The Pressure to be the Parent You Never Had

The moment I held my daughter for the first time, my heart felt like it would burst with love. That powerful experience became the catalyst for my healing journey, highlighting a painful question: why wasn't my own mother ever affectionate with me? 

Parenting after experiencing childhood neglect creates a complex emotional landscape where many of us find ourselves overcompensating and desperately trying to give our children everything we lacked. This affects countless parents who are working to break generational patterns while healing themselves.

If you recognize yourself in this struggle, know you're not alone. Share this episode with other parents navigating similar challenges, and subscribe for more conversations about the messy, beautiful work of healing while parenting. Breaking cycles is hard but worthy work, and we're in this together.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back and Topic Introduction
• 1:13 Motherhood as a Healing Experience
• 4:07 Understanding Parental Overcompensation
• 7:21 Ways Overcompensation Shows Up
• 10:48 Finding Balance in Parenting
• 13:37 Episode Closing and Encouragement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello everyone, welcome back to Mental Health-ish. It's been a month since I last recorded an episode and I think at this point the podcast is pretty much a monthly episode type of thing until further notice. But yeah, I wanted to hop on here and talk about something that I feel that isn't talked about a lot, that I experience a lot and it's like a constant thing for me, like no matter you know how much I talk about it or I go to therapy for it. I feel like it's something that a lot of people may experience, but I don't really see much information about it or much about like online about this topic. But anyhow, I wanted to talk about overcompensating as a parent or mom.

Speaker 1: 1:04

In my experience I'm a mom, overcompensating as a mom after experiencing childhood neglect. So let me explain. I feel like ever since I became a mom and let me know if you relate to this but when you become a parent, it's like one of the most healing experiences ever. Like if you experience childhood neglect or trauma, you know, related to your own mom growing up, when you become a mom yourself, I feel like that's like the most healing thing ever Because it really makes you start thinking about your own experience as a child, growing up and your own relationship with your mom places things that were lacking memories. Everything just comes up as you start having your own experience with your own kid.

Speaker 1: 1:58

So definitely I feel like when I had Emma is when a lot of my healing journey kind of started with my relationship with my mom, because I started to realize like I have so much love for Emma as a mom. She literally the moment I gave birth to her. I would describe it like my heart felt like it was going to burst. It was like it's a love that you just can't even explain, the love that you have as a mom for your child. It's just a different type of love and I remember just I love her. It's just a very strong love. I'm very affectionate towards her. I'm always, you know, giving her hugs, kisses. I'm telling her I love her, like I've always been that way towards her, and so I think that's the first time that it really started to hit me is like why was my mom never that way towards me? Why was my mom never that way towards me? Like I have no memories right of her telling me that she loves me, her giving me hugs, like just doing all the things that I do for Emma and the way that I feel towards Emma. I didn't have those memories with my own relationship with my mom. So I think that was the first time that I really started to think about that and it really kind of hit me, I guess, in a way of just really like the lack of relationship that we we always just we never really had a close relationship and she never said nice things to me, you know, or I love you, or anything like that, you or anything like that. And so, yeah, I think having kids really puts everything into perspective because, like I said, you really start thinking about your own experiences as a child and that could be dangerous. You know, that could be dangerous because and I'll speak for my experience for me I always feel like I'm overcompensating for the things that I didn't have growing up.

Speaker 1: 3:55

To make sure that Emma has those things and that Emma feels the love, you know, whatever, I feel like I kind of like overdo it sometimes. I don't know if that's even possible as a parent and if you understand what I'm talking about, let me know, but I do. I do feel like sometimes you put so much pressure on yourself to want to do better as a mom and to want your kids to have a different childhood experience than the one that you did. And sometimes you just overdo it or it kind of feels like you're overdoing it and you don't allow yourself to take any breaks or do anything differently. Like it's just, like I don't even know if I'm explaining it right, but it's just a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves, so it's not even coming from any outsiders or anything, but we just put it on ourselves. Like I have this big responsibility to make sure that my child has a different experience that I did and it could be exhausting. It could be exhausting because even, like for summer, the summer break is coming to a close soon, emma goes back to school in three weeks. But just as an example, like even for summer breaks, like I feel like a big pressure, a big amount of pressure to like do things with her, but like overly do things with her and make sure that she has fun. Like you know, sometimes I do too much or I feel pressured, like I put too much pressure on myself.

Speaker 1: 5:34

So overcompensating I guess you could call it as a parent can show up in many different ways, many different ways, and it's really the wanting to provide what you felt was lacking in your own childhood to your kid. And so some of the ways that it could show up is like overindulgence, right, providing excessive material things or privileges to your kids in order for them to be happy, or in attempts to make them happy or to compensate for, like your own past experiences. So maybe buying them right, like, oh, I'm going to buy my daughter the toys that I didn't have growing up. You know, I never had any dolls, I never had any toys, you know, whatever. And so now, like you overdo it and like you're just overindulging them with, like these material things, which I definitely did a lot Like when Emma was a baby, when she was younger, her room was like constantly full of toys, like it was. It looked like a kid's hoarder's room, like the same doll and like different outfits, like type of thing, like it was like the same toy in different styles, like a bunch of toys, like anything she wanted. I would do so. I had to really stop myself. But that's one example.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Another one is constant availability, always being present for your child to the point where you neglect your own needs and boundaries, so lacking a lot of personal time for yourself, being there for your kid. Obviously that's a good thing like being there for your kid, you know, nobody's saying don't do that but when it gets to the point where you're not taking care of yourself and there are no boundaries, then that could be an issue. That could become an issue. Another way it could show up is fear of discipline, and so not disciplining your kids, avoiding any type of discipline or boundary, setting out of fear that your child will feel neglected or unloved Okay, so that's important. So you're afraid that your kid will hate you, you're okay. You're afraid that your kid will feel the way that you felt towards your own mom or parent, and so you don't discipline, you don't set any boundaries, because you don't want them to feel that way.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Another way it could show up is being emotionally overprotective. So shielding your kid from any type of discomfort, hardship, which can prevent them from developing resilience and coping skills so that's a big one, for sure is like not wanting your child to be hurt or put in situations where they feel any kind of hurt or discomfort, like you just want them to be happy all the time. You don't want them to feel bad, disappointed at all in any type of situation, things like that. So that's something that I'm still kind of working on, even with my own daughter, with Emma, because if anybody makes her feel sad or like any type of like uncomfortable feeling, like if I get the vibe that they're doing that I get so upset, like I get in full like mama mode and like I feel like I would literally fight someone type of thing Like that angers me a lot. Like to have her feel any kind of way that isn't positive. But I know that I can't shield her from that, for, like, sometimes it's it's okay, like it's okay for her to learn that these feelings, although they might feel unpleasant, like it's completely normal, and so I could see that that being an area, for sure, where we may try to overcompensate as parents.

Speaker 1: 9:36

I already talked about self-care, like focusing too much on your child's needs that you neglect your own well-being. Another way it could show up is like not being able to let go, so struggling to allow your children, your kid, to experience any kind of independence, hovering over them, right, micromanaging their activities, that type of thing, and seeking constant approval from your kids. So looking for validation from your kids for your choices, your parenting choices, which can create kind of like a dependency cycle, right? So, yeah, these are all different examples of how it could show up like just overcompensating as a parent. And so how do we create like a more balanced, a more balanced and healthy, I feel, parenting approach for our kids, for ourselves, right? So I think the first one is recognizing your patterns, like if it is something that you notice, or as I was, like telling you these things like something that you relate to, like start noticing, like are there any patterns? And, yeah, from that you could start making some choices, I feel.

Speaker 1: 11:00

But I think setting boundaries for sure is like a big one, like setting boundaries with your kids and allowing them to learn more independence, like be a little more independent, have a little more responsibilities, which is something that I'm starting to do now with my daughter. She's eight years old, now about to be nine, and so I'm really starting to like assign her more chores, you know, like just really teach her more like independence and responsibility, focusing on like quality and not quantity. So, instead of trying to do everything for your child, focus on creating meaningful moments together, spending meaningful moments together, so meaningful moments over like excessive. You know, quality of time being spent, practice your own self-care, take care of yourself, your own emotional, physical needs and seeking support. I feel obviously, like if it's something that you feel like you need more support, connecting with a therapist, joining a support group and talking to other people that maybe have like similar experiences to you.

Speaker 1: 12:09

But I think the biggest one is just embracing and perfection. So understanding that no parent is perfect, so there's no perfect parent. So there's no perfect parent. And just because your parent was one type of way with you, or neglectful or whatever, like that doesn't mean that you are the same person that they are. You're a completely different person. You're having a completely different experience. Like just because your parent was that way doesn't mean that you are, and allowing yourself to make mistakes and learning from them is going to be important. Like you're not going to be perfect all the time, right, but yeah, it's very tiring. It's very tiring. So make sure to take breaks and allow yourself to relax, allow yourself to say no sometimes, like that's another one is like you don't have to say yes all the time, even to your kids, like you can say no and set some boundaries for your time.

Speaker 1: 13:12

I think, obviously, you're not neglecting. I'm not saying that, but just remembering to take time for yourself and take care of yourself as well. For yourself and take care of yourself as well. But I know it's so complicated being a parent after experiencing any kind of childhood trauma yourself or neglect. It can be tricky, it's hard to navigate sometimes, but we're in this together y'all. But, yeah, thank you guys for tuning into this episode. Please remember to subscribe and share with any other parents or mommy that you feel would relate. But, yeah, check out all the previous episodes and thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe and like and follow my social medias, thank you.