I saw the saddest thing at lunch today. I had to listen to a woman continuously address her daughter in really, really severe tones for no reason at all. AFAICT, she just talked to her daughter all of the time like that, i.e., she wasn’t just in a bad mood or something. I mean, it was just continuous and pointless chastising and browbeating; she gave me the impression that she spends her entire life addressing people sharply. Her daughter seemed like a perfectly nice girl who had done nothing to invoke her mother’s ire. How’s that happen?
Some people are just mean, miserable people to everyone they meet. Some people for whatever reason, are only like that to their family members, and nice to everyone else. I’m sure there’s been studies on this by psychologists, but I can’t begin to fathom the reasoning behind it.
My parents were the same way. And I’ll probably be the same way when I have kids, unfortunately It sucks.
Just out of curiousity, how long were you observing her behavior?
About 30-45 minutes. Heard it, mostly… 
A friend of mine had a mother who was just like this. I can tell you from personal experience that she was NOT nice to everyone else. She was a bitch all around. She was mean to everyone. She treated me like I was her son, too, and I hated being around her. She always complained to service people and was never happy with anything. She was the type of person who was never happy unless she had something to complain about. Hardly a surprise that he moved out on his own when he was 16.
My first husband rarely had a kind word for anyone in the immediate family, but everyone else thought he was the bee’s knees.
I see it a lot. Husbands and wives treating each other and their kids like crap, but being generous and helpful to friends, co-workers, store clerks, strangers.
Familiarity breeds contempt? I dunno. I can’t imagine using anyone as a verbal punching bag, but especially family.
When I was driving out to California for my current job, I stopped at a campground for the night just outside Crater Lake. (I took the scenic route.) The bloke in the campsite next time mine engaged in a continuous string of (as far as I could tell) undeserved criticism and insults for his wife, interrupted only by invective for his small daughter. The bit I remember most was, “Don’t try to think; you have no critical thinking ability; you’re a fucking idiot,” but the rest was in that vein. Curiously, he was quite polite to me in an oafish way, coming over to offer gasoline for my fire (??), offering me the use of his chainsaw so I could cut down a tree for firewood (???), et cetera. I had to resist the impulse to bury a tent stake in his left eye and tell his wife and daughter to run as far as possible.
While not quite in the same league as this guy in shear bravado, my father’s wife makes a unflappable string of critical commentary toward and about anyone around her. She criticizes her kids (who go on to fail badly, fulfilling her expectations), she criticizes my father (who, despite providing materially for her for the last 20 years, through sickness, health, and door-slamming verbal abuse, can do no right), and until I left for good, complained at me for everything I did, had done, and would ever think of doing. Charming woman; I’d like to give her an allegator-skin handback for Christmas with the rest of the allegator still attached.
Some people are, through experience, abuse, genetics, or television exposure, about as pleasent as a Tabasco enema. There’s no understanding it; just avoid them like…well, Tabasco enemas, which I think we’ll all agree is something to definitely be avoided.
Stranger
I think people treat their families the worst because they feel like they can get away with it with them - try it on a stranger, and he’s likely to bury a tent stake in your left eye. 
It’s really unfortunate that people treat the people closest to them that love them the most the worst; in my experience, though, people who are this miserable to other people are usually pretty unhappy themselves. I’m not excusing their bad behaviour, just saying that they’re being punished as well by having to live with themselves.
Regarding the situation alluded to by Stranger On A Train, it was probably wise to be civil to a stranger with access to gasoline and a chain saw. :dubious:
I was recently on the train with a woman who had a teenage boy with her, and a toddler. She screamed at that toddler for the whole ride. And he wasn’t doing anything! Every time the kid moved, she acted as though she’d just been told that the word “fuck” was about to be outlawed, and decided to use up her lifetime supply, at full volume. The older boy was mortified. I wanted to grab both those poor kids and run.
And my mother’s very similar … I’ve tried to remember the last time she had one nice thing to say to me and I just can’t … she’s been negative about just about everything I’ve ever done in my life and that is a certainly one of the reasons I’ve chosen not to have any contact with her for the past couple of years. She’s not like this with my brothers, just me. Finally you just have enough and say fuck it - life’s too short and I don’t need this anymore.
As for how that happens malienation , frankly I don’t know. My mother once told me that first kids (which I am) are like the first pancake you make in a batch - it’s usually the one you screw up the most and just toss instead of serving. Yeah, that stung a bit more than I let on…
Hopefully these parents will wake up before their kids cut ties permanently, too.
Kids are smaller than they are and can’t leave.
Only if you choose to be. Most parents don’t hurt their kids, regardless of their own past. People really aren’t robots.
Yeah, if I recognize what I’m doing and work at it, I might be alright. My parents didn’t and don’t recognize that they’re generally a lot snappier and short tempered with me than they would be with other people.
And then there’s my Dad–who told me, after the birth of my first child, that there was nothing like the first one–you never feel as much love for the others as you do for the first.
Unfortunately, I am the 5th and final child.
Thanks Dad.
Jerk.
I don’t know why some people act this way in public (or private)–it apalls me. I always wonder-gee, if you’re comfortable spouting this off here–what do you say at home?
Some folks just should not be parents. (and some of them are just having really bad days–not an excuse, I know, but it also could mean that they do have some self-awareness and don’t always emulate Joan Crawford).
I saw this once at work. I gave a tour of the museum to a woman and her (maybe) eight or nine year old daughter, spending about two hours with both of them. When the woman spoke to me, her voice was sweet and polite, quite friendly. But when she spoke to her young daughter, her voice became harsh and snapping. The difference was amazing, and she was the same way the entire time. She would laugh and joke with me and then snarl coldly at the child, who was a well-behaved little girl. I never once heard her address the girl in anything less than a nasty tone.
Poor kid.
“For no reason at all” - make that, for no reason that you’re aware of.
“She wasn’t in a bad mood or something” - how on earth do you know what mood she was in?
The whole post piles assumption upon assumption (“she gave me the impression,”, “her daughter seemed like a perfectly nice girl”).
I dread to think what erroneous assumptions people may have made about our family in the past, simply from overhearing us at a bad moment.
Of course, you may be perfectly correct in your impressions, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t start piling in to this lady on the mere possibility that you are.
I’ve been told that I sound angry on the phone, even when I’m not. I think that’s a facet of not being able to mitigate sarcasm with winks and smiles, though.
I think it is insecurity and self-loathing that drive this kind of behavior. The parent doesn’t think anything good can come from his/her life and that includes their children. It becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy as they destroy the child’s self-esteem and guarentee failure.
I was going to say almost exactly this. My father treats me with constant hostility and is always looking for something to be mad at me or my sister for. He’s actually caused two of my friends to cry, one from witnessing it and one from defending me. Yet when I meet his real estate clients they tell me how wonderful and funny(?!) he is and how lucky I must be to have him as a father. I’ve also had friends’ parents be wonderful to me and treat their own kin horribly. For some reason most people seem to feel that you can be more critical and more rude to people you are related to just because they are relatives.
In the town I live in a lot of women get pregnant right out of high school if they decide to stay here. They never go to college, end up in a shitty or non-existent marriage, and are stuck (as they see it) in lower class because of it. Therefore for the rest of their children’s lives they take it out on them. I don’t agree with it in anyway but I’m used to it.