Now that you are already in your senior years and all your children are all grown up and had their own families already, do you think that you had been a good parent to all your children?
This is easy...I have been an EXCELLENT parent to both my kids. I put everything I had into raising them and spending time with them, I was lucky that I didn't have to work outside the home. They both turned out great. Both are successful, caring, moral, honest and generous. They are my greatest accomplishment in life.
I think my kids would give me a vote of approval on my parenting skills. I was good and fair in my ruling of the family. I did go to work outside the home after they were all in school. Their father was the one that ruled the roost, especially when they became teenagers! His voice could settle matters of a serious nature much easier than I ever could.. We're all close today, so that means something.
This may not be applicable to me so let me shift it to my parents. My father is the generous type of person such that he would give in to the requests of his children. And to consider that he has 12 children in all so you can imagine his concern regarding our finances. It's a good thing that he was earning good as a horse trainer and especially when his horses win, he gets extra money that he can provide to his children. By the way, I am the youngest so I usually get the choice part. My mother is a happy go lucky woman who prefers to roam around than stay home. However, when there are chores to do, she does it well particularly the cooking. She is a good cooks and we love her cooking. With the discipline, my mother is not really strict but not lax either. I guess we had a pretty good childhood because my parents have been good to us.
I was a single parent with two girls. I was not as hard on my girls as my mother was on me but I did not accept any foolish behavior. My girls are strong independent women with families of their own. Yes I feel that I was a good parent to my girls, I had a poor parent to remind me of the things I did not want my girls to experience.
Like @Ike Willis I felt I could have done better,..... have been more present, less self absorbed, but my daughters disagree and say I was a very good parent, and they have turned out to good caring mothers, so my very different memories I guess don't matter in the end.
Being a mom and parenting my children was the most important job in my life and I gave it my all...so yes I think I was a good parent to all my children. I made mistakes along the way, but I wasn't afraid to admit I failed sometimes or apologize when it was called for. Now having said that, I can also say that if you ask my grown children this same question they may have a different answer for you or not. I have a close relationship still with all my girls and they give me beautiful Mother's Day cards every year...so I think I must have done most things right most days.
Being a single parent wasn't easy and I have to say yes to my three sons. It helps when you hear someone else tell you that too.
When I look back on the years my kids were growing up, and it seems that what I remember first are the mistakes I made, and the places where i could have done better as a mother. We never had much money, so life was not always very easy for the kids; but they seemed to take everything in stride. Their dad worked on powerlines, and was often gone most of the time, and we lived out in the country; so it was up to the kids and I to get everything done. We had horses and ponies for the kids, so feeding livestock and milking the goat were just part of the daily chores. I often wish that we had been able to provide a better quality of life for the kids when they were growing up, and if I ever win the lottery, the first thing i would do is try to make it up for the hard times they went through growing up. But then, I remember that we had a lot of good times, too. We went swimming, fishing, rode on trail rides together. The kids took their ponies and went in 4-H every year, things like that. We went to church and other church functions, and enjoyed that. Summer evenings were sometimes cooking hotdogs and roasting marshmallows over a campfire in the back yard, and then singing around the campfire afterwards. So, even though there are things that I wish I had done better, there are also things that make me happy when I remember them, and even happier when the kids remember and we talk about some of the fun times we had together. Here is Robin after winning the ribbon at the horse show. She is probably about 5-6 in this picture, and had trained her pony, Hot Chocolate, all by herself.
Like Ike I could have done better but for me alot better. I was a working mom and left my kids to raise themselves more than me raising them. For years I worked 12 hours a day during the week, 10 hours on sat and 8 on sunday so I wasn.t around much.