I'm in my late 40s and my husband and I never had children. Given that, it's hard to know for sure how we would have raised any. Obviously, my bipolar disorder would have been a slight issue, but looking beyond that, I guess I would have tried to take the best from my upbringing, and not the worst. But who knows!

What was your upbringing like, if it doesn't trigger you? I don't mean "wealthy", but more, style of parenting.

Overall, my siblings and I agreed that my parents were quite laissez faire about many aspects of parenting. Though they showed a lot of love, they still let us do pretty much what we wanted, unless it was very naughty. My siblings and I got in trouble at school sometimes, but we usually didn't tell our parents. They'd only know if we had detention and came home late for dinner. In that case, we really got in trouble, but the actual offense didn't usually bother them. However, none of us did anything THAT bad.

Unlike my siblings, I was very active into hobbies, like ballet. Driving me to/from classes sort of annoyed them a bit, but they did it anyway. My parents never got on our backs about schoolwork. I actually applied myself a lot more than they would have expected.

My parents didn't seem to worry that much about my siblings and me becoming independent. We did fairly early. My brother went into the navy at 18. My sister got married at 19. I went to college and then moved to CA and then Taiwan. They never seemed to worry. I don't think they did. We're talking back in the late 1980s through 1990s.

The only very protective behavior I remember from them was this:

Dad asked me to ask my future husband if he was married, when we started dating. Then when we announced our engagement a couple years later (we had lived together), Dad took me aside and asked if I was "really sure".

My mom was more protective towards my brother (her little boy). She hated his wife! I won't go into why. Also, when my brother was a boy, he was very hyperactive. I confess my dad was too rough on him, physically, at times. Dad wasn't like that with my sister or me.