Why is this do you suppose? Don’t they remember how they felt as children? Myself, I learned pretty much everything NOT to do from my parents.
My father got his ass beaten as a kid and he went on to beat his kids. He would be the first to say he was a “bad ass” who deserved every lick he got. And thus that makes him an expert in meting our punishment.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
My observation is that there is this basic psychological principle: most people assume that other people are mentally similar to themselves.
Ergo, if you are cruel to your kids that is normal because presumably everyone does it. So it isn’t abuse. And if you are “normal” how can you be “not good”?
There’s also the “tough love” concept. Some parents are convinced that their abuse is in the best interests of their kids - and in fact, perhaps do genuinely have their kids’ interests, or feel that they are doing the loving thing, when being tyrannical in the household.
Not that “tough love” isn’t a real thing, but that it is easily misunderstood or misapplied.
This right here haa been my experience thus far with people who shouldn’t be in parental roles but are. The sad thing is, is that there is nothing wrong with not being suited to parenting as long as you’re honest about it
Gack! Accidently hit submit
Be honest about it and either take some classes/therapy or don’t try to inflict yourself on an child.
I thought custodial parents could get in some big trouble for not allowing/forcing kids to see their NCP, up until about age 12.
I did not realize I was a bad parent until my boys were grown. The reason I know I was a bad parent is that I am afraid to tell my boys to control their children when they are at my house, in case they never come back; one of my sons expects me to come over and babysit AND cook mac and cheese for his kids, just like mom makes. (Duh. You buy the babysitter and the kids a pizza, how does he not know this?); and I have a 23-year-old who still lives at home. He does pay a little rent, and he empties the dishwasher, but he expects me to wash his clothes.
Where have I failed? I know I am a terrible person but I tried really hard.
My Daddy was the most perfect father and mother to us 8 sibs. ( yes 8). Mom died while we were small. But, he was a tough disciplinarian. He was a DI in the Marines. That was to be expected. With his home boot camp we had chores and were expected to carry on like little privates. He had to do it. There were just so many of us. Things would devolve into chaos in minutes, if not. He loved us each and everyone. My brothers have a slightly different take, he was especially tough on them. They all went into the Corps after highschool. He gave them no choice on this. One brother really had a problem with it. He came around to believe it was probably the best later on.
I cannot tell you how much we loved that man. He was our hero. I miss him everyday, still.
Someone looking into our household might have cringed at the discipline. He never beat or abused. Punishment was work related. He also had high expectations as to behaviour and school work. So, every family looks different. There are plenty of people who never think about what they are creating with raising their kids. There are too many young adults, right now who have no skills or ability to succeed in this world because their parents were absent or had their head up their ass. That’s what is sad. It’s such a waste of humanity. Add abuse or neglect and it just multiplies.
I think it is hard to overcome the deeply learned habits and behaviors that can become easily the templates for the unconscious reactions, the patterns that then people self-rationalize. And they may not realize how similar they are in some of the behaviors to the very things they complain of the parent about.
it is also of course that later some things they come probably to think as the right thing as it is their parenting template.
It is not to make a personal criticism, but you may think you are not doing anything you observed from the parents, but it may be another thing to the observation of an outside (or maybe not, but it is only to say the self-deceptoin or the self blindness in this area, it is a difficult thing to avoid, not impossible but it is difficult I believe).
My siblings and I have come to a consensus that ours were not good parents, not terrible, just not good. My mom is woefully undereducated, just barely squeaking through high school and diving headlong into her sole desire of having a passel-o-babies, which she proudly admits; she had 6. My dad was not much better, although he was able to further his education somewhat after being inducted into the Army in the early 1960s.
My parents put almost no effort into our education; they never encouraged our studies, never worked with us, never followed up with us on our homework, avoided parent-teacher conferences as much as possible, showed little to no interest in our grades or report cards, and seemingly could not care less about how academic achievement, or lack thereof, would impact our futures.
My mom, when she wasn’t in church, spent much of her time actively grooming my sisters for husbands and motherhood. My father simply expected us boys to join the military.
If I were religious, I would consider my and my brother successfully avoiding the military (an act of defiance that, in my case, incensed my father to the point of throwing me against a wall, breaking my right arm and thumb in the process), going to university, and ultimately achieving advanced degrees in spite of our parents’ roles in our upbringing to have been absolute miracles. My sisters didn’t fare as well, each making it through high school but no further than completing a few community college courses before stopping.
I have a strong sense that our parents loved us. However, although they were very good at making kids, they were simply not up to the task of raising them. Perhaps if my mom bore 2 or 3 children instead of 6 she would have been more informed about the importance and necessity of childhood education in a rapidly changing 1970s world, but then I am probably simply making excuses.
Did my mom and dad think they were good parents? I don’t believe the question crossed my dad’s mind even once. He fed, clothed, and disciplined us so, as far as he was concerned, he fulfilled his obligations. There was no good or bad to it. My mom, on the other hand, believes she was a good parent to this day and becomes emotional whenever a contrary assessment is offered, so we’ve learned to simply keep our yaps shut about it in her presense.
The number of times in which “tough love” contains ANY love AT ALL probably hovers around 0.005 percent. I don’t think it’s misunderstood at all - it’s just abuse with a hoity-toity name.
Thats a very good description of a narcissist and matches what I’ve seen. Once they can’t control or use you, they throw you away.
I wonder what happens to the children of narcissists when they grow up. I know a narcissist couple with children, and I worry how their kids will turn out.
I would assume a lifetime of low self esteem, attraction to abusers/users, boomeranging between loving/hating your parents, not knowing your true self, etc. is what those children have to face.
A lot of people don’t remember how they felt as children or as teens; a lot more have problems understanding not everybody is them. What worked for you only works for your kid if your kid happens to have that particular button; this was an enormous source of frustration for Dad and my brother Ed, as they had different concepts of both “time” and “curfew” and this led to more father-son arguments in a single weekend than us other two siblings would trigger in a year.
And for stuff such as being nasty to the kids, there is a learned behavior factor but also personality and mental health factors. The Grandfather From Hell was a psychopath (as was his mother), the Grandmother From Hell was paranoiac, the Aunt From Hell has official diagnoses of PTSD and BPD with attendant bipolar disorder, and the Mother From Hell (or at least, the next room over) has a personality along the lines of social narcissism with a strong solipsistic bent (She thinks of other people as being secondary characters in the movie that’s Her life; that’s when she doesn’t view us as mere props). What’s a wonder is not that they were bad parents, it’s that any of the last two have had children who weren’t completely bananas (although we have at least one avoidant personality and one bipolar, but hey, no psychopaths!.. I think…).
Just out of interest, who is that person going to be? My suggestion is that you find a person who doesn’t think of women as money-grubbing whores. That would give the kid an even shot at turning into a decent adult human being.
It’s lucky there’s someone around with a “partial PhD” in the cognitive sciences to explain his shortcomings to him.
I got an e-mail from my 54 year old step daughter a couple of weeks ago that I am no longer part of that family because her mom and I have been divorced for almost 30 years. I am zero, natha, nothing so no more contact of any kind. I raised her from the time she was 5 put her through school, gave her a beautiful wedding and her mom and I were always welcome at any gathering. She has maintained relationships on my side and they all consider themselves cousins and nieces and nephews etc. This all stemmed from her recent taking over of her moms care who has Alzheimer. I had been a full time care giver to her for the past 3 years and for the past 10 years have been handling a good deal of her life issues, medical, financial, etc.
In a lot of ways she is still not that bad, holds a normal conversation, keeps herself well groomed, attends her AA meetings, but does tend to talk about the distant past more and more because she is loosing her short term memory almost entirely. But anyway, we had a bout a 3 week sexual fling. Maybe fooled around 4 or 5 times. She was aware enough to put on oldies romantic music like we used to play, light some candles and put on a sexy nighty. Anyway she told her daughter about it and I suddenly became this pervert who coerced her into sex taking advantage of her illness. She has been trying to seduce me for the past 20 years or so and I just never fell for it. My mate recently died and I guess I was a little more vulnerable.
My daughter sent her off to relatives in Mississippi and handles some of her paperwork and thats about it. Every time her mom calls her and tells her she wants to come back she goes ballistic on me telling me I caused all this. At this point I happily told her to go fuck herself and I am through with the whole bunch. I was taking care of her mom to shield her and my son as much as I could. Any feelings I had toward her as a daughter have been annihilated. I am done.Don’t forget the gay-o-meter. He totally invented one!
Some people never realize. But on the other side, perfectly ordinary parents spend their entire lives second-guessing and doubting their parenting abilities from the time the baby makes its first appearance until they themselves shuffle off this mortal coil.
Every mistake the kid makes, they take it as their failing. Every bad life-choice the adult kid makes…yep, parental FAIL.
And I would wager that there are far more parents in the latter cohort than the former.
Perhaps. But I doubt my kids are in constant fear of physical punishment, such as a bloody nose for having the nerve to purchase a magazine with their birthday money, or getting spit on because there were no coupons in the Sunday paper.
It has been my observation that usually the personality defects that make someone a bad parent are also the personality defects that prevent someone from realizing what a lousy parent they were.