EveningRose

I am struggling with wondering if I've gone too far in the opposite direction of my parents. For instance, they did a lot of yelling, swearing, quick on the trigger. I have worked hard at teaching my children with love, telling them what they need to know instead of shouting, saying excuse me instead of barking OUT THE WAY and shoving them on the forehead when I'm trying to get by.

I try hard to listen to my children and talk with them. I don't really have strong memories or any sense that my parents ever just listened to me or talked to me. Even as an adult, my mother does all the talking.

But here's where I wonder if I went too far. My kids do and say things I wouldn't dare have done or said to my parents. (To try to keep a balanced picture here, most people think my kids are very well-behaved and any 'problems' we have are typical of kids still growing up.) I get frustrated that my kids just sit down and start talking to me any time at all, including when I am clearly in the middle of a big project.

I'm frustrated today because I'm on a tight schedule with something that needs many hours and lots of concentration, and they're telling me things like--the full nitty gritty details of what happened on a tv episode.

I keep telling myself I am the adult, I have work to do, work that helps pay for their home and clothes, there's nothing wrong with them learning that sometimes they have to respect other people's time and needs, too. But I so very much resent and hate my parents' attitude that I wasn't worth listening to, that they fed and clothed me and that was enough. I literally cannot remember a SINGLE time that my parents listened to me, listened to how I felt, took an interest in what interested me. I remember sitting in the car either silently or listening to my mother talk at me.

My kids are big talkers. I struggle with how to teach them to include other people in the conversation without them feeling criticized as I always felt criticized.

I don't want to leave my own kids feeling I was too deep in my work to listen to them. I don't want to wake up one day and realize that I was as much a workaholic, tuning out my kids because of work the same way I was tuned out because of alcoholic family dynamics and parents wrapped up in their own worlds.

Those are the details of the question, but really the big picture question is: how do we find the balance we didn't grow up with? How do we learn what's right and wrong as parents when we had no example?