There are obviously somethings that are absolutely wrong, like abuse of spouses or kids. But it is a cliche (though a true one) that your parenting skills improve dramatically when your kids have kids.
My wife’s best friend didn’t get married until late, and she used to have opinions on our marriage. They suddenly stopped when she got married.
Like I said, this doesn’t mean you suddenly think your parents were perfect, but it explains a lot of the imperfection - and lets you deal with it better, especially in relation to your own kids. Which just means you’ll make other mistakes.
Why would you suspect she might not like hearing it if you don’t already know you are saying a hurtful thing to her? If you know you are saying something hurtful to someone, how can you seriously claim you don’t see how that’s rude? Probably because you think she/they deserve it… but whether that’s true or not doesn’t mean it’s not a rude thing to do.
And here’s where I think you’re being disingenuous, which adds to my overall “yes it’s rude” opinion. You didn’t try bringing it up once or twice; it sounds like this has been an on-going pattern for years and nothing is changing. So you know that apology isn’t coming, yet you pretend to be open to changing your ways by offering a compromise that will never be taken and using that fact that it gets turned down as justification to keep acting badly.
I don’t see how one can rightfully declare “if you don’t give me what I want then I have every right to badger/punish you for not doing it” Like I already said, you know that bringing it up won’t accomplish anything. Yet you continue to do so… why? Probably to punish… year, after year, after year, after year. That’s the equivalent of reminding a prisoner why he’s in jail every morning during cell count. Nothing but abusive.
By having made so many such fails already, one demonstrates that they have character and/or competency issues, and probably also lack the capacity to own up to it. The rest of their lives and treatment by everyone else likely reflects those same short comings. I don’t see it as your job to keep reminding a failure that they are a failure. I do in fact think it is on you to be the mature one. Continuing to act this way really shows that you are no better than the person who wronged you. Why would you not want to be mature and move beyond that type of hateful denial? Are these conversations the kind of things you feel proud of having? It almost makes me question whether you learned anything from all those experiences since you seem to think that treating others you don’t like abusively is ok if you hate them enough.
Yes there are. But pointing out someone being a bigger asshole than you doesn’t eliminate your own assholery. If you shoplift a pack of gum while your accomplice takes a laptop, you’re still a thief and deserve punishment and/or scorn.
Again I don’t think you really mean or believe this idea of all someone has to do is X and everything will be fine. I’ve had the experience as a kid of being badgered into admitting some dumb untruth under the guise of “we"ll stop if you do”. It doesn’t actually work though. All that happens is everyone laughs and says “we knew it”, and then they go on to forcing the person to admit the next (usually even dumber) thing. Nothing changes in these kinds of situations, and my guess is that you’re accepting an apology and moving on is about as likely as actually getting that apology in the first place.
I’d say largely depends on the severity of the parental transgression, and the degree of harm that resulted. As well as the type of relationship you wish to have as adults.
Most parents (not all) generally try to do a pretty good job. Sure, most parents fuck up along the way, but some kids contribute to fucked up household situations as well. If the parental action was short of abuse, and if the kids matured into reasonably well-functioning adults, as a general rule I suggest it is not terribly productive or kind to repeatedly throw remote resentments in your parents’ faces.
If you are that pissed, then maybe you should restrict your interaction with them. But I’m not sure what laudable reason there might be for continuing to raise ancient history. Is there some (reasonably achievable) goal? Trying to get everyone to a different, more honest relationship or something? If that IS the goal, is this the best way to achieve it?
No, I don’t believe parents “sign up” to be a ongoing punching bag over any and all perceived child-rearing slights or omissions. Do you believe parents should continually bring up instances in which their kids were little pains in the ass years ago?
The OP describes some pretty extreme parental actions. Even so - how do you deal with such a past? Maybe there IS no effective way. If that is the case, I could imagine holding a grudge and limiting my interaction with such a parent - or I would try to find some way to get past it.
I suspect there is at least some element of ill-motive behind the kids laughing about such things in their parents’ earshot. Is this a contest to show that the kids are as flawed as the parents were? If you care so little about each other as adults that you don’t care if you are creating unpleasantness, more power to ya. I sure wouldn’t be associating with you.
oy the old shit my Ma still brings up it’s disgraceful beause she’s still pissed about it. 
:dubious::smack:
love her smh
But i know families who can all laugh heartily together about some over the top reaction from days gone by.
I don’t understand or agree with many of the ideas expressed in this thread, but I appreciate the replies nonetheless.
I would like to see my mother’s reaction when I try to tell her about the ways she failed as a parent. The word “butthurt” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
My father would take another toke off of his J and say, “shit happens.”
“Cry a river of tears, build a bridge and get over it!”
Both my parents are gone and I’ve posted numerous times about the whippings my Dad gave me and my Mom admitting that she stood by helpless. It’s both therapeutic and heartbreaking for me to post about it, but without delving into their minds and past, I’ll never know what caused them to do what they did. The one time I asked my Dad why he doubled me over with a stomach punch just for playing around an hiding behind a curtain, his answer was “I’m sorry. You want to hit me?” To which I responded “If I did, I wouldn’t stop until I killed you!” and walked away. Another time I asked if my grandfather hit him as a child, he said “Yes, and he’s got BIG hands!” and that was it.
25 years ago, after my Dad passed way, I had a discussion with my Mom and siblings (who always claimed they were beaten as badly as I was) when my Mom said, “No, he treated you worse because he wanted more from you.” and said she couldn’t stop him, even threatening to leave. I told my siblings that they made me feel like something was wrong with my memories or my mind, essentially gaslighting me and I didn’t say more than a few words to them for the next 20+ years, only reconciling with them when my Mom was seriously ill and passed away a couple of years later. I only asked three questions about the past.
Why did Dad threat me so badly. Their answer as always been the same. “You didn’t want to go to school!” Ummm…so that deserves being whipped with a belt for not going to Kindergarten (which wasn’t required back then)? “How that does that compare with what YOU did?” SILENCE
Didn’t they think it odd that we had a latch OUTSIDE the shower door to lock me in? SILENCE
Why did they think my Dad kept getting passed up for a promotion and if that was the root of his anger? “Don’t know.”
You parents have have shown that they’ll probably never be open to discussion about why they did what did. And it seems like you’re purposely punishing them, possibly even enjoying it, by bringing it up. So the only thing left is to fix yourself. Seek professional or spiritual help, or post the hell out of your experiences here or on Reddit. Some will sympathize, some with threadsh*t, some will try to play psychotherapist (myself included), but you’ll NEVER get the real answers or in probably NEVER get an apology.
Hate them for their actions, but love them for who they are and don’t let the hatred ruin the time you have with them. In a way, I was glad my Dad died when I was 34, since the frustration of wanting to have deeper conversation about the past wasn’t an option. On the other hand, I wonder about the good times we COULD have had.
Yeppers. Like you and your sibs, my sisters and I have dealt with how our parents treated us back then by talking with each other about it. If any of us had wanted a serious conversation about it with one of our parents, we would have gone that route, and that would have been a reasonable choice. But handling it as described in the OP is just plain shitty.
My mother is a very good person and was a good parent.
But sometimes when we were kids and things got out of hand she would yell at us in frustration. No big deal. But decades later it happened to come up in a conversation and she denied that she had ever done so. Her memory was very firm on this, and she even remembered when such-and-such other person had expressed amazement about how she (my mother) never yelled at her kids.
I was pretty confident that I was right about this, especially since there are certain expressions that I only know by virtue of my mother having yelled them at us in frustration (nothing obscene or anything, just somewhat unique and based on our ethnic background). But I asked a few of my siblings, just to be sure. They remembered things exactly as I did.
So I asked my father what he thought about it. He said he didn’t either remember my mother ever yelling at the kids (which is unsurprising, since whenever he was around he was in charge of discipline and she didn’t). But in any event, he said that her notion that she never lost her cool or yelled at us was important to her, and not worth pushing back on. So I backed off. Shortly after that she brought it up again and I said OK well whatever, and we kind of left it that my memory was wrong. Several times since then she’s brought it up again as an example of me not remembering things accurately, and my reaction is generally yeah fine whatever.
But again, that’s a situation where the parent is a genuinely good person and the issue is really no big deal at all. It would be different with a bad parent and genuine abuse.
Though I would still caution people about taking their own memories as being infallible. There are a lot of studies about childhood memories which pretty consistently show that people have a tendency to badly misremember things. The fact that you can see vivid memories of such-and-such happening doesn’t really mean that it must have happened. It’s possible that your parents are in denial of the extent to which they mistreated you as a kid, but it’s also possible that their denial is a better reflection of reality than your memory.
Yesterday I got really sad and angry after a rush of childhood memories came to me on my way home. I love my parents, but I still harbor some bitterness. And I don’t think that means I am a horrible person, they are horrible people, or that I need to have some serious conversation with them. It just means that not all wounds heal after forty years.
But no, I am not going to confront my parents or cut them out of my life. Because none of those options will make me feel better. Laughing makes me feel better.
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I would share my experience, but it wouldn’t really add anything to the thread that hasn’t already been expressed. I hope that you find peace, monstro.
(((monstro)))
I think this is where your superior memory makes a difference between the two of us. I remember many of the fucked up moments of the past, but only in a detached, mostly vague way. The past is largely blurry to me. There isn’t a lot of emotion for me in my recollections. I know our parents did some mean, selfish, and neglectful things, but I can’t say I have any interest in them apologizing for it at this point of my life. But perhaps the emotional detachment is just my way of coping? I don’t know.
That said, when I see my two girls, I can’t imagine me treating them the way our parents sometimes treated us. And here’s the other thing: I can’t imagine our parents treating my girls the way they treated us. I see them as more empathetic people now, more loving, and more clued into what good parenting looks like. The parents who raised us were less enlightened people who probably should’ve waited years longer before they even had kids. What we saw growing up was their immaturity. That they deny the stories of the past confirm even they don’t recognize themselves as the people we’re talking about. Seeing this doesn’t upset me; what would upset me is if they defended their actions.
There is humor in laughing about the fucked up moments, but to be honest, it does cause me a little pain now. Not because of me thinking of me (because the memories are fuzzy), but because the stories instantly make me think of how horrible it would be if my daughters were the ones getting yelled at and slapped. To say that makes me uncomfortable is an understatement.
No. Is there some reason this actually needs to be brought up over and over solely to get a reaction? What’s the point of that?
What do we call behaviour that’s meant just to troll? Oh, trolling. Trolls are assholes. I am just going by your description:
That’s not a “Mom, Dad, we need to air out some problems” talk, that’s just trying to get a rise of of people by hurting them.
If a person is this pissed off at their parents, with reason, find something else to do and other people to hang out with. Or get a therapist, and I mean that quite seriously - if it still has to be dealt with, deal with it like an adult.
Sorry I can’t agree with you. Maybe I will feel differently another day.
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I don’t know that I’d call it “rude” so much as “what do you want out of this relationship, anyway?”
If you want your parents to squirm, then, I guess go ahead and do it. I don’t know that this is the most healthy option, mind you.
If you want to relate to your parents as adults, I’d say… on the whole… no, don’t do it. The same way that I don’t think my parents should always be bringing up that I was so dorky and had problems relating to people when I was a kid, even though I was dorky as a kid and I wouldn’t even argue with that. I mean, obviously it’s not quite the same kind of thing, as I couldn’t help being dorky and perhaps my parents should have been able to help the things they did, but it’s still the same general idea “let’s build a relationship based on where we are now, not what happened before.”
If you want your parents to apologize or validate your memories… HA HA HA HA. I mean, either they’ll understand on their own that they messed up and apologize, or they won’t. If you bring it up they’ll almost certainly just double down. Okay, well, that’s just based on my experience with my family (several generations of it, at this point) and with other random message board people, but… yeah.
My sister and I talk about our parents’ parenting fails a LOT. Like, it is by far our second largest topic of conversation (after our own kids). Sometimes we laugh about it, sometimes we are super bitter about it. But generally not in front of them, no, as it would serve no useful purpose.
So I wouldn’t say it’s rude. But I’d say that reminding parents of their parenting fails is at best not very productive.
Interesting topic. I can’t say I can blame anyone for their adult reactions after having genuinely traumatic incidents at the hands of their parents.
I can say that a lot of us define traumatic incidents in childhood differently. One example: I was in a martial arts program for years. One very driven mother put all her kids in it and required them to attain a minimum level before quitting, because she felt overall it instilled some good life skills. Her boys did fine from day one. When she put her little girl in it, a darling little sensitive thing at age 7, every time, week after week, little girl would cry. Mom hollered encouragement from the side lines, but made her stay in it. I almost couldn’t stand it… come to class, see the little girl break down in tears. This went on for months. "Jesus Christ, Mom, " [I always thought] “just let her quit already.” Well she didn’t. The little girl stuck with it, grew, matured, and ended up being very skilled, enjoyed it a lot, and remained in the program long after mom would have permitted her to quit.
There are many adults who would look back on such a childhood experience and (maybe rightfully) say, “That was torture. Mom was insensitive and cruel for making me endure such a torturous thing that I hated”. Others would say, “Yes I remember hating it at first and crying, but eventually I got a lot out of it and I’m glad she made me stick with it”.
I know this example is not in the same ballpark as some of the things monstro has described here. But people remember events in their childhoods through a variety of lenses, some accurate, some not so accurate. And in the heat of the grind of raising children, sometimes parents make well-meaning mistakes.
One last word (probably) from me on the topic. You never know when you may never see your parents again.
Fortunately, the last time I saw my Dad alive was while my ex and I were working on a display board to an expo we were supposed to be at in a couple of weeks. He was happy to see us working on it ans smiled as he said goodbye. If the last time I saw him was after the blow-up I had with him, my memories of him would probably be completely different!
On the on hand, I can see what you are saying, if these kinds of conversations are happening all the time, whether the parents are around or not, and the humour is helping people cope with trauma. Why should the victims be denied relief just because it makes their abuser uncomfortable?
On the other hand, it sounds like there is an element of ‘you hurt me, so it’s OK if I hurt you’, which I don’t agree with.
It all happened a fair while ago, and the hurt feelings are still there Maybe the jokes and conversations aren’t enough to heal the damage.
This position makes a lot of sense to me, and your whole post contains much wisdom. I guess my problem is that I expect people to act logically (as in, “If my parents don’t want to squirm when they overhear one of my stories, they need to own up to what happened and apologize rather than continuing to act like the villian”). But if people always acted logically, there would never be anything to apologize for since no one would make errors in judgment.
you with the face is right that I have a memory like a trap. It is a blessing and a curse. I’m not going to say it is perfect and that I don’t have false memories. But it angers me when I have a clear memory of something that is corroborated by others, but I am told it didn’t happen at all. That anger robs me of sympathy, I think.
Know that, once you’re an adult, attempts to get love, acknowledgement, forgiveness, apology, from parents, (or anyone, really) is a thinly veiled fear response. Not only do they absolutely not have it to give, to any useful degree. But much, much more importantly if you’re doing this as an adult, what you’re really seeking is self approval, self acknowledgement, self love, self forgiveness. So consider looking inside at what these veiled games are really trying to get as response, and then understand you’re really barking up the wrong tree. As an adult with agency, YOUR’s is THE only forgiveness, love, acknowledgement that possesses any healing power.
This isn’t an easy journey, I know first hand. But I wish you Good Luck, I think you’re doing fine and asking all the right questions.