i give my kids things that i felt sad about missing out on when i was a child.
We never had any pets, besides the goldfish i bought when i got my first job. My kids have a dog, a cat and bunnies.
We never went hardly anywhere of great excitement as kids. My kids have been on a plane, to all the zoo's, to the cinema, the aquarium and just to the park on a weekly basis.
We always had hand me down clothes and things that we 'out of fashion'. while i have no issue with hand me downs and my kids arent at an age where what they wear particularly worries them, i like to make sure they have nice current season clothes to wear.
As kids we were on budget meals, like sausages, chicken wings ect, most foods that i now cannot stand. and although we're on a limited budget i try and make sure each night is something enjoyable and not repeated constantly.
Am i doing the right thing?? well who knows hey, my kids dont have an excessive amount of useless toys (although i find it hard to hold back on buying things like the smores pony!!) they have an extensive amount of books that they love looking at. (actually DF asked me to thin out their book collection but i refused to) they arent spoilt and never ask for toys when we go shopping. so i guess we're doing ok
I'm another one who wants to give hugs kisses and love.
I want some stability for dd. I was always given a chance to do dance or athletics or whatever but was always forced to leave to move or whatever new excuse my mum had so I was only ever in anything for a few months at best.
We moved a lot. I want dd to feel stable in one house.
The 2 most important things are for ME as well as DD.
I work pt. I want to give her all I can but more I want to give her time. To play with her, family outings, go to the library, read a book, cook and the list goes on. I spent the 6 years I lived with my mum watching tv in my room or looking after my brother (aged 8 and my brother 2 while mother went out looking for some new guy)
I want to give her and myself a family. I want her to have mum dad brothers sisters...... A real family who love each other and work together as a team through good and bad times.
I don't have family (well I do now) I lived with that many different people. By the time I was 15 my so called family members all stopped calling and visiting because my depression and mixed feelings about mum were too much for them to handle.
So I'm selfish because I want it as badly as, If not more than to give it to her.
Now that dd is choking me to death kissing and hugging me that's my cue to go and read a book before bed.
I may have had a bad childhood, abondoned and abused but I'm the luckiest parent and wife in the world. and going through all of it was totally worth it....... Because I know I learnt what's better for my dd and I have the confidence to know I am the best mum!!!! not to mention how gorgeous my dd and dh are...... Inside and out. We are a team!
I want to give my DDs some 'big picture' stuff that I feel was lacking from my childhood. I want them to have the confidence to follow their dreams, to know that academic success isn't the be all and end all, that I will be prouder of them for being kind and considerate than I will ever be of a stellar school report (thought that would be nice too), that life is full of choices and they have the power to make those choices and how their life turns out. That I will love them more than life itself but if they stuff up, I will tell them.
I think the main thing I want to provide for them is still yet to come and that is support during higher education. I was kicked out of home, but even before that I was offered no support to go to Uni. Just told to get a job. My other siblings received some help with their studies, setting up their first home, weddings etc. I got nothing. I feel that the help in those late teen, early 20's years is to vital these days and we want to help the girls then. Not just hand it all to them, but atleast give them a roof over their head whilst they go to Uni or do an apprenticeship.
The main thing I am giving them now is me having a licence and a car. I remember sitting in the rain after sports practice, waiting an hour for someone to pick me up. Having to ask other parents to get me to and from sports on a Saturday. Even when mum remarried and he did drive, they would be off doing important things, like shopping for who knows what, so I just had to sit at a vacant netball court till they were ready. My girls will not have to do that. If there is a very good reason why we cannot get them to or from an activity, then we will rethink the activity (different location, time, day) if we can.
If there is one thing I will give my children that I didn't have, it's the knowledge that they are loved, just as they are. That they can come to me with anything and know that they will be listened to and believed. That I will move heaven and earth to protect them when they need it. They will be able to sleep safely at night without the fear of being molested in their bed.
I want to give my children the gift of my time. Not always rushing off to something more important, to be able to simply spend time with each other and enjoy their fascination with the world.
Such a great thread! I want to give ds me. I never felt like i was doing the right thing, always in trouble for something. I rebelled really bad. I want my son to play team sports, be involved in something. I dont care if its ballet so long as hes doing something he loves! I dont ever want to say 'ask your father' or say 'maybe' and id get my hopes up and its always a no. I want him to know me as his mother and as a person, i never really saw mum as a person. I want to tell him everyday how much i love him and kiss and hug him. I find it very hard to be affectionate. I want him to see his mum and dad in love and kiss and hug eachother. I want him to experience going out as a family to dinner or the movies. My dad didnt and still wont go anywhere other than work, in fact he wants me to go to the doctor for him to get antibiotics! I dont want my son to see alcaholism sp? I dont want him to have to feel for the mood before he asks me something kwim? Oh god i didnt think i had this much lol. All DP wants to give him is a good bike haha. Nice clothes too. Esp. School uniforms, i always had faded old too big uniforms.
Oh, man - these kids are getting the farm I always wanted and there are two pretty ponies in the paddock here for them! Ok, so we didn't get the farm for them because we missed out as children, we got the farm for our own sakes and by default, the kids are getting what both of us wanted as kids. The ponies are my wish for them to have what I couldn't have, though
My kids are also getting a childhood free of punishments and rewards. No friggin star charts.
And they get cousins and grandparents and an uncle in the same state of the same country of the same hemisphere as they are in. Novel, I know! I grew up with very little socialisation, and only letters from interested aunts and my step-grandmother, and later from my cousin (who now lives in Melb), all in Ireland. I never knew my mum's side of the family until I was in my 20s, not even by letter. So, my kids get extended family, as well as a farm and ponies.
They get a dad who doesn't work away from home for weeks at a time. I know what that feels like and I will not encourage DP to get a FIFO job no matter what it pays. Wishing your dad was joking about missing your birthday or Christmas is not fun. And we knew it hurt him, too.
There are things I wish never happened when I was a kid and there's a whole stack of things I want to replicate and do replicate (hugs, "I love you's", co-sleeping, varied nightly meals, bilinguilism, the great outdoors).
The post by Luly threw me, too.
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