For people who were raised in the same home by a mother and father, what is your gender and which parent would you say you were closer to? I have a theory about this, and I’d like to see if it holds water - poll to follow.
And please do only vote if you were raised in a home by a mom and dad. Not to discount other experiences, but I figure it will skew the results if you were raised by a single parent, or only saw one parent on the holidays, or even if your divorced parents had split custody but one had more money or whatever. And I’m specifically interested in the gender angle here, hence a mom and dad, rather than those raised by same-sex couples.
As for what “closer to” means for those who may find the term ambiguous, we’ll say that even though you may (or may not) love your parents equally, it’s the parent who you feel more easygoing with, talk to more, fight with less, generally feel more comfortable with, etc.
Dad. Mother was and is totally nucking futs. I haven’t spoken to her since about a month after his funeral when she ended a long explosion of everything I ever did wrong with “I never want to hear you or see you again”. Since Dad always insisted I respect her and her orders I figure I’m doing as best I can.
My wife, not registered here as far as I know, was also a little closer to her Dad.
Interesting that so far (though the sample size is still small), among those people who express a preference, mothers are predominating. Blows my theory out of the water: from what I’d observed it seemed to me that in general people were closer to the opposite sex parent and had a slightly more fraught relationship with the parent of the same sex.
I was closer to my mother until I came out, then I was exiled by both parents. My parents separated shortly after. I reestablished a relationship with my father and was thus closer to him. He has since passed away. My mother is still living but there is barely any communication between us.
Male here. Father. My mother was/is a harridan who drove my father to his death. She’s long since disappeared, and if I ever found out she was alive (she’d be 81 now), I’d be tempted to hire a professional hitman.
I have very different relationships with each of them. I couldn’t honestly say which I’m closer to; I’m close to both. I feel like I have more of a meeting of the minds with Dad, but I probably discuss more personal things with mum.
There’s no sugarcoating it: my dad is a fuckin’ asshole, and even today he & I are more accurately described as acquaintances rather than father & son. We’re friendly enough whenever the two of us are together, but neither of us ever goes out of our way to hang out or see each other.
Which is really, really bizarre, given that I was much closer to him (over my mom) when I was a youngster. It just goes to show that people definitely change over time. C’est la vie.
Pretty much the same here. My folks maybe aren’t as sane, sociable, interesting, intelligent and nice as carlotta’s but I could have done much much worse.
I did vote for my mom, I think it’s because we’re both women so there’s that extra bit of knowledge/closeness my mom gets from me.
Male here. Very supportive mother, very abusive father. He abused everybody in his life, in different ways, until the day he died.
If you take away the abuse, I actually am more similar to my father. Our interests, our way of thinking and expressing ourselves. If it weren’t for the abuse, he could have been an excellent role model. It took me decades to get past my anger toward him, to understand this.
I had a mother and a father, and a sister. Technically, Mother and I were close, while Sis and Dad were close. Except Mother and I hated each other during the last ten years of her life. She died when I was in my 20s, and I thanked God that she did. 'Nuff said on that topic.
But Sis and Dad were tight. My attempts to get to know my Dad were fruitless–she was his golden girl, and everything was subject to what Sis wanted to do or say. Until she moved overseas. Overseas calls cost a fortune in those days, and so to save costs, Dad had to get to know his other offspring–me.
It was then that I got to know my the wonderful person who was my Dad. Sunday nights were for us: football on TV, golf tourneys on TV, whatever sports were on TV, we watched. We played golf (badly, but with lots of laughs), we drank beer, we talked. Dad learned about me, and I about him. And I think that we finally connected.
My Dad is now 87 years old, and lives in a home. Sadly, he suffers from Alzheimers, and has no idea who I am when I visit. I sing him his favorite Broadway show tunes (Mom and Dad were big Broadway fans, and saw a number of shows in New York), and he is happy.
I wish that Sis hadn’t been such the “golden girl” in Dad’s life. and that I had got to know my Dad sooner than I did.
I voted like carlotta (also I’m a woman). There are things I’m closer with my mother, but there are others I’m closer to dad, and that was the case when I was growing up too. I’m very fortunate, and I’m equally close (or distant, as the case may be) to both of them.
I am a woman and while I actually have a lot more in common with my father, relationships can’t be called “close” with either one. I remember being asked “who do you love most, your mooooommy or your daaaaaaddy?” as part of a psychological test administered to my class by an imbecile who read it all aloud like that*, and thinking “both the same - as far away as possible!” (in Spanish, love and want are the same verb).
as stereotypical as that question is, apparently most of the adults in my life have had better sense than to ask it. I can only recall encountering it in the wild a couple of times, never addressed to me, and every time the adult was told not to ask such questions.
Congratulations: you’ve just rediscovered the notion of Oedypus/Elektra’s complex. My mother still blames any disagreement we had during my childhood and teen years on it.
They both are great people and I always got along just fine with both. I was very fortunate to be raised by two very sane and level-headed parents who didn’t mingle or interfere much in my life. We (me and my siblings) were very independent in our childhood and especially teen years.
George Carlin once said something like “You want to raise your kids properly? Then leave them the fuck alone!” That really was how I was raised, come to think of it. And I’m actually grateful for it. We got along fine, but didn’t really spend much one-on-one time.
