How has your upbringing shaped you?

Hopes that sounds like a logistical nightmare for your parents, good on you for understanding though!

And Fattarts GO YOU for getting ahead :)

This thread is very interesting - I was just thinking the other day that I have started sounding a lot like my Mum. I had a good childhood and certainly didn't go without but both my parents suffered from mental health issues (Dad with depression and Mum with an anxiety disorder) at various times and things that happened round those times have definitely scarred me a bit. I am very aware of the things that I hated from my childhood (especially the yelling from my Dad - he was never violent apart from the odd smack but man he could be one scary man when he yelled!) and I try really hard to change the way I react to certain situations.

Some of the things I did like though - I always felt loved even though my Mum is not a touchy feely person and my Dad would always come in last thing at night before he went to bed and check if we were ok. Mum worked on Saturdays and Dad was left to ferry all 3 of us in different directions to Saturday morning sport (one to soccer, one to hockey and one to ballet). It must have been hard for him and he did forget to come back and pick me up a couple of times but I appreciate how much effort he put in now. No matter how skint we were my Mum always saved up so we could have a nice outing every school holidays. I clearly remember Mum going down to the school repeatedly trying to help me out when I was getting bullied, she noticed and she cared and she tried to sort it out and I appreciate that.

I guess that the person we are now is a product of genetics and the way we have been brought up. One of the things that my ex husband and I could never get past is the massive difference in our upbringings - he grew up poor from the "wrong side of the tracks" and got in to a lot of trouble as a kid and I had much more of a white bread middle class childhood. Not to say we didn't agree but we had such different frames of reference it was hard to see where each other was coming from sometimes.

I am a big believer in nature over nurture because of how completely different I am from my brother. We had a fantastic upbringing, mum and dad never argued, we were both disciplined the same, were low-middle income, never wanted for anything. But my brother has been in trouble ever since I can remember, he has never been able to hold down a job, never has any money, he is always unhappy, always with a different girlfriend - he has 4 kids to 3 different women who he barely sees and now a step-son as well, covered in tats, basically a bit of a no-hoper. Whereas I went to university, have a great career, have been with the same great guy for 10 years, high income, very happy. When people find out who my brother is they can't believe it, that's how bad he is (not saying I'm perfect!)

It just goes to show you can parent two children the same and they can turn out completely different through no fault of your own. I always feel bad for mum and dad because they think my brother turned out the way he is because of something they did/didn't do. It worries me that you can be the best parent in the world but end up with a child that you don't even recognise.

I was very lucky to grow up in a big supportive family with lots of contact with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Mum ran a good household and we had a big house on a big section, home baking, camping holidays and a boat for fishing and sailing. We grew up with stablility and security but also being encouraged to take risks and be adventurous.

Because I go out to work, instead of being a SAHM I do things differently in terms of dinner in front of TV, quick easy meals, very little home grown food etc. That might be a sign of the times though.

I find myself instilling a lot of the same values that my parents instilled into me.