly was abusive...whereas before we see him and he's funny and nice, and people say it doesn't make sense, it's not realistic, it's not believable. Well for me it is very believable because it was the same way with my grandmother, until I was 12 I thought she was...well I won't say nice because she wasn't really, but I thought she was okay, then I find out that she's been horrible to my mother ALL her life, and NEVER apologized, and it was always 'oh you imagined it, now shut up' and to everybody else she was just nice as can be, and even today people don't believe it, so for me, regardless of what was going on at the time that they DID change it, it's very believable to me because we've lived through it too.

Chris wrote:Very true. I used to feel a simultaneous sense of satisfaction, bewilderment and quasi-resentment with how affectionate my parents are (my dad, especially) with my daughter. They are very patient with, and accepting of, her in ways that they weren't with my sisters and me when we were growing up (and even as adults.) But they understand that it is not their job to raise her, only to love her. So without that added responsibility, they don't have to be as critical or controlling where she is concerned.

Chris, you stated it so well. I too feel a sense of satisfaction mixed with quasi-resentment on how my dad is with my son. And it is one of my top parenting struggles to not say too much about my dad from back in the day to my son because I don't want to mar that rock star status he has in my son's eyes. It gets hard when my son thinks that my childhood was all sunshine and lollipops, like his days are spent with Papa.