Your Relationship with your Parents

Lee, I was thinking along those same lines yesterday. My parents pretty much let me do whatever I wanted as a child/teenager. They weren't strict at all. I was thinking about the best friend that I had growing up and how her dad used to take pictures of her and her sister all the time and her mom was always making clothes for them. They used to take actual vacations, which my family never did. Their dad used to take them fishing, and their mother taught them how to do things like sew, garden, etc. I remember once they remodeled their attic and made an awesome room for my friend and her sister, and it occurred to me that my own parents didn't really spend time (let alone money) on me or my siblings.

I love my parents, but depriving your children of simple things like time and attention really have a lasting effect. My parents are good people and I respect and love them a lot, but I wish I had had a different childhood...one more like my friend had.

As far as my relationship with them goes, we have a pretty good one, althought I do think I'm overly concerned with what they will think or say about the decisions I make. Also, they have a BAD track record of meddling in my parental decisions with my own children and undermining my authority with my children, which has caused major, major problems in my family.

I can't help but love them, though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I can totally relate to everything you just said, Sass. I can't imagine telling my brother or my sister that I love them, even though I do love them a lot. It would be too weird.

My parents were very openly affectionate with one another - almost to the point that we all wanted to vomit, but not so much with us kids. To this day I don't like to be touched or hugged. I won't even get a massage because I don't want someone putting their hands on me. All of my friends at work know that if I'm in a sad mood or something is wrong, the last thing I want is a hug. I just want to be left alone.

There's nowhere I can't reach.