“If I could get away with it, I would beat the shit out of you.”
“I wish I could trade you in for another daughter.”
“Why can’t you just be normal?”
— Said to me by my mother when I was 13, in a car on our way to a therapy appointment.
“Everythign that goes wrong in this family is your F**ing fault” (including my dad’s alcoholism, right)
I hate when people say “good luck”, like I don’t have the skill to do it on my own, thanks.
I also don’t like when people say “but you did your best” when it was an audition of some sort. Obviously my best wasn’t good enough and I need to improve. It’s not my best they want it’s their standards. This isn’t preschool, folks.
~Ailia~
There’s nothing beautiful about pain.
But it makes you stronger.
www.Glassmen.org
My response would be “Did you know there are millions of poor kids out there just waiting to be adopted?”
“Mommy and Daddy just died in a car crash and it’s all your fault…GOTCHA!”
Or, this list of other important people
- Grandma and Grandpa
- Your sister and/or your brother
- Barney
I wouldn’t recommend saying any of those to your child…but if you do be sure to email me and tell me what happens.
Hijack
Actually, I used to play a game with my daughter when she was little that was called just that"bashing your head through the wall".
(I can just SEE all the gasps and dropped jaws here, WAIT, I’m gonna explain).
When my daughter was ages 3-8 I worked night shift. She would stay at my mom’s house while I worked, and I would pick her up at my mom’s house when I got off work. My mom lived in a trailer with that old paneling on the wall.
Old FLIMSY panelling. We were goofing around on the couch one day, and with my hand SAFELY behind her head, I playfully (and gently) bounced my hand, with her head in it, off of the panelling behind the couch.
She got the biggest kick out of it, and yelled for more, (you know the score “AGain MOMMY, AGAIN!!!”).
I bounced her until my poor hand was red. She would get to giggling like crazy when playing this, which SHE named “bash my head”.
Then, (she was a smart, and smart ASSED little thing even then), when we were out in public, if I’d say “no” to a toy, or “please behave,” she’d get this positively diabolical look on her little face and say “or what? you’ll BASH my head on the wall”??? and then giggle. Or else “mommy? are we going to grandma’s? will you please bash my head”???
Of course when she got older and bigger, she was too big to play it anymore (at risk of breaking my hand). She’s 23, to this day she claims that was one of her favorite childhood games. Strange child 
end of hijack
Best thing my parents never said to me was
“Don’t be stupid”, when I was being active with my imagination.
If they had been the kind of people to tell me my imagination was stupid, I would probably have been a very miserable person today.
I love my parents.
“The reason that the other kids tease you is that they aren’t as smart as you are and they’re jealous.”
I don’t know that if I was faced with a bawling seven-year-old who is refusing to go to school that I would come up with anything better, but this comment shaped my thinking in some very unhealthy ways.
My dad’s fave: “You stop that crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about!” As if I cried for fun! I have threatened my husband with severe bodily harm lest those words ever be said to our daughter. I explained that I would become mentally unhinged and could not be held responsible for what would happen.
My dad also once said: “This is all your fault.” This was said to me as I laid on a gurney with a neck brace and strapped to a back board. I missed the bus one icy day, and my mom and I were in an accident on the way to school.
We actually get along now, quite well in fact.
I once made a mistake in explaining to my then 2 year old daughter why she isn’t to run away in a store (after I finally found her). I explained that someone could take her, and then she wouldn’t have Mommy or Daddy anymore. She began to cry… It took three weeks for her to not cry anymore when I dropped her off at daycare. I felt terrible.
**Shirley’s Baggage **
My mom is a saint in my book, but she has unleashed a few gaffs - all well meant - that just crushed me and have taken years to figure out how to get over. Now, bullets practically bounce off my chest, let alone my ego. (Which is the size of a thimble, TYVM 
)
In January of my Senior year: " With grades like yours, I don’t think you could even make it into the community college"
Then in May of my Senior year: " I don’t know why Shirley hasn’t applied to any colleges." (Well, duh.)
Which has probably been my biggest motivating factor to *always learn * and always have the facts to back myself up.. But, yet, I feel I am inadequate for college to this day.
“You never applied yourself because you always compared yourself to your brothers.” No, I didn’t. They had the personality of wet cardboard. But you and the teachers that had them and subsequently adored the youngest one, did and compared me in *every * class that I shared with #4. Thanks for playing.
“You’d be prettier with some make up on.” Thanks, but the crap you wear makes my skin break out and you won’t take me to the mall to have the cosmetic nazi’s have their way with me like all the other girls got (pout).
“That dress will make you look cheap.” No, actually, it was one of the few regrets in life that I have, not wearing that vintage flappers dress to a school function.
“Do not wash the car in front of the house in your bathing suit. You will look like a floozy.” Yeah, for uptight parents!
" You really need to wear a little girdle with that dress. I can see your tummy." That tummy was non existant, - I was like 7% body fat - not like now.
" Don’t look forward to sex. It’s not worth it." There is a scene in *Peggy Sue Got Married * where Peggy’s mom says, “Peggy, you know what a penis is…stay away from it!” I just about peed my pants with laughter.There was my mom on the silver screen.
“Not every one is as lucky to be Irish and Catholic.” No comment necessary.
“The shade’s in our bedroom windows must be even when they are up. We don’t want people walking by to think we are sheeny.” God forbid people think we are low class.
But the worst of all pretty much was something I overheard, in the summer following my dad’s death. She was on the phone and said something my 9 year old mine didn’t understand until I had to ask a neighbor’s mom. " OH, I don’t believe in life insurance. If something happens to me, I suppose someone like ( her brother or sister) will take Shirley in."
I lived in absolute fear that if she died I would end up being a burden on someone. And, FTR, I have life insurance and so does my husband.
Life is not about what you acheive. It is about what you overcome.
Feh.
I can’t wait to see what baggage I hand down to my children.
:eek: I’ve never given a Doper a hug before but…
((((Ironic)))))
.:Nichol:.
I get this quite often actually.
Except I’m told that I’m ugly, not the outfit, me.
Then my parents wonder why I have horrible self esteem.
Kitty
I agree with all the “You’re fat / ugly / stupid / worthless / etc.” statements. (my dad said this to me two weeks ago, trying to pass it off as a joke… and I’m 26!)
How about…
“Your grades are SO bad, I never want to talk to you or see you again.” or variations thereof.
I hated my parents for continually saying this and other damaging things to me. Seemed they only said them to me, and not my siblings. So guess who has the more troubled, problematic relationship with the parents out of the three of us?
F_X
I agree!! I’d like to give a bunch of dopers here a big hug. My goodness!!!
“And if you’re pure of heart indeed, you will go to a beautiful place called Heaven…[giggles]Oh, I’m yankin’ ya! You just rot in the ground.”
_ _ _ — Peter Griffin, Family Guy
Theologically valid or not, that’s perhaps not the most…“tactful” thing to say.
This has been the most depressing thread I have read in yonks. Moreso for the inability of many of the posters to let the verbal fuck-ups of their parent/s be forgiven and forgotten in the passage of time.
Shit…parents make mistakes. Sometimes they say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Parenthood is not a guarantee to be ALWAYS discreet and ALWAYS sensitive. But the way some of these recollections have been described is as if you have never gotten over your mum/dads faux-pas’.
:rolleyes:
Kambuckta… some of us haven’t. For me those hateful things said were the mildest of the horrors I experienced growing up in hell. Some parents mean well and say things they didn’t think through well and both parents and kids can get over them; some of the posters here acknowledged that in their posts. Other parents made sport of hurting their children. That’s a bit more than just a verbal fuck-up.
Besides… some parents say these things so frequently and continually that you cannot discount them as a one time mistake. My father always told me I was ugly/stupid/worthless until the day I stopped speaking to him entirely. Somehow my ugly worthlessness did not extend to my ability to be his maid or his back-up wife/sex partner.
I think a really bad thing to say to a kid – some other person’s kid, that is – would be:
“You were adopted. Your parents will deny it if you ask them about it. But I know the truth.”
But then, I’m just a Sick Bastard[sup]TM[/sup] …
Probably because some of these are extremely hard to get over.
It’s easy to be thoughtless on occasion, and say something you don’t really mean, or something that is intended to be taken in jest, but isn’t.
Telling your child repeatedly that s/he is worthless, ugly, fat, stupid, whatever, isn’t merely thoughtless. It’s destructive. It takes YEARS to get over the constant messages.
I was told that I was fat, and that if I wanted to be popular (which I didn’t care about anyway), I had to lose weight. In reality, my weight was my mother’s problem, not mine. However, through constantly telling me that I was unattractive and had no friends because I was fat, and spending so much time on diets that she put me on, I grew up feeling very insecure with myself. My self-esteem was so low that I would just as soon have faded into the woodwork.
It’s taken quite a while to divorce myself from my weight, and to send a message right back to my mother that it’s no longer her concern. What I do, what I look like, who I am is no reflection on her. Once I told her that, a HUGE weight came off my shoulders. (No pun intended.) Now, I’ve got a reasonably civil relationship with my mother, as long as I maintain that boundary about my weight.
So, kambuckta, I’d suggest you show a little more empathy. It may be emotional pain, but it still hurts, and when it comes from someone you’re biologically programmed to trust, it hurts even more.
Robin
Spiff, actually a neighbor kid DID say that to me when I was young. I responded “I know I am. My parents CHOSE me, your parents are STUCK with you”.
My mom and dad never really said anything horrible, I would just turn it that way. The obligatory “Drive safely” received “No, Ma, I’m gonna drive like a maniac”. “Wear clean undies” received “Ma, if I’m in a wreck ain’t nobody gonna care what my draw’s are like!” “Think of the poor starving children in Ethiopia” received “I’ll pay for postage”.
I really do not think my parents knew what to do with me, so they left me alone.
Now I as a parent… LilMiss has been told not to come to me for sympathy if she has injured herself doing something she is not supposed to. And her dad and I tease her about being each others child (he’s the wild one, I’m the sane one. I think.). But Nothing major. If you asked her though… I know whenever I remind her “Practice makes perfect” she sings along in a very nasty smarmy manner.
Amen, sister. When my mom said those things to me, I was in a place where I was very insecure and I needed reassurance and comfort.
When I told her that sometimes I felt unworthy, she called it “stupid talk”.
When I came to her with my emotional pain, instead of just comforting me without judging me, she would explain to me how it was all my fault.
I came away from all of this believing that I was a fundamentally flawed person, and that everyone in the world was “normal” except for me, who was a lowly worm.
I am trying to tell myself that my mother isn’t perfect and she made mistakes, but there is that voice that says; “Yeah, but…”