In my early 20s, I was going to University for an art degree. I had mostly been taking night classes while I worked full time during the day and there was a point where to finish my degree, I would have to take classes during the day. The job was a civil service job with the state of the California (something akin to DMV work and co-workers with less than mental acuity).
I told my Mom that I would be working through the summer but quitting my job in September to finish my degree.
Her comment was, “You are crazy to give up a great job with wonderful benefits to pursue a pipe dream when you have no talent.”
That comment is BURNED into my memory and I became estranged from my parents for several years because of it. Even when I was made homeless by the Northridge earthquake, all I could do was let them know I survived but not that I was homeless, even though they invited me back home. I couldn’t do it.
Years later, when we were all a “happy family” again and I explained to my mother why I wouldn’t talk to her for all those years, she had no memory of saying anything like that to me. I was her “special one” and she couldn’t conceive of ever having said anything hurtful even though I have memories of her being like this throughout my youth.
Reading through this thread, and keeping in mind I’m trying to “see the other side” so as to heal me, I can’t help but wonder, less-than-stellar parenting aside, if one factor might be that some parents never, at any point, adjust their thinking about their child(ren) so as to recognize they are grown adults.
How many of these caustic parents were only so to one or more of their children, and would be mortified to behave/speak in such a manner to their peers? After all, no matter what age they attain, their children are and will always be “inferior” and thus in need of constant correction, with little or no regard for how their words might be received. Maybe they’ve wrapped their identity quite tightly in this mode of thinking and don’t or can’t see the “error of their ways.”
As I said, I’m trying to see our interactions together from her side, not for the sake of bettering our relationship - she’s been dead 6 years now - but so that I can forgive or at least move on.
She was a sick woman, in many ways. Not to excuse her behavior, but I’m starting to acknowledge now that I was no picnic to deal with. shakes head Human interaction is so difficult.
This! Read “The Good Earth” and you’ll notice insults. I think it’s cultural. Either they’re ‘insulting’ someone as a sort of ‘say the opposite of good to fool the gods into leaving them alone’, or there have been so many Chinese throughout history (and today) that there’s no room for American type sentimentality - the good of the group is more important than the good of the individual. You have to be cold and stern and drive them to succeed, not spoil and coddle them. We have friends who are Viet Namese and my husband noticed they talked to their kids like that. If I’m wrong, someone set me straight.
I learned two things that have helped me put my parenting in perspective; one is that everyone’s parents did the best they could with the tools they had - very few parents woke up in the morning and said to themselves, “How can I screw up my children today?”
The second is that you have to give yourself the things your parents didn’t give you - how can we expect our parents to have given us every little thing we needed to be completely healthy adults? Talk about unreasonable expectations!
All I can say is, “Whew!!” I thought I was the only one here with a dysfunctional relationship with my parents, more so with my mom. She thinks nothing of criticizing me and then rationalizing, “you know, only your family will tell you these things.” Gee, thanks Mom, I guess I should be happy my own family members insult me for no good reason? I’m just so happy my parents are in a retirement community and I don’t have to put up with them all the time.
When I read the OP, I thought “Wow, quite the achievement!”, so congratulations, Ann Hedonia.
My mother was very supportive and a source of strength for me, so I have nothing to add except that I feel for all the hurt daughters and sons on this thread.
I can agree with the second part of this - I doubt that many parents set out to deliberately sabotage their offspring. However, that doesn’t spring directly from parents doing the best they can. I do believe there are parents that just don’t care. I don’t know if it’s because they really didn’t want kids in the first place or they had a completely different idea of what parenthood would be like or some other reason, but I have no doubt that some parents would be just as happy if their kids suddenly ceased to exist. Like Elie Wiesel said, the opposite of love is not hate - it’s indifference.
My own mom had, and continues to have, her moments. I think some of it is because she’s more self-centered than she would admit. And some of it is speaking before thinking. I don’t think she’s ever set out to be cruel and mostly I just let things go, or I stew over them a while, then let them go. And I try to be better when dealing with my daughter. I know I fail, but I try…
Parenting and life in general was different years ago - just watch Mad Men. It is so true, back then when you married you would naturally have kids, no thought as to whether you actually wanted them or not. You were married, you just had kids no matter how unprepared, enthusiastic, or resentful you were having had them. When I became a mother I vowed to be NOTHING like my own, to think before I spoke and try to be diplomatic. My daughter was a ‘sensitive plant’ and easily hurt even by a tone of voice, so I really tried to keep that in mind and not just blat out hurtful stuff. Had a failure here and there, but overall I must have done a good job as we have a loving close relationship today.
My mom was tough to handle while I was growing up. She was drinking then. Now that she doesn’t anymore, she’s much nicer to me. But she’s never really gotten the hang of being supportive.
Whenever I would announce plans, no matter what they were, if I showed even the least bit of optimism, she would respond, “Well, don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out like that.”
Finally, and I must’ve been in my thirties, I looked her dead in the eye, and asked, “Mom, what is so horrible about being disappointed? Will it make me insane, or something?”
She didn’t have an answer for me, and to her credit, I never heard the phrase from her again.
I was raped at the age of 5. My parents had divorced and I was living with my mother, but her drug use/erratic behavior/child abuse led to my father getting custody of me.
My father remarried, and he and my stepmother had a son, who is 10 years younger than me. We got along well, and were very close. When I was 25, I told my brother (who was 15 at the time) about the rape. He was sympathetic, of course.
He told my stepmother that I’d shared this info with him. She went APESHIT, telling me I had no right to talk about things like that with a 15-year-old; that it was upsetting to him and I should keep stuff like that to myself.
Not a word of sympathy for a 5-year-old getting raped, however. WTF?