19 “Tiny” Parenting Mistakes That Can Cause MAJOR Damage To Kids When They Grow Up

15.

“Don’t smother your kids. My mom quit having her own life the moment my brother and I were born. She was an incredibly devoted and loving mother, and very kind to us. However, when we were born, she stopped having friends, did not work, and was home every single day from my birth until I moved out in my early 20s.”

“She was very easy to upset because she had no other source of self-esteem, and any time I screwed up — and I screwed up a lot — it was as if I had levied a very personal attack against her. In the last five years or so before I left, I don’t think we had a single conversation that didn’t drive her to tears, and I promise I wasn’t that bad. I constantly felt cornered and stressed, and fell into depression as a defense mechanism. She took my resulting lack of performance very personally, creating a very treacherous cycle that was only broken when I enlisted and finally got away. To this day, I often feel like I’m a bad person who failed to live up to her love.”

—DBianco87