Oh, Kaydee, I hear you on this one! Oddly enough, pretty much the second I fell pregnant I had all these "parenting issues" come up: my mother isn't precisely the model of what I don't want to be, but sometimes she comes very close! Just like I would never choose to have my children's father work abroad for long periods of time (and broke up with men pre-DH for that reason).

I agree, parents blaming their children for their own failings is not on at all and it is something that really annoys me with my own mother. I know full well that if I hadn't moved to London and stayed away from my mother these last six years then I'd fear the worst for me. It just beggars belief that these people are so cr@p to us and then boast about us when we've run away to escape them!

My mother still has a go at my eating habits: it took her 4 years to see that I wasn't eating at all as a teenager, then she thinks she can tell me what to eat or not eight years after I get myself over it (with no help whatsoever because my sister scuffed her knee at the time... well, not exactly but you get my point). She doesn't understand why I don't trust the Police (if she ever spoke to me when I had to deal with them over 1-2 years then she'd know why!) and... well, I won't go there again. I'm still mad at her for a lot of things, and I'm sick of being second, third, even gazillionth-best to everyone else in her life. Yes, I know I'm a "replacement baby", I know I'm not good enough for her... but how can a mummy let her little baby know that from birth?

My dad's just spineless so backs my mother up, I don't have a problem with him, just I don't feel at all close to him and never have. Doesn't seem to bother him.

Anyway, hon, it's not just you: it's good that you can get it all out now before it starts to really poison you with it all. Although it's made me slightly touchy with my own MiL (who's fab), it has also made me who I am today and, let's face it, we're both fab people so maybe it's good we needed to "escape" these people.