Who helped raise you?

[TexasSky]

Another thread got me to thinking.

When you were growing up - who helped your parents raise you? Even stay-at-home Mom's need to leave their children with someone else sometimes. Who was it?

My mother and father both worked, but Mom was a nurse, so after I started school she was pretty much home when I was. When she wasn't - if Dad wasn't able to stay with us, my grandparents did. Once in a very great while - my grandmother's neighbor, who was the wife of the President of Howard Payne. I actually thought she was a relative until I got old enough to ask why I had so many grandmothers.

So, I was always with Christians who my family loved.

My children never stayed with strangers a day in their life. It was their parents, or their Dad's parents (mine were deceased), or my great aunt, or their aunt and uncle. Even their great-grandmother - NEVER a stranger.

I realize - I was blessed. A lot of people don't have that option. They live too far from home.

So - again - who raised you? And who helped you raise yours?

 

[Rachel]

Mom and dad raised me. Very rarely grandma looked after us. We were fortunate that my mom had a small beauty shop, built by my dad onto the house, so she was always there. Of course we had to stay in the shop alot of times and the customers tried to keep an eye on us and keep us entertained. lol

We haven't had much help really with ours until recently. My parent's just moved back here so they watch them if I need to go somewhere alone. For the most part it's us, plus homeschooling and with a three year old getting into everything. *sigh*

 

[Servent]

Granny mostly, my parents were divorced. I lived with mom but pretty much on my own from about 14, It's amazing I turned out the way I did I used to get in quite a bit of trouble. Thank you Jesus.

 

[TexasSky]

Rachel - I'm glad you got a support system now. Three is an amazing age! I always thought twos and threes were proof God loves us.

Servent - What advice would you offer to people in your Mom's situation? What would you do the same? Differently?

 

[Thankful]

The only time my mother left me with my grandmother was when she was in the hospital once. When my brothers were born, my grandmother stayed with us, but my dad was there. No other time were we left with anyone. We always went with our parents until I was old enough to stay home to take care of my brothers.

 

[dianetavegia]

My mother was a woman who was / is so full of anger that nothing anyone did satisified her. She went to work when I was very tiny and we were left with a black lady named Helen who called me Miss Diane and loved me dearly. Helen gave my brother and me a dime every day to walk to the corner candy store. Mother paid her fifty cents a day to keep our house, wash, starch and iron our clothes and have supper in the oven. Daddy got home first and would take Helen home or give her money for the bus. I could never understand why she had to sit in the back seat!

When we got a little older, we were left alone. By age 7 or 8, I was caring for my brother who is 3 years younger than me. In the summers, we were alone for 10 hours a day.

Once we were in school, if we were really sick, Mamaw Weldy would keep us. She lived in the next town so we'd be taken to her and left until we were well enough to go back to school. She was very loving and would sing hymns to me, rock me even when I was older and showed me great love. She died at 92, seven years ago this coming December 5th.

My mother yelled, screamed, cussed, hit us, wouldn't sleep in the same bed as my father, caused scenes in the neighborhood and yet we were in church every time the doors were open until I married. She's attended church only a few times in almost 35 years. She left my father for her new husband the night of my wedding.

Maybe this is why I'm so very strongly opinionated about a mother's duty to her family.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

My mom and dad raised me all the way. I don't remember ever having a babysitter except for my sister when she was a teen. My mother was a janitor at my church and we spent the evenings and summers at church helping her clean the place, mow the lawn, etc... since she was the only janitor in a fairly large church.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[TexasSky]

Diane,

Your story made me realize I misspoke. There was a period in my life when my sister had polio and I did have a "sitter". She was a black woman named Rosie who was a wonderful bundle of love. She was only with us for a short time when my sister first came home from the hospitals, but she was a very special woman.

 

[OCC]

My sister took over and became a surrogate mom while my mother was in the hospital when I was a kid. She sorta kinda kept that role even when my mother came home.

 

[delly]

My parents raised all eight of us. My Grandmother would come and spend several months at the time with us, but my parents were always there and usually never left us with anyone except my older siblings. We opened the doors of the church every time there was services. My parents were the caretakers of the church and we helped them clean and mow (just like you did, Joseph). My parents were very strict, especially with us girls. The only place we could go alone was to some friends (a couple our parents age) house on Sunday. When I dated, my sister and usually a brother or two double dated with us. We were rarely alone until we married.

 

[Joseph_Botwinick]

My grandparents lived in New Jersey and Ohio while we were in Arkansas, so we hardly ever saw them. We would go visit and spend a week with them about once every 2 years.

Joseph Botwinick

 

[TaterTot]

My mother only worked once my brother and I started school. So my parents raised me and we did see my maternal grandparents fairly often. I remember being babysat on a few occasions, but not alot.

We are doing our kids about the same way.

 

[AVL1984]

My mother divorced my birth father nine months after my birth. He was very abusive to not only her, but to me. He would run around on her, and then accuse her of infidelity. He caused her to have a miscarriage by punching her in the stomach, and this was the final straw, pushing my mother to divorce him. His own father advised my mother to do so. She did so. I was born in May of 62, and they were divorced in March of 63 after only two months of separation. He never carried out his part of child support, etc., and was pretty much a dead beat father. During this time, my mother had to go back to work, and I was left with my grandparents They pretty much raised me for the next several years. Mom remarried in 1964 and in 1967, her second husband, Jim, adopted me since my father had abandoned his responsibility to me. I still was being raised for the most part by my grandparents. But, that changed in 1967 along with my adoption.

 

[TexasSky]

AV - It sounds like your Grandparents were wonderful people.

 

[AVL1984]

They were, TexasSky. I miss them terribly. Grandpa went to be with the Lord on September 4, 1993 from a stroke, and Grandma passed away in 1998, just a few days before her 83rd birthday. She had had alzheimers and parkinsons disease for years. I know I will see them both in Heaven and look forward to that day!

 

[Bro. Williams]

I was raised by my mother and step-father. When I turned 19 I still had a lot of growing up to be done, so my Mamaw (paternal grandmother) raised me from there. She was always like a mother to me before that anyways, and always played a big part in my rearing.

 

[blackbird]

My brother, sister, and I were raised by my dad and mom. If I had to do it all over again--I would and wouldn't change a thing!!!

Now my dad and mom both live in "the land of the Living" and I can hardly wait to see them!!!

Bro. David

 

[TLB]

my mom's mom, both of my mom's sister, one of my mom's brother.....

and with my kids....it was just me and my husband...it isn't safe to leave all of them with my parents...

now i do have the help of cindi, judy and phyllis if i have somewhere that i just can't take the kids....like my ob visits.

 

[SBCPreacher]

My mom and dad. Dad was a Navy man, and mom was at home until I was into jr. high.

We're doing the same for our kids. My wife stays home. She had been homeschooling our youngest, but she is now started 7th grade in the local Christian School.

 

[pinoybaptist]

my grandparents sort of raised me. i say sort of because sometimes i'd be over at my uncle's, or my aunt's, sometimes over at my dad's, sometimes also, at my mom's.
when my grandma died, my gramps remarried, so (I was about 13 then) i kinda shifted from one folk to another, all that while going to school, and things get a little hazy because, well, it's hard not to have someone you can really point to and say - "they raised me", and sleep in this house this month, and next month in that house, and so on.
one positive thing though, is, my first cousins and i grew up together, real close as real brothers and sisters.