Much of this is exactly how my mother did things, and she did not have so much problems with us... Well, then we became teenagers but that's something that we do to define ourselves. My mother and both me and my sister are still all great friends.

The things that I'm weak on however, is what my mother was not able to teach me, things that my father made himself unavailable for by his terrible behaviour, and for which he would never have been able to teach me. Motivation, self discipline, this sort of thing. But I've gradually learned these things. This is a subject area of parenting that I am particularly interested in understanding, since, maybe fortunately, I have not yet found myself in the situation of being a parent, and I want to do a good job.