How I ruined my sons with my parenting!

As a mum you try to do everything you can to keep your children safe, healthy and independent. Well I accomplished the safe and healthy part pretty well for a single mum with 5 kids on my own or with a partner who was a child as well (got rid of them toot-sweet).

The last one… not so accomplished. I had three girls and two boys. The girls all grew up to be very independent, sometimes overly! But the boys, well that is a different story.

After speaking with my daughter-in-laws, both have been with my sons for a few years, I now understand what I did wrong. Unintentionally of course, but still wrong. Worked for the girls, but not for the boys.

I was one of those mums who’s kids could always say “it’s OK, mum will fix it”. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing. On an all round basis though, it failed. I was very strict with my children and if they were in the wrong they knew about it, but if they were in the right or being taken advantage of, I was a mum on the warpath.

As a bit of background, my oldest child (daughter) had a dad that she never knew or saw, wouldn’t acknowledge her and was absent all of her life. The three next children were of the same dad. He hung around for a while but left while I was pregnant with his third (my fourth) child. These children were a daughter and 2 sons. Then there is my baby daughter. She has a different dad – he was a mistake if ever I saw one – but she was not. He was a hands on dad and she saw him a lot.

So after the middle three child’s dad left, I didn’t really have a dad around for the kids. The youngest child’s dad tried, but he was such an erratic person (due to his drinking) that he wasn’t really a role model or someone I could turn to in times of trouble – it was best for everyone that he didn’t know the half of what was happening in our lives. Therefore, it was me, mum & dad.

My sons therefore, didn’t really have to take any responsibility. I, mum (female) would pay all the bills, make sure there was food on the table, find housing, take kids to school & doctors and anywhere else they needed to go, do the housework, find lost items, clean up, etc etc. From this they lived in a culture where the mum did everything, dads didn’t really have any responsibility, cause mum would fix, clean, organise and arrange everything.

My daughter-in-laws now seem to have that responsibility. My sons are basically lazy people who expect their girlfriends to fix, clean, organise and arrange everything.

I’m not sure how I could have done anything differently though, as I had no-one to share the burden with. I still had to be mum and dad, with the mum part doing everything.