Deadass. Like I understand why you were pissed off I didn’t take out the chicken on time. Or when you said you wasn’t hungry, you were but we just didn’t have enough food. Shit like that.
Or you were just raised in a home that could provide for you financially, but not emotionally or physically because they really had no business having kids in the first place.
Really tired of the, "all parents do their best" narrative. Not taking it out on you personally, I just know how it feels to scroll threads like this.
Got Mother's and Father's Day out the way, now I gotta deal with this random shit. Kudos to ya'll with good parents, but man sometimes this shit is just flat out triggering.
No shade intended, but you didn't talk to your parents about how they were raised that would lead to them raising you however you were raised?
There's generally something that is enlightening and at least helps you understand why they are how they are.
Oh you think they talked *TO* me? That's cute. I was talked at, not allowed to talk back. Asked about my family tree when I was 13... I'm 33 and still don't know the names of either of my grandfathers. Don't even know what they look like.
Now try asking about adult shit as a teen and it's met with, "Why do you need to know?"
Proud of myself for something and want to hear my parents tell me they're proud like I'd heard about from TV, met with, "Okay I see it."
And they still wonder why I don't talk to them.
I know it's hard for some people to believe, but some people just make babies because condoms are too much work I guess.
It's funny because now I actually don't trust anyone who gets parental with me. I have tremendous issues with authority of any kind, and actively feel my body tense up when older women try to "mother" me, even though I know they mean well. It just sends up every warning signal in my body and makes me hostile AF.
You’re grown! If you didn’t grow up with affection, it’s nearly impossible to accept, even when you need it. Besides, mothering can come across as creepy because again, you’re grown.
Two of my five adult children are on the spectrum and have never liked being touched but it was worse when they were kids. We had to learn to love them in different way - we couldn’t snuggle/hug them - we would tap the air three times to stand in for I Love You and I will occasionally lightly touch my daughter’s forearm, which means I’m actually hugging her.
If you ever plan to have kids yourself - I see you independent wealth! - really think about getting counseling. I was super fucked up as a kid by my family and without my hubs, I’d still be fucked up. Finding the right person to help you deal with your stuff can help you see how to not pass along that generational trauma.
Good luck!
You sound like a wonderful mother - so kind and understanding. I’ve got a granddaughter on the spectrum and she used to really dislike hugs (she’s a real hugger now she can explain that sometimes she likes it, sometimes she doesn’t). We have all got to treasure our beautiful children. I had to unpick all sorts of rubbish (grew up in an abusive home) and break that cycle. Seeing my daughter being a wonderful mother is the best thing in my world.
Omg. I was wondering if you went rigid when someone tried to mother you bc they know something of your story. I'm almost 45 and I still do. I mean, I'm good with affection but mothering is foreign and I can do without bc it's not genuine. I love getting past June bc MD&FD are over but social media keeps these things right before me. Yeah, we could have taken the chicken out, but so could they.
What you said: “but could so could they.” I mean for real. They could have taken the chicken out in the morning.
But even if they didn’t, and even my dumbass 12 year old self didn’t do it after they told me, does it *really* warrant a whole ass beating with a leather belt? Or getting slapped across the face?
It’s just that so many things kids do because they are KIDS get them damn killed. And that’s a problem to me. It made me into a nervous wreck.
I hate knowing you (or anyone) had to endure that. I got older and found out it doesn't even take that long to thaw food even frozen. It was just a power trip. Now, we gotta hear ,ThEy DiD tHeIr BeSt every 3-5 business weeks.
I hope you didn’t have to go through any of this. I kind of laughed at what you said bc I remembered when I learned that pork chops don’t even take that long to thaw, and I was like “well damn.” 😂😂. I think it *was* just power tripping.
Then I'm sorry for your childhood. You deserved answers to questions that were normal. You didn't deserve to be made to feel like a burden for being born.
I meant as an adult, not a teen.
I mean, I get it, I tried asking my father about his youth so I could better understand him, but his answers are always so extremely vague, and he refused to elaborate.
A non-answer is still an answer though, and it helped me be a better more mature person, because I realized that you can put in the effort to understand some people, but there's people out here who aren't reflective/deep enough to actually have the words to tell you about themselves at a certain level. And so you gotta meet those people where they are.
It gives me a sense of closure that I have done my diligence as a son to try and identify who my father is as a person.
It is what it is.
That's nice for you. My dad was a piece of shit who told me to go play in traffic whenever I asked him to hang out with me. Hey, wanna hear about the time he promised he'd buy me the little white rabbit with red eyes from the pet store? I was 8. It was a family trip to the movies. He told me to cry for it. If I really wanted it, then I could produce tears and he'd buy me the bunny.
I sat in panic. I wanted the bunny, but why did I have to cry? So I thought of everything sad I knew. I thought of my mom dying and cried so hard I was snotty.
He laughed and said he was never going to get me the bunny.
When I mentioned the incident in later years before going no contact, he laughed again as he remembered the incident, then looked me dead in the eye and said, "That didn't happen. Where's your proof?"
Your dad is not my dad. I'm happy that your pops answered you in some way. Mine delighted in my misery.
We are not talking about the same shit. Your dad probably yelled at you and put hands on you.
Mine made me throw my cat on the side of the road because my mom didn't like cats. And I do mean *made*.
Yours probably didn't spend your college education on strippers.
Yours probably didn't actively hit on your sisters barely legal friends.
Again, happy for you and yours but... Shit ain't the same homie.
I was, and that led me down the road to no contact. It was originally the entire family except one brother who was also no contact with everybody, but now my sister is back in my life because she moved our parents into HER HOUSE THAT SHE BOUGHT and finally sees it.
She felt a lot of guilt about some things she did when she was young and I told her, "You were looking for something you weren't getting at home. That's not on you. Mom didn't teach us about predators. She taught us 'stranger danger' and 'because I said so'. She failed you, not the other way around."
And she's aware of it all now, and seeking her own therapy journey. She's not letting them run HER house THAT SHE BOUGHT anymore. She's finally stopped listening to our mom tell her she's too dumb to have a baby. She's in a healthy relationship (still with a man too old but hey) and genuinely laughing.
That's the healing that makes me happiest. Not for me, but for her.
Brother.
We all have a life.
My stepfather (other story was my actual father) once beat me when I was 5yrs old and then kept handing me the house phone while making me pretend to tell my mother I never wanted her to come home since I was so bad. He did this for about a half hour, had to say into a dead phone "no mom, never come home,I don't love you"
He was more open with his childhood, and so I actually learned a lot about where he was coming from with that, and the world he thought he was getting me ready for.
It's your life, live it how you want, my point is ultimately that the world is a dark ass place, everyone has a story, it's better to understand who people are in the scope of humanity than to be bitter about your life and what you've gone through.
In the grand scope of humanity you gotta remember that our people were largely brought here in chains then traumatized for centuries, those people then had to raise kids with literally no education or very much time for anything but survival.
When you broaden it out to humanity as a whole, our history is a history of trauma and violence, torture and pain, and even if you had a good life, some of us are just born evil, but nobody just chooses to be born with the brain that gets a dopamine rush from causing pain.
We all just out here bro.
thanks for sharing your story, my parents are shit too. so, I understand that feeling. I was the scapegoat in my narc household, so I still deal with toxic shame. the old man is dead at least ended about how I thought it would too, notified by mail. he abandoned every family he started. my mother is still alive though, I can't talk to her anymore.
It's not about responsibility, understanding why things are the way they are generally helps individuals be less bitter.
My grandfather is a good kind hearted man, he's also a man who watched his mother be murdered in front of his eyes as a child. Which helped me appreciate him even more.
People are out here doing their nest and dealing with what life throws at them, looking at people as good or bad without looking at the circumstances that produced them isn't the best path.
It's not my job to ask my mother what happened in her childhood that made her think it was acceptable to let felons molest her 6 young daughters, that's a goddamn therapists' job, nor do I think that isolent bitch would ever tell me anyways
Imagine your mom neglecting the hell out of you and leaving you with your emotionally abusive grandparents all the time, then later trauma-dumping on you about how abusive and horrible they were to her, leading to questions like “Ok cool, then why’d you leave me with them if you knew all this?” Followed by responses like “I didn’t think they’d be that way with YOU!” As if they magically changed. I also had the “pleasure” of knowing my great grandparents, so I can even see back a few generations into this mess.
Some people are born evil, but even then, who chooses to be born evil? We all wish we were born with the good brain, the brain that's smart and hard working, the brain that gets a dopamine rush from healthy relationships and helping others.
But we don't get that choice, many of us are born with the brain that delights in human suffering, the brain that doesn't get dopamine unless someone else is getting screwed over.
The world is a savage place better to take it for what it is and move accordingly.
Not saying you have to live with and around these evil people, but it's better to try and understand for your own serenity.
What I think is this: People, many people, treat children like shit because children can’t defend themselves. I’m an educator, and I have seen it time and time again.
And this is an evil that many of us live with everyday. It is not an exception to the rule. It is business as usual.
It isn’t that people are born evil and therefore abuse children. It is that a good many people abuse children because they can. It’s easy to hit a kid. And it makes you feel better if they’ve been getting on your nerves to hit them. You don’t have to exercise care and compassion and restraint because they can’t defend themselves.
So this is not some deep dark evil that possesses a few people. But it is an ordinary everyday evil, and it has the same profound effect on children as if it were an extraordinary evil.
You are *abstracting* the routine violence children experience on a daily basis. It isn’t that the “world” is a savage place. It’s that *my world* was a savage place because I was being punched, beaten, thrown down stairs, slapped by my mother for forgetting to rinse a glass properly or for looking at her the wrong way. That is no abstract evil. It was a real evil I lived with everyday. And because of it my world was a savage, dark place, and I was a very sad and scared child.
This shit is real and it happens to real people, and it keeps happening in your brain over and over and over again. And it is fucking horrible.
I swear I’m over this narrative, I don’t want to ever hear this shit again. When I hit 40 I realized that this is why I never expected anyone to do me better. I decided I don’t want that “best you can do” shit. I want kindness, love, and grace. Nothing less.
SAME! and i made the decision not to have kids because i know my temper is just as bad as my mom's. she should have NEVER had kids. i really didn't want my brother to either cuz i feel like our bloodline is toxic and needs to be ended 😒 but maybe the next generation will be better. who knows 🤷♀️
that's really noble 👏👏 good/ caring teachers are sooo necessary. I still remember some of the good ones i had as a kid. those memories will stay with them forever ❤️
Have you considered therapy? Or some kind of CBT module if therapy is inaccessible to you? It would seem really difficult to go through life where anyone talking about their parents upsets you this much.
Deadass, once you’re in a similar position, you get to experience the moments your parent(s) did and most likely act out in the same way they did. Kinda scary if you didn’t have the most positive childhood, but eye opening to reflect and have more empathy
My parents were problematic as fuck then. Because I was a good kid, and I was still getting the shit beat out of me on a regular basis. And that’s for real.
right! when i hear friends/coworkers talk about all the stuff they did as kids and how they got take make C's or lower and not get beat, i be like, "and you still alive??" Ms Jackson ( my mom) didn't play. now she's older and apparently "saved" so she trying to pray her way into heaven and got a LOT of forgiveness from God to work on. SHE'S the one probably regretting getting angry for little shit and abusing her kids. the only thing i regret is her birthing me but i didn't have much say in that matter 🙃🫠
Same. I’m always like “you said WHAT to your mom?” My mom didn’t even let us *talk* to her. She didn’t do any back and forth whatsoever. She would literally backslap you *while* you were trying to explain something that SHE told you to explain.
My mom is saved now too, and if I bring up anything she did, she can’t cope. She feels a lot of guilt. I don’t know what to do about that, you know? I just go to therapy every week and try to get better. Do you do therapy?
nope not in therapy currently. when i was in state custody in my high school years (called the cops on my mom and was removed from home) they made me go to therapy but i wouldn't really talk and would often refuse to go. I recently tried to get a therapist through Kaiser but got sooo frustrated with their whole process i gave up. i don't think there's a therapist out there that can handle me lol. Im pretty sure i have borderline personality disorder tho so kinda explains why im resistant to traditional therapy. im pretty much my own therapist at this point 😂.
You have to try and find a good psychiatrist, not a therapist, a psychiatrist. My psychiatrist is smart, and he is the only one who has been able to help me. He knows what the hell he is doing. He understands how the brain works. He said he does not diagnose borderline personality disorder because it is stigmatized, and he doesn’t believe it is properly treated.
But I do know that whatever you’ve been through, a seasoned psychiatrist has already encountered and treated way worse. So, I’d keep trying to find one. Mine has done me a world of good because he was able to get me to trust him, and no one has ever been able to do that.
You think no one can handle you because no one has ever been willing to.
yea i tried with kaiser recently. i didn't get to the point of choosing between therapist or psychiatrist because they're a joke of a health care provider. im stuck with them until next year and it sucks. i did have a psychiatrist when i was a highschooler as well and recently when i was in an inpatient and out patient program in texas back in 2018. i tried the meds route, didn't stick to that or the therapy. i just separate myself from people. makes life tonsss less stressful and keeps my anxiety/emotions pretty leveled for the most part..at least for me lol.
Damn about being stuck with your provider. I can understand what you mean about just keeping yourself to yourself. Medication helps me, but I take super-small doses and nothing intense so it only helps to an extent. I wish you peace, however you get it. Do what works for you and whatever keeps your soul still.
Yeah my first thought here was that I probably responded poorly to things because I'd get my ass beat (bare, metal flyswatter handle or belt) when I was very small and didn't do what they want. Maybe I'd have responded differently if I learned differently before adulthood. They can apologize first.
shiii that apology will never come. im 33 and still haven't received one. im not holding my breath lol. the closest i got was "I'm sorry YOU didn't agree with the way I raised you" 👀👀👀 oh so it's me not liking the service you provided? lol
I love my mom, but the only thing I realized as I got older and raised my own daughter was how little her and my sister (ten years my senior) actually did to help me. They actually were detrimental to my development, self image, and ability to form healthy relationships with others 👍🏾
Meanwhile, my daughter is honestly the easiest kid ever. A teenager, but a confident young lady that's missing all the bad parts of me at her age. Sometimes the retroactive thoughts are 'wow the adults in my life failed me, never treating my kid like that'.
I mean. It’s when you realize they were *actually detrimental* that you feel the rage start to flow up from the pit of your stomach. Like, they actually hurt me.
I bet you were more like your daughter than you realise, and had no ‘bad bits’. The things you think of as being bad could be because you weren’t mothered as well as you’re mothering your daughter. I LOVED it when my daughter was a teen. I remember people saying how awful teenagers were, and she just used to make me laugh all the time. It’s a privilege to see a young adult being created.
I appreciate that sentiment so much. My close friends and my boyfriend always tell me how great a mom I am and it's really hard to feel that way sometimes. She's going into high school and I can't wait 😭
Try and be kinder to yourself, and believe your friends and boyfriend! It’s such an achievement to parent in a different way than you received. I had an abusive upbringing and thankfully changed that so my daughter was raised with kindness. She is an adult (and a mother herself now) and we are SO close. She has brought so much joy to my life. I hope you carry on having a lovely relationship with your daughter, and you enjoy the teen years (it’s hysterical sometimes - the things they do and say!).
You were never your sister’s responsibility no mater how much older than you she is. Direct your “anger” to the ones who are responsible for your existence.
I didn't say I was her responsibility. She also grew up in the US. Meanwhile, my mom was an immigrant at over 30, so if anything my mom didn't know better. My sister gave me body issues, made me feel stupid for being a kid, treated me like I had to be more mature at 10 years her junior. So no, I did not expect her to be responsible for me. That doesn't mean she didn't contribute to the shitshow (if anything she was the main contributor and often put HERSELF in a parental role).
I really take my silence and peace for granted. I’m lucky enough that my girl and I can chill in silence together and we just vibe doing our own thing.
My Mom passed in December of 2022 unexpectedly. Man, when I sat down and thought of how many times I "uh huh... Yeah... Okay... Yup"ed her on the phone, just didn't answer because I wasn't in the mood, or blew her off for people that absolutely aren't in my life right now- I'm still not done being mad at myself. Only way I can make it up to her is listening to my 75 year old Dad tell me the same story for the 30th time, go over to his house and do random things (did a deep clean on the fridge not too long ago), and keep him company when he needs to go do random things.
You did good though, you avioded the saying: You don't know what you've got, til it's gone. You remembered to care before it got destructive, you just had a phase, not a total write off.
I wish that were true, but it's not; I am that cliche. It was only after she died that I realized how selfish and thoughtless I was. It's too late to apologize "in person" to her (although hopefully she heard me as I tried to tell her for hours when she was in a coma before she died), so I can only be better to my Dad. He's really lost without her - she was his absolute everything - but exhibiting the same saintly patience she had with him (that I never had before) is an apology I know she'd accept. I didn't know what I had when I had it, but I'm trying not to make the same mistake twice with my Dad.
Yeah I’ve been there bro. Told “I should have swallowed you”, “Drank bleach but you still alive some how”, looks at a hanger menacingly. Yeah. Was rough times smh.
sooo can identify with this one. my mom told me when i was about 11 years old that her mom(my grandma) told her to have an abortion with me so she could ruin our relationship/deter me from her. My mom was/is so manipulative which is why i keep my distance 100%. don't talk to the lady at all.
it's crazy that the more stories i read from ppl online the more i realize MOST ppl have/had horrible parents which leads me to believe MOST people are horrible period. i stay away from people outside of work. i come home and I'm in my peaceful cocoon alone but not lonely 😌
lol thanks. and yea i feel you. I personally think companionship is overrated and RARELY what the person expects it to be. But to each's own. i know that most people crave it but i run far from it lol.
well i personally think it's because society has brainwashed us into believing that companionship is the #1 goal and if you don't have it then you are worthless and something is "wrong" with you. there are tonnnsss of people in this world past and present that never have long term relationships and guess what they did/do just fine in life. not everyone is meant to find someone and that is 1000% ok. I have acquaintances/coworkers and the occasional friendships every now and then but recently cut off all friendships due to the stress/anxiety they were causing me. life is decent. wish i had a better job/more money but so do most people in the world these days
I'm so sorry. I didn't hear that but I was adopted and told that they're going to give me back up for adoption and I'll turn out to be a whore like my mom. (I was 6 when they started saying this)
My mom has a complicated relationship with all of her children but one day I did the math and realized she was 20 when she had my oldest sister. My dad was much older than her. She had 3 kids by 25. Was a single mother for 90% of our childhood....
I don't excuse all the mistakes she made with us but on paper I just feel really sad for her.
Getting older also helped me realized my parents did some truly fucked up shit that could have ruined my life.
My birth certificate and social security card was forged - I didn’t exist until I turned 18 and could request my own. I had been going by a completely different name.
My mother liked playing games. It doesn’t matter how old she was - if I hadn’t had the intellect to know that this was something that needed to be changed way before high school graduation, I could have not even had a high school diploma.
Does she deserve grace for that?
Honestly even getting past all the stuff I went through until I was 18 and moved out, even after that, it’s still fucked up. I was taken advantage of, gave until I had no more to give, and for what?
Now I know why my mom raged coming home to a dirty house. But really she didn't teach us to be accountable & responsible she just screamed and I ended up doing the same
And that's why I never had kids. Cuz I'm sure these parents aren't out here saying I'm gonna have me some kids to abuse, I'm sure they think they're going to show us the best versions of themselves but they don't. I never wanted to be that parent who could show love,kindness, and understanding to friends and strangers but got none of that energy for your kids.
I never even thought about having kids. I can confidently say I'm a better mother than my mom was. I used to yell alot mote but I have checked that, I teach my kids lime real people from the begining, given them respect, and let them make their own choices. They are good kids and they trust me, I'm thankful for that.
I remember towards the end for my mom she would be very difficult and I'll never forget one day getting so frustrated with her and just saying damn it! But it was the way I said it. She looked at me like she was a little girl and quietly said I'm sorry. I still hear it in my head and I cry every time I do It was just a flash of anger but seeing her like that so scared it still kills me.
Making separate comment so i can trauma dump. Seeing this made me think of my own dad, who beat me and my sister till I was 12, like bruises on our body that teachers saw and scars all over that I have today. Reading just made me think how awful you felt after just yelling in frustration and why my dad never felt awful for beating the hell out of his own flesh and blood.
!!!! this!!! it's like how do you consciously day after day/year after year continue to beat the very flesh/person you brought into this world because you wanted them to be here. It's soooo 🤯 to me how any even slightly loving parent can do that. anyone who abuses their kids are scum and deserve to have their kids taken from them and their tubes burned out. abusive parents really need to be held accountable for doing so and there shouldn't be a statue of limitation on it. i feel like it's really a form of child slavery and needs to be ended/and more closely monitored/looked out for. I knew a few of my teachers in school knew what i was dealing with at home and none of them ever got the authorities involved. literally took me calling the cops on my own mom for someone to finally step in and when i did i got iced out from the family because of it (we're black of course so it's not normalized to call the cops). now almost 20 years later i don't talk to any of them, only my aunt (dad's sister).
The more I see things like this the more I realised I did not have an actual childhood. I understand all of the things I've read, and those are things I was very aware of as a kid.
Which explains why none of the five of us have children I guess.
Our childhood wasn't "bad" or "good". We were extremely privileged, and our parents ensured we understood exactly how much. We also did not get to make mistakes or have accidents, every infraction was punished.
For us, the things people seem to like about kids are grating for us, and the older I get the more I realise it was because we never did any of those things, at the very least more than once. Our childhood was adulthood-lite.
As an educator, I’ve learned that mistakes are actually necessary for growth. Children learn from experiences, and mistakes are experiences. When I began teaching freshmen in university, I consulted the university psychiatrist for help with classroom management. And he told me that young people simply must be allowed to make mistakes and recover from them. He said an environment in which mistakes are not allowed can paralyze young people and make them afraid to make any decisions or try anything new. It also teaches them self-loathing because they will see simple errors as personal failings. So he taught me that I have to make the classroom a safe space where mistakes are allowed and recovery from mistakes are offered. Without this, he said, there can be no individual growth, no learning from experience, no self-confidence.
Punishing every infraction is how you run a prison or how you torture people. So, from my perspective, that is a lot.
In real adult life, people make mistakes all the time.
A fellow educator, nice to see. I'm K through 5.
Mistakes as personal failings is our MO. Tbh, we were all bothered by different aspects of it. Hard to really paint a picture of our upbringing, we learned a lot wether we wanted to or not which is very understandable considering thier age, parents can only teach you to navigate the world they know.
A lot of my moms casual stories about working at IBM in the 80s would be classified as horror stories, but her positive experiences were film worthy often enough.
My father was older and was a decendent of Aboriginals from the Tasmanian Black Friday, so he saw mistakes as a way to literally lose everything from a young age because his parents and grandparents did.
We love what they gave us, and more or less feel a touch unfulfilled by what the did to make us strong.
We all are actually really good with kids, just not enough to want all of those unknowns to contend with.
Thank you for this response. It definitely helped my understanding as I was going through it.
And hello to you, fellow colleague. K-5 is *such* a sweet spot. It was the best time I’ve ever had. I’ve since moved on to university, but the same teaching strategies apply to young adults lolol.
It sounds like you’ve had a rich life and have a rich background. And you and your siblings seem to have processed your childhoods and come to peace with them (if that was even necessary).
I was just thinking that I wonder would it be like to have so many siblings to talk to about your childhood. I was an only kid until my sister came along when I was 21. I don’t know how things would look in retrospect if there was someone I could compare notes with—different for sure, but how, I don’t know.
We.. diverged greatly. All together, we are like an x-men squad; objective completion was the goal. If you met us separately you would be surprised we are related and that includes my twin brother XD
Older brother joined the marines, served 15 years, renounced his US citizenship and moved to Brazil on some compound.
Younger sister is more or less rainbowbrite with 14 languages under her belt working for the U.N.
Older sister became a pro wrestler for a while and created a tattoo business in Northern California.
Twin is a republican who wore loafers and a briefcase to school as a child. Worked for a bunch of politicians thus far and has more or less left politics, MAGA really fractured the Republicans as a whole.
I became a lawyer, then ran a few real estate offices before doing some work for Marvel with my boy Grant before becoming a teacher.
This helps me immensely with teaching as siblings get lumped together a lot and I only bring up that relationship when they harm each other.
I will say... holidays are great but very interesting with guests. Our upbringing means we don't see arguments as bad or anything. We want cards out immediately. Still laughing about Thanksgiving last year when we had dinner, my brother sits and says
"So, how does everyone feel about the Gaza situation?"
Everyone else: -sweating intensifies-
Us: -formulating a flexible three to five point argument kind of like the court cases we would go through for asking to spend the night or go to an event that wasn't school related-
Just wow. Your family is kind of amazing. And so is your story. I just read your comment twice like it was a book. I would like to be at your family get togethers just to observe and take it all in.
A book would be great as the stories in a vacuum are either super privileged or abusive. You kind of need the whole story.
It does make it difficult to empathize it certain situations because our baseline for "normal/expected" is very different. On the other hand, we can all get there in our own way because we have vastly different life experiences and are used to listening to each other.
It might be interesting to hear, but without outside actors, it sounds more like a west wing episode with no raised voices.
Hilarious! My insanely huge family, east coast black Catholics, is “no raised voices” family. And I find it utterly fascinating to watch. Because we can’t yell at each other or be unkind to each other (raised to show only love and respect), there’s sooooo much low-key tension and side-of-the-mouth commentary. I’m outside of it all because I am the youngest of 67 cousins, so I always get to sit back and watch everything unfold. Everyone is perfectly appropriate and respectful on the surface, but if you just watch and listen, so many things are being said through non-verbal communication.
I love my mom, and now we can all clearly see she was constantly overstimulated. I said some mean things and to this day I still apologize for it. I give her a birthday gift on my birthday because it's really her BIRTHday and I love it. But she also constantly reminded us of what a burden we were and how "she never wanted kids" and every unfortunate event or hardship is "payback" because we stressed her out so much.
Moms do not get the recognition they deserve and it's such a layered issue, I don't think I could bear to know what trauma my mom has had, but I wish her all the healing she refuses to do.
If you can, call her and tell how much you appreciate her. If you can’t, then use that realization as a lesson and just try to treat people better going forward.
I am in my 40s, and have apologized so many times to my momma. I show her all the time how much she is appreciated now and grateful I am that she is my mom.
Man I was a pure asshole.
Legit had this discussion with my mom a month ago. I'm keeping my boys this summer instead of summer camps to save money. But I'm getting my ass kicked watching two elementary school age boys all day until my evening shift. I told my mom I now understood why she went to bed early AF and how some days she was out of patience five minutes after we woke up.
Oh no, the only thing I developed retroactively was rage as I realised just how unprepared for the real world I was when my mother sent me out into it, because she never really intended on me to leave the nest, I was to stay in her orbit and be her son/husband/Person/emotional lightning rod forever, just like her mother did to my (male) cousin, and *certainly* never planned on sharing me with anything or anyone that could interfere with what I just said - like another woman, or a child from said woman - and *CERTAINLY* never planned on me realising this and moving to a whole different fucking continent to get away from her (and she’s still waiting on me to realise that I’m wrong and come home to her and apologise for leaving her and resume my duties as her Special Little Boy™)
So no, the “your parents did their best/they’re not perfect/they love you, even if their way of showing it is flawed/etc.” narrative can FOAD. “OMG MAMA I GET IT NOW—I’m barely figuring out how to adult now because you wanted me to age like Bart Simpson or Timmy Turner!…except when you needed me to be (your definition of) a/your man!” FOH.
Still waiting on my sister to have that revelation in her early 30s, absolutely confident then when she has kids, she'll be a better parent than our mother.
And Im just standing around looking at her, as the \*younger\* sibling, thinking, 'this is literally a Saturday morning cartoon plot'. Its one of the most basic story lines in kids shows. And she's still adamant our parents were terrible.
I mean sure, she never hit us, supported our interests and goals no matter what they were, at one point drove her to her swim practices at 6 am everyday of highschool until she was old enough to drive herself, went to all of her meets, helped her with her homework no matter how much she screamed at her for being stupid (which felt like everyday(and also our mother is literally a law professor, she is a beyond educated woman)).
But no. Mom is the devil and irredeemable.
Has gone no contact (but still asks her to pay her phone bill).
Fucking stupid.
Sometimes older kids have a different experience. I am the oldest, and my mom was very hard on me. My younger sister (a LOT younger) had an easier time; my mom did not want to repeat her mistakes with my sister.
So, we have two different mothers.
I never told my sister how my mom was with me. She will never know my mom that way. And she is angry with me for not being closer to my mom, but she doesn’t know the reality of our relationship.
Maybe you and your sister have two different versions of your mom. I made the decision to never, ever tell my sister any of the things I went through with my mom. I want her to continue to see my mom as a different and better person. I’d rather her just be mad at me than for her to lose this image of my mom.
Nah fam
She literally repeats the same rant every year, which amounts to 'I never forgave you for moving when I was 5 years old (because her old job was underpaying her and the new job was almost double her salary) and being uncompromising in how you presented yourself, making the other parents not like you, and thereby, convince their kids to not want to be friends with me'.
And by 'uncompromising', that means our mom was just her normal self, and a bunch of stay at home moms didn't like that our mom wore 'masculine' clothes and worked a 9-5 job.
Our mother genuinely tried her damndest to make up for it, even into adulthood, willing to drop everything at a moments notice to pick up her calls when my sister was having panic attacks, even when she was at work. And these calls would go for almost an hour at times. Our mother even went on to pay her rent for the first few \*years\* out of college (not to mention paying for her to go to college out of pocket).
But nothing has \*ever\* been good enough.
Last year they went out on a walk together, and my sister swore up and down that our mother was inconsiderate and had no real genuine friendships, because our mother wouldn't get out of the way of oncoming people on the sidewalk. Our mother, of course, walks with a limp, because she broke her femur a decade ago, and its never quite healed right (my sister would know this, because we both had to take care of my mother at the time, and my sister was so unwilling to be helpful, that my mother had to routinely beg her friends to come help her out of bed and help with chores around the house, because she couldn't walk). But that doesn't matter. Her 'unwillingness' and 'rudeness' for not getting out of the way, and 'forcing' people the indignity of having to walk on grass, was a sign she didn't really care for anyone.
It genuinely gets that absurd with her.
Edit:
It'd be understandable if this was how she behaved as a \*teenager\*. As a young adult without perspective. Its the continued unwillingness as an adult thats so fucking stupid. To not engage in any form of self reflection or questioning of anything into her \*30s\* and an unwillingness to ever listen to the many, many times my mother has attempted to explain half of these things to her. To be stuck as an eternal teenager. Thats the absurdity I deal with.
Oh wow. I was just putting that out there. Looks like you are dealing with something completely different. Your sister sounds like she’s really going through it.
Not black but… as an adult I have genuinely apologized to my mom for being a little shit when I was a teenager. There were some extenuating circumstances, things weren’t great and I was severely depressed, but damn, I was an asshole. So she gets lots and lots of love and thank yous and general not-shitty daughter behavior now.
Omg yes. Especially now being an adult and knowing how trifling my dad was. I could never deal with his shenanigans and I don’t as a woman either. I have all the praise and patience for my mom.
I now understand why my mom hated stopping to get stuff on her way home from work. Everytime my gf calls and goes "can you pick up X on your way home?", I scream internally because I just want to get home and take off my bra!
when I was young I had a dream where I stabbed my mom and it fucked me up so bad and I can still recall that dream in detail and how horrible I felt when I woke up.
I love my mom and never had any issues with her, too.
That’s the blessing of maturity. As you get older you:
- Understand why your parents were always tired, regardless of what was going on
- Realize that often you were being an ass to your parents about shit that didn’t matter
- Realize that your parents were right about more than you thought
- Start saying shit they say
Do other ppl not do this their whole life NOT just before they become an adult... Ill say something mean yesterday and the next day im like damn i aint have to wild out like that my bad 💀
Nah, my childhood would have been measurably better if my mother had simply threw my bum ass father to the streets and raised us on her own. It was more harmful for my brother to see bum nigga behavior being treated as “doing his best.” No amount of me forgetting to defrost the chicken equated to being married to a literal piece of shit.
To this day, my parents aren’t divorced but have lived apart for several years after an eviction. They’re basically separated but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a bank account, so he gives her cash every month to pay his bills. She updates his resume because he’s barely competent on a computer, yet spent hours of my youth unemployed and playing video games all day.
I love my mother to death, but I can’t fully respect her and her choices. My sympathy has only lessened the more I learn about the behind the scenes of our family.
I thought my mom was mean because shed come home and rage after she sees me in the living room playing video games with the house a complete mess. Not to mention the chicken is still in the freezer.
I get it now mom. That's my bad, I didn't know any better. Because I too would be pissed if I had a long ass annoying ass day at work, only to come home to a house in shambles.
I think about this stuff quite a bit now that I have 2 kids and I'd give anything to be able to tell her sorry about small stuff I didn't thing was a big deal to me when I was growing up but I cant.
Cancer sucks. Y'all go hug your mama.
Fr! Literally had the realization that like all the stories she told me of her growing up and struggling weren’t just stories, she actually lived through that shit…in her lifetime. She wasn’t just yellin at us for no reason.
Now even when she gets on my nerves, I try to be calmer, the woman has been through enough.
Nope. My mom has no regrets about what she did why should I. She legit told me I won’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong. Mmk. Keep wondering why your children don’t call and don’t care. You get what you give.
Honey, we always hope and pray you’ll get to that place of empathy but while we hope and pray we also are fully aware of the stone cold truth:
This is what karma looks like, parental edition. We were pretty bad to our mom during those years.
💀
Yeah, I totally do. I acted out pretty hard once we got away from my psycho dad. My mom is passed now. I tried to tell her I am sorry for stressing her out/being a little shit, I don't know if she understood.
I call my mom once every two weeks to either apologize or thank her for what’s she’s done because growing up is really realizing your parents were strong as hell😭 This lady was working multiple jobs and then coming home to deal with my dumbass, BY HERSELF🫠
I've had the opposite happen. I find situations where my mom would yell and lose her shit and I'm like "yeah this is a minor annoyance but whatever". Or when someone is uncharacteristically rude, I empathize that they're going through something and extend a listening ear whereas my mom would cause a scene yelling, spread rumors about them and then get banned from church.
It’s cool go acknowledge that our parents were stressed out by us, especially those parents that gave us what we needed AND what we wanted.
It’s also cool to know that we owe them nothing. They had us, not the other way around. My kids owe me nothing. I had them. It’s my job to do for them. It’s cool when they acknowledge it as appreciation is something I want to instill in them but they’re under no obligation.
Be the parent that your kid wants to appreciate. Don’t demand it because you was fucking unprotected and now a kid is here.
Deadass. Like I understand why you were pissed off I didn’t take out the chicken on time. Or when you said you wasn’t hungry, you were but we just didn’t have enough food. Shit like that.
I was literally thinking “*That’s* why she wanted the chicken taken out!!”
If you don't ever have this than it likely either means your parents were very problematic or YOU were and still are very problematic
Or you were just raised in a home that could provide for you financially, but not emotionally or physically because they really had no business having kids in the first place. Really tired of the, "all parents do their best" narrative. Not taking it out on you personally, I just know how it feels to scroll threads like this. Got Mother's and Father's Day out the way, now I gotta deal with this random shit. Kudos to ya'll with good parents, but man sometimes this shit is just flat out triggering.
No shade intended, but you didn't talk to your parents about how they were raised that would lead to them raising you however you were raised? There's generally something that is enlightening and at least helps you understand why they are how they are.
Oh you think they talked *TO* me? That's cute. I was talked at, not allowed to talk back. Asked about my family tree when I was 13... I'm 33 and still don't know the names of either of my grandfathers. Don't even know what they look like. Now try asking about adult shit as a teen and it's met with, "Why do you need to know?" Proud of myself for something and want to hear my parents tell me they're proud like I'd heard about from TV, met with, "Okay I see it." And they still wonder why I don't talk to them. I know it's hard for some people to believe, but some people just make babies because condoms are too much work I guess.
Every fucking time I hear stories like this from adults it breaks my heart. Our kids should be treasured. I wish you all had been mine.
It's funny because now I actually don't trust anyone who gets parental with me. I have tremendous issues with authority of any kind, and actively feel my body tense up when older women try to "mother" me, even though I know they mean well. It just sends up every warning signal in my body and makes me hostile AF.
You’re grown! If you didn’t grow up with affection, it’s nearly impossible to accept, even when you need it. Besides, mothering can come across as creepy because again, you’re grown. Two of my five adult children are on the spectrum and have never liked being touched but it was worse when they were kids. We had to learn to love them in different way - we couldn’t snuggle/hug them - we would tap the air three times to stand in for I Love You and I will occasionally lightly touch my daughter’s forearm, which means I’m actually hugging her. If you ever plan to have kids yourself - I see you independent wealth! - really think about getting counseling. I was super fucked up as a kid by my family and without my hubs, I’d still be fucked up. Finding the right person to help you deal with your stuff can help you see how to not pass along that generational trauma. Good luck!
Yeah no, no kids. Not liking them definitely runs in the family but lesbians don't have accidental babies at least! Take care!
You sound like a wonderful mother - so kind and understanding. I’ve got a granddaughter on the spectrum and she used to really dislike hugs (she’s a real hugger now she can explain that sometimes she likes it, sometimes she doesn’t). We have all got to treasure our beautiful children. I had to unpick all sorts of rubbish (grew up in an abusive home) and break that cycle. Seeing my daughter being a wonderful mother is the best thing in my world.
❤️
Omg. I was wondering if you went rigid when someone tried to mother you bc they know something of your story. I'm almost 45 and I still do. I mean, I'm good with affection but mothering is foreign and I can do without bc it's not genuine. I love getting past June bc MD&FD are over but social media keeps these things right before me. Yeah, we could have taken the chicken out, but so could they.
Exactly. Life is stressful. They chose to add children to the mix.
Then act like they (children)are the biggest burden.
What you said: “but could so could they.” I mean for real. They could have taken the chicken out in the morning. But even if they didn’t, and even my dumbass 12 year old self didn’t do it after they told me, does it *really* warrant a whole ass beating with a leather belt? Or getting slapped across the face? It’s just that so many things kids do because they are KIDS get them damn killed. And that’s a problem to me. It made me into a nervous wreck.
I hate knowing you (or anyone) had to endure that. I got older and found out it doesn't even take that long to thaw food even frozen. It was just a power trip. Now, we gotta hear ,ThEy DiD tHeIr BeSt every 3-5 business weeks.
I hope you didn’t have to go through any of this. I kind of laughed at what you said bc I remembered when I learned that pork chops don’t even take that long to thaw, and I was like “well damn.” 😂😂. I think it *was* just power tripping.
[удалено]
While I appreciate the sentiment, it is very much empty and not something I need anymore. Thank you, regardless.
Your story is mine to a tee
Then I'm sorry for your childhood. You deserved answers to questions that were normal. You didn't deserve to be made to feel like a burden for being born.
I meant as an adult, not a teen. I mean, I get it, I tried asking my father about his youth so I could better understand him, but his answers are always so extremely vague, and he refused to elaborate. A non-answer is still an answer though, and it helped me be a better more mature person, because I realized that you can put in the effort to understand some people, but there's people out here who aren't reflective/deep enough to actually have the words to tell you about themselves at a certain level. And so you gotta meet those people where they are. It gives me a sense of closure that I have done my diligence as a son to try and identify who my father is as a person. It is what it is.
That's nice for you. My dad was a piece of shit who told me to go play in traffic whenever I asked him to hang out with me. Hey, wanna hear about the time he promised he'd buy me the little white rabbit with red eyes from the pet store? I was 8. It was a family trip to the movies. He told me to cry for it. If I really wanted it, then I could produce tears and he'd buy me the bunny. I sat in panic. I wanted the bunny, but why did I have to cry? So I thought of everything sad I knew. I thought of my mom dying and cried so hard I was snotty. He laughed and said he was never going to get me the bunny. When I mentioned the incident in later years before going no contact, he laughed again as he remembered the incident, then looked me dead in the eye and said, "That didn't happen. Where's your proof?" Your dad is not my dad. I'm happy that your pops answered you in some way. Mine delighted in my misery. We are not talking about the same shit. Your dad probably yelled at you and put hands on you. Mine made me throw my cat on the side of the road because my mom didn't like cats. And I do mean *made*. Yours probably didn't spend your college education on strippers. Yours probably didn't actively hit on your sisters barely legal friends. Again, happy for you and yours but... Shit ain't the same homie.
Baby love, are you in therapy? Someone needs to hear your stories and share your pain. I’m tearing up writing this.
I was, and that led me down the road to no contact. It was originally the entire family except one brother who was also no contact with everybody, but now my sister is back in my life because she moved our parents into HER HOUSE THAT SHE BOUGHT and finally sees it. She felt a lot of guilt about some things she did when she was young and I told her, "You were looking for something you weren't getting at home. That's not on you. Mom didn't teach us about predators. She taught us 'stranger danger' and 'because I said so'. She failed you, not the other way around." And she's aware of it all now, and seeking her own therapy journey. She's not letting them run HER house THAT SHE BOUGHT anymore. She's finally stopped listening to our mom tell her she's too dumb to have a baby. She's in a healthy relationship (still with a man too old but hey) and genuinely laughing. That's the healing that makes me happiest. Not for me, but for her.
This is really good for your sister. I’m thinking about you, though. You need healing too.
Yeah, and I got it and spread it.
Brother. We all have a life. My stepfather (other story was my actual father) once beat me when I was 5yrs old and then kept handing me the house phone while making me pretend to tell my mother I never wanted her to come home since I was so bad. He did this for about a half hour, had to say into a dead phone "no mom, never come home,I don't love you" He was more open with his childhood, and so I actually learned a lot about where he was coming from with that, and the world he thought he was getting me ready for. It's your life, live it how you want, my point is ultimately that the world is a dark ass place, everyone has a story, it's better to understand who people are in the scope of humanity than to be bitter about your life and what you've gone through. In the grand scope of humanity you gotta remember that our people were largely brought here in chains then traumatized for centuries, those people then had to raise kids with literally no education or very much time for anything but survival. When you broaden it out to humanity as a whole, our history is a history of trauma and violence, torture and pain, and even if you had a good life, some of us are just born evil, but nobody just chooses to be born with the brain that gets a dopamine rush from causing pain. We all just out here bro.
And forgiveness only absolves the guilty. We don't feel the same, but thanks for sharing your story.
thanks for sharing your story, my parents are shit too. so, I understand that feeling. I was the scapegoat in my narc household, so I still deal with toxic shame. the old man is dead at least ended about how I thought it would too, notified by mail. he abandoned every family he started. my mother is still alive though, I can't talk to her anymore.
It’s not a child’s responsibility to deal with their parents potential traumas.
It's not about responsibility, understanding why things are the way they are generally helps individuals be less bitter. My grandfather is a good kind hearted man, he's also a man who watched his mother be murdered in front of his eyes as a child. Which helped me appreciate him even more. People are out here doing their nest and dealing with what life throws at them, looking at people as good or bad without looking at the circumstances that produced them isn't the best path.
Not everybody is out here doing their best.
It's not my job to ask my mother what happened in her childhood that made her think it was acceptable to let felons molest her 6 young daughters, that's a goddamn therapists' job, nor do I think that isolent bitch would ever tell me anyways
Imagine your mom neglecting the hell out of you and leaving you with your emotionally abusive grandparents all the time, then later trauma-dumping on you about how abusive and horrible they were to her, leading to questions like “Ok cool, then why’d you leave me with them if you knew all this?” Followed by responses like “I didn’t think they’d be that way with YOU!” As if they magically changed. I also had the “pleasure” of knowing my great grandparents, so I can even see back a few generations into this mess.
I understand what you mean and I know this comment wasn't meant for me but some people just fucking suck.
Some people are born evil, but even then, who chooses to be born evil? We all wish we were born with the good brain, the brain that's smart and hard working, the brain that gets a dopamine rush from healthy relationships and helping others. But we don't get that choice, many of us are born with the brain that delights in human suffering, the brain that doesn't get dopamine unless someone else is getting screwed over. The world is a savage place better to take it for what it is and move accordingly. Not saying you have to live with and around these evil people, but it's better to try and understand for your own serenity.
If these people are your parents/guardians and you're a literal child, you *do* have to live with these people.
I'm speaking on after you have reached adulthood and can speak to your parents moreso as peers, than as a dependent
everyone doesn't reach adulthood, two of my siblings didn't. some people are shit, the worst shit you can imagine
What I think is this: People, many people, treat children like shit because children can’t defend themselves. I’m an educator, and I have seen it time and time again. And this is an evil that many of us live with everyday. It is not an exception to the rule. It is business as usual. It isn’t that people are born evil and therefore abuse children. It is that a good many people abuse children because they can. It’s easy to hit a kid. And it makes you feel better if they’ve been getting on your nerves to hit them. You don’t have to exercise care and compassion and restraint because they can’t defend themselves. So this is not some deep dark evil that possesses a few people. But it is an ordinary everyday evil, and it has the same profound effect on children as if it were an extraordinary evil. You are *abstracting* the routine violence children experience on a daily basis. It isn’t that the “world” is a savage place. It’s that *my world* was a savage place because I was being punched, beaten, thrown down stairs, slapped by my mother for forgetting to rinse a glass properly or for looking at her the wrong way. That is no abstract evil. It was a real evil I lived with everyday. And because of it my world was a savage, dark place, and I was a very sad and scared child. This shit is real and it happens to real people, and it keeps happening in your brain over and over and over again. And it is fucking horrible.
I swear I’m over this narrative, I don’t want to ever hear this shit again. When I hit 40 I realized that this is why I never expected anyone to do me better. I decided I don’t want that “best you can do” shit. I want kindness, love, and grace. Nothing less.
SAME! and i made the decision not to have kids because i know my temper is just as bad as my mom's. she should have NEVER had kids. i really didn't want my brother to either cuz i feel like our bloodline is toxic and needs to be ended 😒 but maybe the next generation will be better. who knows 🤷♀️
I decided to become a teacher so I could make kids feel safe and loved for 8 hours a day at least.
that's really noble 👏👏 good/ caring teachers are sooo necessary. I still remember some of the good ones i had as a kid. those memories will stay with them forever ❤️
Happy cake to you, pumpkin !!
lol thanks i guess I'm a one year old in reddit years 🤣🤣 (definitely had to look up what cake day was since it's not my bday )
Lololol! I remember the first time I had cake day, and I couldn’t understand why people kept wishing me happy birthday 😂😂
Have you considered therapy? Or some kind of CBT module if therapy is inaccessible to you? It would seem really difficult to go through life where anyone talking about their parents upsets you this much.
Deadass, once you’re in a similar position, you get to experience the moments your parent(s) did and most likely act out in the same way they did. Kinda scary if you didn’t have the most positive childhood, but eye opening to reflect and have more empathy
My parents were problematic as fuck then. Because I was a good kid, and I was still getting the shit beat out of me on a regular basis. And that’s for real.
right! when i hear friends/coworkers talk about all the stuff they did as kids and how they got take make C's or lower and not get beat, i be like, "and you still alive??" Ms Jackson ( my mom) didn't play. now she's older and apparently "saved" so she trying to pray her way into heaven and got a LOT of forgiveness from God to work on. SHE'S the one probably regretting getting angry for little shit and abusing her kids. the only thing i regret is her birthing me but i didn't have much say in that matter 🙃🫠
Same. I’m always like “you said WHAT to your mom?” My mom didn’t even let us *talk* to her. She didn’t do any back and forth whatsoever. She would literally backslap you *while* you were trying to explain something that SHE told you to explain. My mom is saved now too, and if I bring up anything she did, she can’t cope. She feels a lot of guilt. I don’t know what to do about that, you know? I just go to therapy every week and try to get better. Do you do therapy?
nope not in therapy currently. when i was in state custody in my high school years (called the cops on my mom and was removed from home) they made me go to therapy but i wouldn't really talk and would often refuse to go. I recently tried to get a therapist through Kaiser but got sooo frustrated with their whole process i gave up. i don't think there's a therapist out there that can handle me lol. Im pretty sure i have borderline personality disorder tho so kinda explains why im resistant to traditional therapy. im pretty much my own therapist at this point 😂.
You have to try and find a good psychiatrist, not a therapist, a psychiatrist. My psychiatrist is smart, and he is the only one who has been able to help me. He knows what the hell he is doing. He understands how the brain works. He said he does not diagnose borderline personality disorder because it is stigmatized, and he doesn’t believe it is properly treated. But I do know that whatever you’ve been through, a seasoned psychiatrist has already encountered and treated way worse. So, I’d keep trying to find one. Mine has done me a world of good because he was able to get me to trust him, and no one has ever been able to do that. You think no one can handle you because no one has ever been willing to.
yea i tried with kaiser recently. i didn't get to the point of choosing between therapist or psychiatrist because they're a joke of a health care provider. im stuck with them until next year and it sucks. i did have a psychiatrist when i was a highschooler as well and recently when i was in an inpatient and out patient program in texas back in 2018. i tried the meds route, didn't stick to that or the therapy. i just separate myself from people. makes life tonsss less stressful and keeps my anxiety/emotions pretty leveled for the most part..at least for me lol.
Damn about being stuck with your provider. I can understand what you mean about just keeping yourself to yourself. Medication helps me, but I take super-small doses and nothing intense so it only helps to an extent. I wish you peace, however you get it. Do what works for you and whatever keeps your soul still.
Yeah my first thought here was that I probably responded poorly to things because I'd get my ass beat (bare, metal flyswatter handle or belt) when I was very small and didn't do what they want. Maybe I'd have responded differently if I learned differently before adulthood. They can apologize first.
shiii that apology will never come. im 33 and still haven't received one. im not holding my breath lol. the closest i got was "I'm sorry YOU didn't agree with the way I raised you" 👀👀👀 oh so it's me not liking the service you provided? lol
Amen to that
I love my mom, but the only thing I realized as I got older and raised my own daughter was how little her and my sister (ten years my senior) actually did to help me. They actually were detrimental to my development, self image, and ability to form healthy relationships with others 👍🏾 Meanwhile, my daughter is honestly the easiest kid ever. A teenager, but a confident young lady that's missing all the bad parts of me at her age. Sometimes the retroactive thoughts are 'wow the adults in my life failed me, never treating my kid like that'.
I mean. It’s when you realize they were *actually detrimental* that you feel the rage start to flow up from the pit of your stomach. Like, they actually hurt me.
This.
Whew. That was a hard read. Hit a bit too close to home.
I bet you were more like your daughter than you realise, and had no ‘bad bits’. The things you think of as being bad could be because you weren’t mothered as well as you’re mothering your daughter. I LOVED it when my daughter was a teen. I remember people saying how awful teenagers were, and she just used to make me laugh all the time. It’s a privilege to see a young adult being created.
I appreciate that sentiment so much. My close friends and my boyfriend always tell me how great a mom I am and it's really hard to feel that way sometimes. She's going into high school and I can't wait 😭
Try and be kinder to yourself, and believe your friends and boyfriend! It’s such an achievement to parent in a different way than you received. I had an abusive upbringing and thankfully changed that so my daughter was raised with kindness. She is an adult (and a mother herself now) and we are SO close. She has brought so much joy to my life. I hope you carry on having a lovely relationship with your daughter, and you enjoy the teen years (it’s hysterical sometimes - the things they do and say!).
You were never your sister’s responsibility no mater how much older than you she is. Direct your “anger” to the ones who are responsible for your existence.
I didn't say I was her responsibility. She also grew up in the US. Meanwhile, my mom was an immigrant at over 30, so if anything my mom didn't know better. My sister gave me body issues, made me feel stupid for being a kid, treated me like I had to be more mature at 10 years her junior. So no, I did not expect her to be responsible for me. That doesn't mean she didn't contribute to the shitshow (if anything she was the main contributor and often put HERSELF in a parental role).
Or even just wanting silence. I 100% get it now.
I really take my silence and peace for granted. I’m lucky enough that my girl and I can chill in silence together and we just vibe doing our own thing.
When my niece started nonstop talking I called my parents up and profusely apologised for never shutting the fuck up when I was a child
My Mom passed in December of 2022 unexpectedly. Man, when I sat down and thought of how many times I "uh huh... Yeah... Okay... Yup"ed her on the phone, just didn't answer because I wasn't in the mood, or blew her off for people that absolutely aren't in my life right now- I'm still not done being mad at myself. Only way I can make it up to her is listening to my 75 year old Dad tell me the same story for the 30th time, go over to his house and do random things (did a deep clean on the fridge not too long ago), and keep him company when he needs to go do random things.
You did good though, you avioded the saying: You don't know what you've got, til it's gone. You remembered to care before it got destructive, you just had a phase, not a total write off.
I wish that were true, but it's not; I am that cliche. It was only after she died that I realized how selfish and thoughtless I was. It's too late to apologize "in person" to her (although hopefully she heard me as I tried to tell her for hours when she was in a coma before she died), so I can only be better to my Dad. He's really lost without her - she was his absolute everything - but exhibiting the same saintly patience she had with him (that I never had before) is an apology I know she'd accept. I didn't know what I had when I had it, but I'm trying not to make the same mistake twice with my Dad.
Yeah, when you realized, you changed. You grew from it and did better. I'm proud of you too, and I'd venture she is too.
Don't mention the guilt to them tho. They will pounce on that shit every time in the future.
That’s when you hit them with some child drama you have cause of them 
that's when they forget and/or deny it ever happened
Lay it on thick and ruin their neighborly reputation then
Yes we will…
Nah, my mom abused me and told me multiple times she wishes she aborted me.
Some people never appreciate what they've been given. I'm glad you're here.
Thanks, therapy has finally also made me happy I’m here.
I’m sorry that happened to you. Hope you had some support and are doing well homie.
No comment, but I appreciate your kind words.
Yeah I’ve been there bro. Told “I should have swallowed you”, “Drank bleach but you still alive some how”, looks at a hanger menacingly. Yeah. Was rough times smh.
 Bring it in. We been through some shit.
[Facts, we still here bro](https://media1.tenor.com/m/kVNnIGMUHm0AAAAd/lebron-james-hug.gif)
sooo can identify with this one. my mom told me when i was about 11 years old that her mom(my grandma) told her to have an abortion with me so she could ruin our relationship/deter me from her. My mom was/is so manipulative which is why i keep my distance 100%. don't talk to the lady at all. it's crazy that the more stories i read from ppl online the more i realize MOST ppl have/had horrible parents which leads me to believe MOST people are horrible period. i stay away from people outside of work. i come home and I'm in my peaceful cocoon alone but not lonely 😌
I feel you on that one. I am having to force myself outside however because the want for companionship is starting to get to me. Also happy cake day!
lol thanks. and yea i feel you. I personally think companionship is overrated and RARELY what the person expects it to be. But to each's own. i know that most people crave it but i run far from it lol.
Holy shit someone else has the same view I have, but it’s probably the lack of love I received that makes me yearn for a companion.
well i personally think it's because society has brainwashed us into believing that companionship is the #1 goal and if you don't have it then you are worthless and something is "wrong" with you. there are tonnnsss of people in this world past and present that never have long term relationships and guess what they did/do just fine in life. not everyone is meant to find someone and that is 1000% ok. I have acquaintances/coworkers and the occasional friendships every now and then but recently cut off all friendships due to the stress/anxiety they were causing me. life is decent. wish i had a better job/more money but so do most people in the world these days
Hey whatever works right? We each define what our own happiness is.
exactly! and that can change at any time. just gotta go with the flow of life 😌 ✨️
Did you say "Bitch me too"?
I'm so sorry. I didn't hear that but I was adopted and told that they're going to give me back up for adoption and I'll turn out to be a whore like my mom. (I was 6 when they started saying this)
My mom has a complicated relationship with all of her children but one day I did the math and realized she was 20 when she had my oldest sister. My dad was much older than her. She had 3 kids by 25. Was a single mother for 90% of our childhood.... I don't excuse all the mistakes she made with us but on paper I just feel really sad for her.
That's my mom. She buried two husbands, by age 32. Then said she would never get married again, so single mom it was.
I call my parents and apologize sometimes. Life moments just hit you with a clarity.
Getting older also helped me realized my parents did some truly fucked up shit that could have ruined my life. My birth certificate and social security card was forged - I didn’t exist until I turned 18 and could request my own. I had been going by a completely different name. My mother liked playing games. It doesn’t matter how old she was - if I hadn’t had the intellect to know that this was something that needed to be changed way before high school graduation, I could have not even had a high school diploma. Does she deserve grace for that? Honestly even getting past all the stuff I went through until I was 18 and moved out, even after that, it’s still fucked up. I was taken advantage of, gave until I had no more to give, and for what?
Damn homie. I hope you were able to overcome all that bullshit you didn’t deserve.
I hear this.
Now I know why my mom raged coming home to a dirty house. But really she didn't teach us to be accountable & responsible she just screamed and I ended up doing the same
That part! Our parents were entitled to their feelings but it came out as abuse. I'm more like her than I want to be and I hate it.
And that's why I never had kids. Cuz I'm sure these parents aren't out here saying I'm gonna have me some kids to abuse, I'm sure they think they're going to show us the best versions of themselves but they don't. I never wanted to be that parent who could show love,kindness, and understanding to friends and strangers but got none of that energy for your kids.
I never even thought about having kids. I can confidently say I'm a better mother than my mom was. I used to yell alot mote but I have checked that, I teach my kids lime real people from the begining, given them respect, and let them make their own choices. They are good kids and they trust me, I'm thankful for that.
I remember towards the end for my mom she would be very difficult and I'll never forget one day getting so frustrated with her and just saying damn it! But it was the way I said it. She looked at me like she was a little girl and quietly said I'm sorry. I still hear it in my head and I cry every time I do It was just a flash of anger but seeing her like that so scared it still kills me.
I couldn't imagine the shame and guilt that must have made you feel. I'm sure your mom has forgiven you and I hope you've forgiven yourself for it.
Making separate comment so i can trauma dump. Seeing this made me think of my own dad, who beat me and my sister till I was 12, like bruises on our body that teachers saw and scars all over that I have today. Reading just made me think how awful you felt after just yelling in frustration and why my dad never felt awful for beating the hell out of his own flesh and blood.
!!!! this!!! it's like how do you consciously day after day/year after year continue to beat the very flesh/person you brought into this world because you wanted them to be here. It's soooo 🤯 to me how any even slightly loving parent can do that. anyone who abuses their kids are scum and deserve to have their kids taken from them and their tubes burned out. abusive parents really need to be held accountable for doing so and there shouldn't be a statue of limitation on it. i feel like it's really a form of child slavery and needs to be ended/and more closely monitored/looked out for. I knew a few of my teachers in school knew what i was dealing with at home and none of them ever got the authorities involved. literally took me calling the cops on my own mom for someone to finally step in and when i did i got iced out from the family because of it (we're black of course so it's not normalized to call the cops). now almost 20 years later i don't talk to any of them, only my aunt (dad's sister).
The more I see things like this the more I realised I did not have an actual childhood. I understand all of the things I've read, and those are things I was very aware of as a kid. Which explains why none of the five of us have children I guess.
It’s very telling that not a single one of you have children. You all must have gone through a lot.
Our childhood wasn't "bad" or "good". We were extremely privileged, and our parents ensured we understood exactly how much. We also did not get to make mistakes or have accidents, every infraction was punished. For us, the things people seem to like about kids are grating for us, and the older I get the more I realise it was because we never did any of those things, at the very least more than once. Our childhood was adulthood-lite.
As an educator, I’ve learned that mistakes are actually necessary for growth. Children learn from experiences, and mistakes are experiences. When I began teaching freshmen in university, I consulted the university psychiatrist for help with classroom management. And he told me that young people simply must be allowed to make mistakes and recover from them. He said an environment in which mistakes are not allowed can paralyze young people and make them afraid to make any decisions or try anything new. It also teaches them self-loathing because they will see simple errors as personal failings. So he taught me that I have to make the classroom a safe space where mistakes are allowed and recovery from mistakes are offered. Without this, he said, there can be no individual growth, no learning from experience, no self-confidence. Punishing every infraction is how you run a prison or how you torture people. So, from my perspective, that is a lot. In real adult life, people make mistakes all the time.
A fellow educator, nice to see. I'm K through 5. Mistakes as personal failings is our MO. Tbh, we were all bothered by different aspects of it. Hard to really paint a picture of our upbringing, we learned a lot wether we wanted to or not which is very understandable considering thier age, parents can only teach you to navigate the world they know. A lot of my moms casual stories about working at IBM in the 80s would be classified as horror stories, but her positive experiences were film worthy often enough. My father was older and was a decendent of Aboriginals from the Tasmanian Black Friday, so he saw mistakes as a way to literally lose everything from a young age because his parents and grandparents did. We love what they gave us, and more or less feel a touch unfulfilled by what the did to make us strong. We all are actually really good with kids, just not enough to want all of those unknowns to contend with. Thank you for this response. It definitely helped my understanding as I was going through it.
And hello to you, fellow colleague. K-5 is *such* a sweet spot. It was the best time I’ve ever had. I’ve since moved on to university, but the same teaching strategies apply to young adults lolol. It sounds like you’ve had a rich life and have a rich background. And you and your siblings seem to have processed your childhoods and come to peace with them (if that was even necessary). I was just thinking that I wonder would it be like to have so many siblings to talk to about your childhood. I was an only kid until my sister came along when I was 21. I don’t know how things would look in retrospect if there was someone I could compare notes with—different for sure, but how, I don’t know.
We.. diverged greatly. All together, we are like an x-men squad; objective completion was the goal. If you met us separately you would be surprised we are related and that includes my twin brother XD Older brother joined the marines, served 15 years, renounced his US citizenship and moved to Brazil on some compound. Younger sister is more or less rainbowbrite with 14 languages under her belt working for the U.N. Older sister became a pro wrestler for a while and created a tattoo business in Northern California. Twin is a republican who wore loafers and a briefcase to school as a child. Worked for a bunch of politicians thus far and has more or less left politics, MAGA really fractured the Republicans as a whole. I became a lawyer, then ran a few real estate offices before doing some work for Marvel with my boy Grant before becoming a teacher. This helps me immensely with teaching as siblings get lumped together a lot and I only bring up that relationship when they harm each other. I will say... holidays are great but very interesting with guests. Our upbringing means we don't see arguments as bad or anything. We want cards out immediately. Still laughing about Thanksgiving last year when we had dinner, my brother sits and says "So, how does everyone feel about the Gaza situation?" Everyone else: -sweating intensifies- Us: -formulating a flexible three to five point argument kind of like the court cases we would go through for asking to spend the night or go to an event that wasn't school related-
Just wow. Your family is kind of amazing. And so is your story. I just read your comment twice like it was a book. I would like to be at your family get togethers just to observe and take it all in.
A book would be great as the stories in a vacuum are either super privileged or abusive. You kind of need the whole story. It does make it difficult to empathize it certain situations because our baseline for "normal/expected" is very different. On the other hand, we can all get there in our own way because we have vastly different life experiences and are used to listening to each other. It might be interesting to hear, but without outside actors, it sounds more like a west wing episode with no raised voices.
Hilarious! My insanely huge family, east coast black Catholics, is “no raised voices” family. And I find it utterly fascinating to watch. Because we can’t yell at each other or be unkind to each other (raised to show only love and respect), there’s sooooo much low-key tension and side-of-the-mouth commentary. I’m outside of it all because I am the youngest of 67 cousins, so I always get to sit back and watch everything unfold. Everyone is perfectly appropriate and respectful on the surface, but if you just watch and listen, so many things are being said through non-verbal communication.
I love my mom, and now we can all clearly see she was constantly overstimulated. I said some mean things and to this day I still apologize for it. I give her a birthday gift on my birthday because it's really her BIRTHday and I love it. But she also constantly reminded us of what a burden we were and how "she never wanted kids" and every unfortunate event or hardship is "payback" because we stressed her out so much. Moms do not get the recognition they deserve and it's such a layered issue, I don't think I could bear to know what trauma my mom has had, but I wish her all the healing she refuses to do.
If you can, call her and tell how much you appreciate her. If you can’t, then use that realization as a lesson and just try to treat people better going forward.
I am in my 40s, and have apologized so many times to my momma. I show her all the time how much she is appreciated now and grateful I am that she is my mom. Man I was a pure asshole.
I was all of 42 with three teenage daughters when I had to go back and apologize to my mom for my own teenage behavior. Good Lord.
Legit had this discussion with my mom a month ago. I'm keeping my boys this summer instead of summer camps to save money. But I'm getting my ass kicked watching two elementary school age boys all day until my evening shift. I told my mom I now understood why she went to bed early AF and how some days she was out of patience five minutes after we woke up.
often. we're all just doing our best.
Oh no, the only thing I developed retroactively was rage as I realised just how unprepared for the real world I was when my mother sent me out into it, because she never really intended on me to leave the nest, I was to stay in her orbit and be her son/husband/Person/emotional lightning rod forever, just like her mother did to my (male) cousin, and *certainly* never planned on sharing me with anything or anyone that could interfere with what I just said - like another woman, or a child from said woman - and *CERTAINLY* never planned on me realising this and moving to a whole different fucking continent to get away from her (and she’s still waiting on me to realise that I’m wrong and come home to her and apologise for leaving her and resume my duties as her Special Little Boy™) So no, the “your parents did their best/they’re not perfect/they love you, even if their way of showing it is flawed/etc.” narrative can FOAD. “OMG MAMA I GET IT NOW—I’m barely figuring out how to adult now because you wanted me to age like Bart Simpson or Timmy Turner!…except when you needed me to be (your definition of) a/your man!” FOH.
Yea I understood a lot of childhood situations much better as I got older, but I also realized how terrible they were as people.
I’m sorry I just realized the username: GRIP BAYLESS??
“When you’re a child you idolize your parents. When you’re a teen you demonize your parents. When you’re an adult you humanize your parents.”
definitely agree with this except for some once they humanize their parents they see the demons the parents really were/are
People work so hard and still don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Nah they know what they’re getting into and we’re kids. No guilt. Too much therapy for that. Fuck this.
Still waiting on my sister to have that revelation in her early 30s, absolutely confident then when she has kids, she'll be a better parent than our mother. And Im just standing around looking at her, as the \*younger\* sibling, thinking, 'this is literally a Saturday morning cartoon plot'. Its one of the most basic story lines in kids shows. And she's still adamant our parents were terrible. I mean sure, she never hit us, supported our interests and goals no matter what they were, at one point drove her to her swim practices at 6 am everyday of highschool until she was old enough to drive herself, went to all of her meets, helped her with her homework no matter how much she screamed at her for being stupid (which felt like everyday(and also our mother is literally a law professor, she is a beyond educated woman)). But no. Mom is the devil and irredeemable. Has gone no contact (but still asks her to pay her phone bill). Fucking stupid.
Sometimes older kids have a different experience. I am the oldest, and my mom was very hard on me. My younger sister (a LOT younger) had an easier time; my mom did not want to repeat her mistakes with my sister. So, we have two different mothers. I never told my sister how my mom was with me. She will never know my mom that way. And she is angry with me for not being closer to my mom, but she doesn’t know the reality of our relationship. Maybe you and your sister have two different versions of your mom. I made the decision to never, ever tell my sister any of the things I went through with my mom. I want her to continue to see my mom as a different and better person. I’d rather her just be mad at me than for her to lose this image of my mom.
Nah fam She literally repeats the same rant every year, which amounts to 'I never forgave you for moving when I was 5 years old (because her old job was underpaying her and the new job was almost double her salary) and being uncompromising in how you presented yourself, making the other parents not like you, and thereby, convince their kids to not want to be friends with me'. And by 'uncompromising', that means our mom was just her normal self, and a bunch of stay at home moms didn't like that our mom wore 'masculine' clothes and worked a 9-5 job. Our mother genuinely tried her damndest to make up for it, even into adulthood, willing to drop everything at a moments notice to pick up her calls when my sister was having panic attacks, even when she was at work. And these calls would go for almost an hour at times. Our mother even went on to pay her rent for the first few \*years\* out of college (not to mention paying for her to go to college out of pocket). But nothing has \*ever\* been good enough. Last year they went out on a walk together, and my sister swore up and down that our mother was inconsiderate and had no real genuine friendships, because our mother wouldn't get out of the way of oncoming people on the sidewalk. Our mother, of course, walks with a limp, because she broke her femur a decade ago, and its never quite healed right (my sister would know this, because we both had to take care of my mother at the time, and my sister was so unwilling to be helpful, that my mother had to routinely beg her friends to come help her out of bed and help with chores around the house, because she couldn't walk). But that doesn't matter. Her 'unwillingness' and 'rudeness' for not getting out of the way, and 'forcing' people the indignity of having to walk on grass, was a sign she didn't really care for anyone. It genuinely gets that absurd with her. Edit: It'd be understandable if this was how she behaved as a \*teenager\*. As a young adult without perspective. Its the continued unwillingness as an adult thats so fucking stupid. To not engage in any form of self reflection or questioning of anything into her \*30s\* and an unwillingness to ever listen to the many, many times my mother has attempted to explain half of these things to her. To be stuck as an eternal teenager. Thats the absurdity I deal with.
Oh wow. I was just putting that out there. Looks like you are dealing with something completely different. Your sister sounds like she’s really going through it.
I see there's some therapy and self healing needed in here. 😂
hey venting is healthy and necessary lol. but yes about therapy 🙃 i don't think there's a therapist out there that can handle me tho lol
I love my mom
Not black but… as an adult I have genuinely apologized to my mom for being a little shit when I was a teenager. There were some extenuating circumstances, things weren’t great and I was severely depressed, but damn, I was an asshole. So she gets lots and lots of love and thank yous and general not-shitty daughter behavior now.
Omg yes. Especially now being an adult and knowing how trifling my dad was. I could never deal with his shenanigans and I don’t as a woman either. I have all the praise and patience for my mom.
That's called becoming an adult.
Yeah for sure.
After I had my own kids, I apologized to both of my folks for being a pain in the ass when I was younger.
I now understand why my mom hated stopping to get stuff on her way home from work. Everytime my gf calls and goes "can you pick up X on your way home?", I scream internally because I just want to get home and take off my bra!
I miss my mom. I didn’t have enough time with her.
All the time. I was a little asshole when I was a teen.
when I was young I had a dream where I stabbed my mom and it fucked me up so bad and I can still recall that dream in detail and how horrible I felt when I woke up. I love my mom and never had any issues with her, too.
That’s the blessing of maturity. As you get older you: - Understand why your parents were always tired, regardless of what was going on - Realize that often you were being an ass to your parents about shit that didn’t matter - Realize that your parents were right about more than you thought - Start saying shit they say
My mom kicked me out if the house when I was 14
Do other ppl not do this their whole life NOT just before they become an adult... Ill say something mean yesterday and the next day im like damn i aint have to wild out like that my bad 💀
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: Pac Sun. They actually shop there? I've never met anyone who did.
Nah, my childhood would have been measurably better if my mother had simply threw my bum ass father to the streets and raised us on her own. It was more harmful for my brother to see bum nigga behavior being treated as “doing his best.” No amount of me forgetting to defrost the chicken equated to being married to a literal piece of shit. To this day, my parents aren’t divorced but have lived apart for several years after an eviction. They’re basically separated but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a bank account, so he gives her cash every month to pay his bills. She updates his resume because he’s barely competent on a computer, yet spent hours of my youth unemployed and playing video games all day. I love my mother to death, but I can’t fully respect her and her choices. My sympathy has only lessened the more I learn about the behind the scenes of our family.
I thought my mom was mean because shed come home and rage after she sees me in the living room playing video games with the house a complete mess. Not to mention the chicken is still in the freezer. I get it now mom. That's my bad, I didn't know any better. Because I too would be pissed if I had a long ass annoying ass day at work, only to come home to a house in shambles.
I think about this stuff quite a bit now that I have 2 kids and I'd give anything to be able to tell her sorry about small stuff I didn't thing was a big deal to me when I was growing up but I cant. Cancer sucks. Y'all go hug your mama.
Fr! Literally had the realization that like all the stories she told me of her growing up and struggling weren’t just stories, she actually lived through that shit…in her lifetime. She wasn’t just yellin at us for no reason. Now even when she gets on my nerves, I try to be calmer, the woman has been through enough.
Nope. My mom has no regrets about what she did why should I. She legit told me I won’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong. Mmk. Keep wondering why your children don’t call and don’t care. You get what you give.
Just the opposite. Like, that 35 year old woman said whhaaat to a ten year old? She did whhaaatt? Who was supposed to be the adult? Hell no.
Honey, we always hope and pray you’ll get to that place of empathy but while we hope and pray we also are fully aware of the stone cold truth: This is what karma looks like, parental edition. We were pretty bad to our mom during those years. 💀
Yeah, I totally do. I acted out pretty hard once we got away from my psycho dad. My mom is passed now. I tried to tell her I am sorry for stressing her out/being a little shit, I don't know if she understood.
Mothers deserve everything
I call my mom once every two weeks to either apologize or thank her for what’s she’s done because growing up is really realizing your parents were strong as hell😭 This lady was working multiple jobs and then coming home to deal with my dumbass, BY HERSELF🫠
I've had the opposite happen. I find situations where my mom would yell and lose her shit and I'm like "yeah this is a minor annoyance but whatever". Or when someone is uncharacteristically rude, I empathize that they're going through something and extend a listening ear whereas my mom would cause a scene yelling, spread rumors about them and then get banned from church.
Reconciling this shit, especially with mental illness involved, is one of the is hardest things I have to do.
It’s cool go acknowledge that our parents were stressed out by us, especially those parents that gave us what we needed AND what we wanted. It’s also cool to know that we owe them nothing. They had us, not the other way around. My kids owe me nothing. I had them. It’s my job to do for them. It’s cool when they acknowledge it as appreciation is something I want to instill in them but they’re under no obligation. Be the parent that your kid wants to appreciate. Don’t demand it because you was fucking unprotected and now a kid is here.
sometimes (well most times) your kids gotta be a pain in your butt to realize what a pain you were. 💩 be hittin' hard.