What are some things that when you were a kid, your parents did or said that you think they could've gone about it a better way than they did?


When I was in school, I wasn't a good student, I especially hated math and I didn't get a lot of it, and one day I was mouthing off about I don't get it and the kind of stuff I was learning, I was never going to need, and my mother walked out of the room and basically handed it over to my father to handle and he gave me a lecture of everybody needs to know math, it's how people who make clothes know how much fabric and thread to use, etc.

I don't get why she didn't just stick around and tell me that herself...it's one thing when you're a kid and most math as you know it are just stupid letters on a piece of paper, of course who's ever going to need that?, but it's another to have somebody explain that that everybody needs it in everyday life in examples like that.

Probably consistency in parenting methods. There were usually laxed in authority....but then out of no where they'd get strict or become controlling about something totally random. Like 50 Saturday's out of the year I had no bedtime on the weekends and could stay up as late as I wanted, but then all of the sudden on some random Saturday night they'd tell me to go to bed at a midnight.

My parents could have better handled positive reinforcement for a job well done. When I brought home good grades, or was awarded on honors night, they always attended, but in retrospect I think they held off on over-congratulating me because–perhaps–they thought it would derail my focus from continuing.

My Mom was a wonderful person, but she wasn't girly at all. She didn't go out of her way to teach me basic things or help prepare me for all the girl stuff. I had to figure out everything on my own and it is crazy how that has shaped me to being unable to ask for help even at my age now.

RedBedroom wrote:

My Mom was a wonderful person, but she wasn't girly at all. She didn't go out of her way to teach me basic things or help prepare me for all the girl stuff. I had to figure out everything on my own and it is crazy how that has shaped me to being unable to ask for help even at my age now.

My mother's the exact oppposite, she spent my whole youth trying to teach me how to be a proper little lady, which fortunately did not take effect after I turned 9. Even now she'll be criticizing what I do and say 'that's not ladylike' and I say 'neither am I', and I'm proud of it. And it's a good thing apparently that I am that way because my niece has always been a tomboy too and every other woman in the family is a 'lady', so we were the only ones each other could relate to.

I don't like that my parents assumed I was straight.