The Parent-Child Relationship

Here are two views of the relationship between parents and children, one more from the point of view of the parent and one more from the standpoint of the child.

Children sometimes appear to believe that parents have an inbuilt guide to perfect parenting and that an inability to deliver what they want or need is a deliberate act of neglect. But parenting is a hit and miss affair, depending on many ingredients; the age of the parents, the relationship between them, the behaviour of their own parents towards them and their reaction to it, and also the demeanour of the child. Parents, too, apparently, have an inbuilt confidence that their children, given the same upbringing that they themselves received, will grow up with the same values and beliefs. But there is no magic formula to good parenting and parents only get one crack at it with each child. They cannot rehearse and go back, learning from past mistakes if they get it wrong. Invariably, too, children grow up with a ragbag of selective memories.'

Mary S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls

The tensions of family life can never be fully understood by parent or by child. Both crave for love, on their own terms, and give either too much or too little. The possessive mother, demanding, searching, probably does more damage to daughter or son than the indifferent one, her thoughts elsewhere; nevertheless in both cases seeds are sown of doubt, of insecurity, and the child who cannot rush to his or her mother in moments of stress, telling all, will look elsewhere for comfort, or become a loner.

Daphne du Maurier, Myself When Young

I think there's a lot of truth in the above. It's just that in my own case I felt secure in my mother's love for me and yet, if this doesn't sound too much as though I am casting myself flowers (as the French say), I have always been something of a loner.