Speaking as a child, I think my mother is a little jealous of me sometimes. She grew up in a very small, all-Catholic town and didn’t really get much chance to go to college or to do much in the way of “experiencing the world”. She’s never been further out of the US than Canada, etc. Not that I’m a world traveller, but more in the sense of getting out and doing things and dating/hanging out lots, etc. They raised us without a lot of extras - we never had “cool” clothes, had cable only when we could afford it, etc. New gadgets were not for us either.
However, she’s a great woman and her upbringing has not stopped her from thinking about the world around her. She’s a fairly strict Catholic who accepts the fact that her kids hang out with gay people, and has even helped put makeup on my sister’s boy friends. She was also wondering where her Rammstein CD had gotten to the other day, and took an interest in my sex toys last time she helped me move. And has gotten her nose pierced. So though I think she could be jealous of us (my sisters and I) in some ways, I think she has managed to make her own way. But I don’t think she’d ever go back to school, even though I think she wants to.
On the other hand, I’m kind of jealous of her living in a place and time where marriage and a steady life were the norm. She and my dad met on an airplane and got married 4 months later, after spending most of that time on opposite coasts.
My dad was really jealous of my husband for a long time. My husband earned a Ph.D. in a hard science, which is something my father would have liked to have done. Dad’s really smart, too, but not in that way - my father’s undergraduate degree is in philosophy. He’s good at science and math, but doesn’t have the right skills to go far in that field.
So for years my dad assumed that my husband must be better than him at philosophy, too. Which isn’t true at all.
I finally confronted it one day when my father and I were bantering about some theoretical issue or another (as usual) and my husband was just sitting there, staring into space (as usual), and my dad tried to invite him to join us. His wording made it clear that he assumed the reason dh wasn’t joining in was that he was so smart, he must’ve solved our riddle long ago.
I said “Dad, dh isn’t thinking about our conversation at all. He’s over there daydreaming about beer and pussy.”
I’m sort of envious that my kids are all already more well-adjusted than I’ll ever be. By the time I was Eldest’s age, I had been shipped back and forth between parents and was taking care of myself for up to a week at a time while my dad was on business trips. My kid has the freedom to get nervous if we leave him alone with his younger siblings for a couple of hours.
I envy my kids having the emotional freedom to think not having cable counts as a hardship. I envy them because they get to grow up thinking getting hugged all the time is normal.*
As far as their stuff, not really. I wish we’d had some of the entertaining jungle-gym things they have now, though.
Speaking as an adult child–my mother has envied me some of my opportunities. My dad earns more than her dad did, which has allowed more interesting vacations, chances to go to camp during the summer. Mom’s never been overseas, and both my brother and I have. And she envies me the world I live in–she went to college (first member of her family to do so) but her career choices were nurse, teacher, secretary, missionary or housewife. She taught for a few hears, then became a stay at home mom, and while there are no longer any children at home, finds it useful to have some member of the family who is not employed full-time. Had my mother been able to do any job she wanted, she’d have been a park ranger–not a choice available to girls in the 60s, but a perfectly acceptable choice I didn’t make in the 90s.
I had my daughter when I was twenty and single, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but it hasn’t been easy, and there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t get to do. I’m 36 years old and I’ve never been out of the US.
My daughter is headed to Europe tomorrow. A three week trip with People to People Student Ambassadors. I’m a little jealous. But mostly proud. Proud of her, and proud that I can give her that opportunity. I’d hide in her luggage if I could, though.
How could you possibly be either jealous or envious of your own children? Isn’t your primary job as a parent to nurture, to care for them, and to provide a better life to them than you had? Isn’t that what parenting is all about?
Not a parent. But I think that’s the ideal. A lot of people don’t follow the ideal, though (considering the fact that child abuse exists and such). Not saying that feeling jealous of your kid falls into abuse, but I am saying that despite the fact that ideally one should want the best, humans are often flawed, prone to jealousy, etc.
Plus, I have been reading Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex…where jealousy (particularly mother/daughter relationship) seems to be rampant.
Of course. I’m trying to do better for my kids than my parents did for me. Not saying my parents were bad or anything, just I want my kids to have a better life than I did. So far they have, and I’m proud of that fact.
I got married at 19 and had my daughter 6 months later. Last summer (at 13 years old) she went to Holland, to play soccer in the World Friendship Games with People to People Sports Ambassadors. I am sad sometimes that I never had the chance to so something so amazing, but more than that I am excited and happy for her. Besides, I’ll only be 45 when my youngest is 20. I’ll have plenty of time to travel and explore then.
Well, sure. And I think I’m doing a better job at it than my parents did. So that’s exactly *why *I’m occasionally jealous. How much better might I have felt about my body today (and for my whole remembered life) if my mother’s petname for me hadn’t been “Thunder Thighs”? Basically, I’m a little jealous, or envious, that my kids get me as a parent and I didn’t. (Not that I’m the best parent ever, but I am, in some respects, better than my own (rather good) parents. In other respects, I’m worse, of course.)
I think some people put a more negative connotation on “jealous” than I do. To me, it’s a pretty low-level unavoidable emotion. It doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it or harm anyone, or even wish they didn’t have whatever it is I’m coveting. It just means I wish I had it also.
Sure it is, but how is any of that incompatible with a bit of envy now and then? Diana’s is a great example: Her 16 year old daughter is going to Europe, while she, at the age of 36, has never been. Her daughter probably is going to Europe becauseDiana has never been – because rather than travel and spend money that way, Diana has been “nurturing, caring, and providing a better life” for her daughter. There’s nothing illogical or meanspirited to thinking, jeez, I wish I could do that too.
I’m another adult daughter whose mother has been deeply jealous – the resentful kind of jealous – of her for years. She was a sheltered, insecure woman who never lived on her own, married young, and had 2 children by the time she was 25 (and was divorced at 38). She often genuinely does not like my brother, and I truly believe that she thinks she would have been better off if she had never married my father. And, yes, had never had my brother and me. Unfortunately, she still blames many of her current problems on the past, and she often expresses her jealousy of me (single and childless at 35, with more self-confidence, money, and “other” accomplishments – not downplaying parenthood – than she has ever had). She always thinks it’s a compliment, but it’s frustrating and annoying.
The definition of “jealous” changes situationally: sometimes it’s a harmless, fleeting, wistful kind of envy, while other times it’s an ugly, immature, hurtful kind of resentment. The kind of person who is truly, deeply jealous of their child is often also significantly insecure and/or self-centered.
Please, please, don’t ever say that last part to them! Tell them they’re amazing, tell them they’re wonderful, but please don’t ever put yourself down in comparison. Please.
Greetings, fellow P2Per! That’s *exactly * how I feel. When my daughter heads off into the world, I won’t even be 40. There are advantages to having 'em young.
Thanks, Jodi. And **Misnomer ** (where’ve you been, anyway?), yeah, it’s definitely a wistful “Damn, that’s so cool, I wish I could have done that!” Like I said, I’ve got the next 30 or 40 years to do whatever I want. And my daughter is the joy of my life, and an awesome kid who deserves all the good things that happen to her.
I am not jealous of all that my son has, whether it’s material goods, lots of friends, a stable home life - I am delighted. My father, however, is insanely jealous of his two oldest daughters and their families and has even said it’s wrong to want more for your kids than you had. WTF? Well, fine, old man. Be that way. It’s because you’re a pathetic loser who has your grandchildren for the week and presents a bill for ice cream to their parents at the end. It’s a real sore spot, actually.
The shocking thing I learned, when I became a parent, is that the love our parents give to us actually ISN’T a birthright. It’s a gift. It’s a choice. Because we’re NOT inherently lovable, at least not when we’re tiny screaming-pooping machines, or insane-screaming-toddlers.
Heh. The shocking thing that I learned when I became a parent is that it doesn’t give you instant access to some magical wellspring of endless nurturing patience. That shit is work.
I’m a little envious of my stepdaughter who is now 25 and teaching English in Germany. She’s been there for a year and will stay at least another year, and I so wish I’d gotten to do something similar to that. I did get to spend my junior year in college over there, but I never had the chance to live a working adult life and not be dependent on money from home. She’s living, by herself, in a large historic (by California standards) apartment in the center of a historic city (Berlin) for a pittance per month (again by L.A. standards). She travels at will on the weekend to places like Frankfurt and Brussels, and lives without wasting her life behind a steering wheel. Native born Europeans probably can’t understand how awesome that lifestyle seems to many of us who grew up in California; to grow up here and then get to live over there is something for only a fortunate few.
I’ve been around. I’m in a relationship and we have season tickets to the local MLB team (alas, 2 more things for my mother to be jealous of), so I’m not posting as often these days. It’s very cool that you noticed, though. Thanks.
