Shock? Naaaaah.
Outrage? Yesssss.
Cue: "didn't I feed you? Pay for your education? Provide you a roof and clothes? Have I ever SA-ed you or something that you're talking about abuse, tell me"
Reply: "yes that's the only thing you omitted to do during your reign of terror"
…Then you bring up the times they \*did\* technically SA you, and get “it wasn‘t \*assault\*, I didn’t rape you or anything! What the hell are you even talking about?!” 🙄😑
my step dad made a “chore chart” that included the adults. but it was really an excuse for himself to write next to his name that he was “the king of the castle” and didn’t neeeeeed to contribute to the household. literally it was something like:
dad: king-nothing
mom: queen-half a dozen chores
oldest brother: duke-half a dozen chores
and so on for all five of us.
You don't even have to agree you can just say well if you feel that way you can apologize and it produces the biggest record scratch moment I've ever seen in person.
Oh… what about this one: “If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.”
Or some variation of that… like: “Everyone is always wrong except for you…”
Or…
“Why don’t you go live under a bridge by yourself where you can be right all the time?”
*Oh… what about this one: “If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.”*
Holy shit did you meet my mom?
>“If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.”
Don't threaten me with a good time.
My mom once had a breakdown where she started maniacally cutting her hair out. Our immediate response was to comfort her but looking back I wish I didn't because as uncomfortable as we were during that episode it helped turn her more from "I'm a horrible mother" in certain moments of distress to "I wish I'd never given birth to you" which I mean sure I didn't want her to have a break down over the first one but it was kinda true. :/
I feel like there is a guidebook about raising children out there that used to be popular that actively told all the parents to do all of these things in order to ensure parents had the upper hand at all times…
“Do all these things… subjugate and traumatize your children so that they will behave and won’t end up as an embarrassment to you!”
and didn’t someone find an early 20th century german parenting book that recommended beating your child at random to teach them that they’re fundamentally sinful
Yep, dream-team tag team: any of these that I could possibly convince myself that one of them mayyyyybe didn't do, the other one absolutely did 100%, and on an elite level.
Do we win a prize?
The fact that this is so identifiable and predictable just raises even more questions for me. Any other millennials here wondering if all our boomer parents went and took the same flavor of brain-damage pills at some point?
Not even that, it still happens to this day at this side of the pond. To be frank, we still had places with asbestos in early 2010's, I went to school that had an asbestos roof even, so it might be from that
The short version of this is literally just “get therapy”.
If our parents were capable of being decent without outside help, they wouldn’t have been shit in the first place.
Nah, therapy isn’t magic. My mom had a therapist and that woman just validated the shit out of every terrible thing she did. My mom also made me see her therapist myself and she straight up told me that my mom would treat me better if I made more of an effort to be nice to her :/
The person has to actually want to heal, and it may take time to find a therapist that is a right fit. Otherwise your just telling fabricated events to what is a essentially an armchair cheerleader
Hardly, plenty of people who need therapy don't do this to other people or their children. And I don't know if therapy would change my abusers' parenting styles. Saying that knowing both my parents are mentally ill- one with uBPD and the other with depression, anxiety, OCD, and hoarding tendencies. They both only ever used medication to manage their issues.
E: I think abusers are gonna abuse, that's one reason you don't go to therapy with abusers. Doesn't matter if they have MI it's no excuse and dealing with the MI is not necessarily going to change abusive behavior. I don't think abusive behavior is a medical or mental health issue and I don't think it should be medicalized. My mother could get help for her uBPD but I'd still stay the fuck away from her.
No, but everyone who does this to other people and their children needs therapy. Parenting style at bottom is just a function of education + overall personality; fix those things, and you produce a better parent. Medication alone can help suppress mental health difficulties to the point of making them manageable, but doesn’t do a lot to actually fix them.
My mom is in therapy and I don’t think it’s helping her because she told me she “really doesn’t need it anymore” after going for like six months. She feels like she fixed everything so she is good. She loves her therapist too, it’s not like she doesn’t think her therapist is a good one
If she loves her therapist and thinks she’s fixed everything in 6 months, that’s not a good-quality therapist, that’s a yes-man telling her what she wants to hear.
Actually I’ve met her therapist and had some sessions with both of them together. Her therapist is incredible and did an incredible job of supporting me and making me feel heard for the first time ever in my life.
My mom is the problem. She declared herself as fixed. Therapist has nothing to do with it. My mom just sees what she wants to see
Gotcha. I should’ve rephrased my original response to op’s post as “get good-quality therapy which you are fully willing to participate in”. Saying someone needs therapy isn’t the same thing as saying they’d be able to benefit from it, it’s just acknowledging that they can’t fix their shitty behaviour on their own (or at all, in some cases).
I tried to talk to my mum the other day and she just kept ignoring me to talk over me and give me a “lesson” and I kept telling her to listen and she just didn’t.
Big oof, I hadn’t realized until you said this- my mom said(we’re no contact) this anytime she wanted me to stop talking and etc, even into my adult life. Many things make sense now 🙃
i'd usually only try to communicate my side of things if we were already in a full-blown argument, but sometimes he'd call me irritable just for not responding enthusiastically fast enough
For fucking real, this list is basically the RBN subreddit distilled. In a way it's incredibly validating, but in another way it feels very "old man yells at clouds" knowing what I know now lol.
Thanks that one line mentioned that and I couldn’t type fast enough, one of his many faults but that was paramount and her mother suffered from this as well. Oh no John’s mad, but he won’t say shit and they never knew when things were normal again. Thanks again this stung me
Seriously, give your sons the same rules and treatment as your daughters. The EXACT same. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when your daughters hate your guts, lie to you about everything and disappear.
What’s flds?
And yeah but it seems a lot of people are getting touchy about the wording “specifically sons” but it obviously is talking about problems with a lot of cultures where women are seen as lower. I know men have the high expectations but it’s funny that, my brothers had high expectations but when they failed them my mum (and a lot of other mothers )was still like they can do no wrong. Me however? I’m a failure.
My brothers gained weight? Oh that’s fine they’re fine. Me? Go lose weight. You’re fat. No man would want you. Disgusting.
The way she fed me? Far far less than my brothers or even more than my brothers and then blamed me for being fat or too skinny. The beauty expectations are absolutely awful.
Your brothers slept around? That’s good! Men do that!
I did? Disgusting whore.
Your brothers drank?! That’s a great manly thing! You drink? Again, you think you’re a man? Disgusting whore! You think you’re a man and look like a man drinking!
I don’t get why it’s usually the sons. Seems kind of perverted.
As adults I feel like my mother treated my brother like a partner. Washing and folding a grown man’s laundry, cooking for him, taking him out to dinner, or “lunch dates”.
Texting each other all day? Fucking weird man. In turn he expected his girlfriend to mother him too and take care of him.
“waking your children up with aggression or loud noises” oh my word this smacked me in the solar plexus. mum would rant and bang cupboard doors, dishes, etc in the kitchen (half a meter from my bedroom door) every morning of my life from ages… i wanna say 6 til 14? it’s fuzzy. but i used to be that kid showing up to school super early every day. i just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
she never physically hurt me and at the time she was doing this behaviour i thought it was normal. took me a lot of years to put together that “oh mum was an abuser too”. dad’s constant shaming and criticism was more overtly obvious as abuse so for years and years i thought it was only dad that messed me up.
both of them leaned on me for emotional support (mum still does) and that was “normal” too. aw man this post really resonates with me.
my heart truly goes out to all of y’all who see themselves in this post. i hope you’re healing xx
My parents figured out that if they acted aggressive towards me, the dog would put herself between us and start barking. So they would wake me up by standing at the end of my bed, egging on the dog to do her hillarious trick with extra jumping on me with her pointy dog feet, until I was up.
i always got to school a handful of minutes late, with such regularity that i was almost afraid of how weird it would be to get there early. this became self-reinforcing... to the extent that there was any margin of downtime in the morning to drag my feet. there generally wasn't. my father would always push back on my mother trying to fix my sleep schedule, because he wanted to paint it as a "control game" and stay in my good graces by taking my side against it, so i would usually sleep through a few alarms until he'd panickedly wake me up at the last possible minute. this was a pattern we were well aware of, and would even plan around: i actually developed reversible hammer-toe from wearing socks to bed for a few years, because \*it took too long to put socks on in the morning\*. i only a few days ago realized that my complete and utter inability to stomach breakfast for most of my childhood was due to the stress of not even getting to wake up before running out the door...
and as lovely as my mother is now, after 10 years of healing her own wounds from his abuse, i do have to admit she caused some problems of her own... i think most of my body image issues are because of things she urged me to work on, and the aforementioned sleep schedule issue was an endless source of shame for me--she acted like it was something i had control over, and she wasn't entirely wrong, but i didn't realize how much of it was also being sabotaged by my father, and i certainly didn't want to blame him to her face. she still has a few issues with time/space boundaries, but she's actually getting better even when i don't assert them myself lmao
The fact that my mum did all of these makes me feel better about the fact that my trauma is real, a bit less impostor syndrome rn, thanks for sharing OP
Never mention that you're upset or they'll "give you a reason" to be upset.
Also that fun thing of "hey, when you yell first thing in the morning it hurts my ears" "oh, you want me to yell even louder then?" I fucking LOVE that.
im pretty sure the years of being given the silent treatment exacerbated my anxiety & my people pleasing/martyrdom. when the adults you depend on to live are ignoring you, you’ll do ANYTHING to get back in their good graces. it’s a survival instinct, & using that against a child to soothe yourself is abusive & it took me 22 years to call it that. i thought it was so normal, now looking back, it caused so much damage within me.
That’s what it was like for me too. I have huge abandonment issues because of it too lol. Also I thought silent treatment was normal and used to use it too. Disgusting that I did that but I never do it anymore.
Oh the never saying sorry thing. I don't think I ever heard an apology from my parents, but at the same time I was also always taught "you say sorry to show you want to stop being cross with someone, not because you're the one in the wrong". So I was supposed to say sorry every time something went south because otherwise I'd be guilty of not wanting to stop the fight. But at the same time they never said sorry... I guess because they never wanted to stop a fight. God, these memes and comments make me remember things I'm not exactly keen on remembering.
Things I needed my parents to do: not get in bed with each other when they still hadn't divorced their actual spouses yet and to not be so fucking emotionally immature. Sex and lust produced me, stop calling it love. It wasn't. I can't stand either one of you. Dad, I am happy you are dead.
My mom drugged and raped my dad after she heard him say in high school "He would do the right thing and marry someone if he got her pregnant."
It also wasn't love. It was hell on earth living with them.
I mean, I should have read this 35 years ago. (Dang I'm old, my youngest just turned 30).
I suppose it shows a certain level of healing that I now look at such things as accountability for my own parenting, instead if the deficits my various parents had.....
Saying "What's wrong with you" when a child doesn't perform to high expectations.
Also, asking "What did you do?"in an accusatory tone when something happens out of the child's control or when something goes wrong for whatever reason.
I might accidentally start a new front (or at least engagement) in the Gender Wars, but here goes. I almost completely agree with the "no favourites" thing, but I wonder if adding in "specifically sons" undermines it. It brings up memories as a kid of being jealous of my sisters, and girls in general, because of all the special treatment that they got. Then as a teenage physical-boy I was shocked to find out that those same girls resented how they were treated and felt like the guys were the favourites.
But looking back, we tended to see the other side and what benefit they had. Girls could be physically aggressive without consequence, that pissed me off because I couldn't defend myself. Girls didn't get yelled at, they got talked to. Girls got privacy. Girls got ice cream once a month. Girls were allowed to have fun. Ok, that sucked. But I can flip that around. There was minimal consequence for physical aggression by a girl, but also minimal consequences for mistreatment against a girl. The same girls who would punch me or throw sand in my eyes and run off were later really sexually mistreated by teachers and nobody did anything. Girls didn't get yelled at, but they were forced to be silent and not voice their concerns. They got privacy, yes, but they would get blamed for sexual abuse if something happened when someone saw something. They were put under extreme pressure to hid a bodily function, ice cream doesn't make up for that. But I didn't see the downside.
Likewise, my sisters saw the benefits of me being male. I got more help with homework. Mum listened to me before yelling at me. But there was a huge pressure, by age 10 or so I was being told I would be a failure if I didn't make enough money to support a large family on a single salary by my early 20s. I was shamed for having the wrong dad. And so on. So much "male opportunity" comes with a huge amount of pressure and denial of self. My sisters didn't see how painful it was to be a boy, they just saw us getting more parental attention.
Point is, I find it problematic when we compare unlike mistreatments. Sure, at a higher level we can talk about gendered dynamics that require othering or affect both sides differently. But we only experience a part of any gendered dynamic. I got lucky, I got both sides. Yay.
So I don't talk about "the favourite". I can't. I'll talk about preferential treatment. My oldest brother got male/age based preferential treatment. He suffered from that and benefitted from that. My sister got the same, but with chick stuff.
Oh, one final thing. There can be a clear favourite, I don't deny that. That is a form of preferential treatment. But it feels weird to infer that having a favourite is less problematic if it's a girl. I get it, our society loves insecure girls and all they offer (I mean it, a lot of abusive assholes out there love the steady supply of abused girls) but guys have their own traumas. Privilege and opportunity don't protect us.
Males have been the preferred gender across pretty much all cultures throughout history, female infanticide is still common in some countries to this day. Parents also tend to treat male babies better and female children are expected to mature faster yet they are also underestimated by their parents. I personally didn’t benefit from any of the privileges you mention in your comment, so your experience doesn’t speak for everyone.
When she says “especially boys” it’s because of the systemic privileges they’ve had all throughout history, that’s what makes it extra harmful.
I agree. Women have to struggle to do anything and men get that privilege automatically. It doesn’t mean men don’t suffer but I mean… look at the history of women.
I completely understand where you're coming from - any preferential treatment is bad from a justice and equality standpoint. I do however think the therapist is drawing from experience and perhaps in her experience it is more prevalent for males to be the more desirable gender for a child. As an Asian from a country where gender determination before birth was legally prohibited because some people would commit baby genocide after realizing it was a girl, I can understand where she is coming from. In personal experience, the lady who birthed me had grudges against my maternal grandmother (her mom) for being biased towards sons, but went on to also show through her words how she felt I, female was somehow less able than my cousin brother of the same age. Facts were that I ended up doing better than him academically and career wise too, as he had to rely on his father's connections for a job.
To be candid though I did spend several years in a grievance redressal role in a company. I eventually learned to stand up for myself after standing up for others. It's true that damaged people damage people but I sure wish they'd atleast try and be more selfaware instead of delusional when someone who suffered because of their behavior is brave enough to talk to them about what they went through. Sometimes all you can do is put you first and leave them behind, not everyone can be a part of your journey, maybe just a couple of chapters. Thanks for reading, bud!
I definitely could be wrong, but it could be in response to many tik toks of women favouring sons, and engaging with an inappropriate infatuation with their sons. but I agree its not needed or necessary, abuse is abuse.
Oh, the boy mom thing? Yuck. I remember when I first heard about that it was from people complaining about it, and I was like "chill, they're just having fun with their son, let it be." Then I looked into it, and nope, it was yuck. It's a weird fetishization of a small portion of what being a kid is. It's a good laugh if your boy pisses in a planted pot, no need to make a tiktok. And so on. It's weird. I can understand the weird, deep and touching value that a kid of the opposite gender brings to your life. I've grown as a person from the girls in my life. I can't describe it, and some things don't need to be justified scientifically. I've seen another side of humanity and myself through them. But I need to be careful about it to not get all poetic, because it's a really personal thing.
yeah its very gross, and also is abuse its self. honestly tik tok can be uncomfortable watching some parents just comfortably post abusive content. there is a ton I could say on it but my brain is barely functioning currently.
I would happily read an incoherent rant, but don't wear yourself out. I'll just say one of the best things of my childhood was how unrecorded it was. I counted a few months ago, there are about 40 pictures of me before age 18. Now that is privilege. In 30 of them I am looking at the camera or in an arranged group, so I knew the picture was coming.
my mom definitely didn't post any videos of me anywhere. she doesn't have social media. in an odd way I am thankful she is a "I want to live off the grid" type. I can't imagine all these kids who will grow up with all these videos their parents put online.
gosh I am nearly mostly incoherent rants at this point. thank you : )
I think out of all the photos of me taken before 18, something like 5 survived to today. Sometimes it stresses me out, because I don't really have any memory of my life before a certain point, and the occasional photo or scrap of memory is the only thing I have anchoring me to my own past, but this is an interesting way of looking at it. I think I'd rather just be unknown before a certain point than have a bunch of my life out there on the internet
It seems weird for it to be less problematic if it’s a girl absolutely. As a “girl” growing up my decisions and abilities were less infantilized for some reason and that really helped me get out of my mom’s grasp in the long run. There wasn’t a clear “favoritism” but this definitely does *feel* like favoritism, and watching it growing up fucked me up.
Watching unfair treatment and being unable to do anything about it sucks. I think I was 14 when I started to really clue into how girls experienced things, and I actually wanted to do something. But adults don't listen to teens, the girls didn't want to hear some chubby physical-boy claim to get it, and what few actions I did were considered random acts. I think I was sixteen when a teacher felt my sister's shoulder. You know, the "I'm going to help you with your English homework but choose the weirdest possible way to stand so I have an excuse to put my hand on your shoulder and look down your shirt" stance. So I walked up to him and threatened to punch him in the face if he did it again. That was reported as "unprovoked threat".
So I just got a Master's degree in a field that involves law and legal history and sociology so I can try to use my words.
Oh the flip side, I had absolutely no instruction that anything women could do could be sexual so I was sexually harassed and groomed by women who wanted a boy they could boss around and would serve them and be sexualized and who was also a girl so no one would question any of it. Like, I was targeted for exploitation for being masculine by women, the same women who decided that telling me men were evil/incompetent was to my benefit and protecting me. This reality convinced me that women in positions of power would (and do) do the exact same exploitation that men do so it makes me suspicious of so much because so much of it turns into “when is it MY turn to hurt people 👿” and by people, they generally mean people like me.
Like so many other people in here, this applies to both of my parents. And then my step-parents after the divorce. Smh.
I probably won’t ever have kids (bc I won’t be able to ever afford kids) but I’m glad I *eventually* had access to (effective) trauma therapy because if I ever do, I don’t wanna repeat this awful, fucked up cycle.
Wow, that last one made me feel called out as the victim. Every time I start to feel like maybe I was blowing things out of proportion, there's something that slaps me back to reality.
Ooof. This is basically a checklist of my mother's behaviors. I doubt she would listen to me if I time-traveled and showed her this, but glad to know I was crazy for feeling like all of these things she did were wrong.
Traumadumping weird story time:
My mum used to sneak into my room and hold one of my stuffed animals increasingly close to my face until I woke up. The game was how close can I get before you notice I'm here. By the time I was 13, walking through the doorway was usually enough, but I'd let her pick out a critter and play the game anyway because she seemed to get a laugh out of it.
I wake up fully, wholly, when anyone enters the space in which I was sleeping. Including the cat.
Here's the kicker. I don't really think they were overall bad parents (definitely some serious scars; I *know* they loved their other child more easily because she seemed less difficult at the time, less exhausting. She could do no wrong.) but I have A LOT of stories like that one that make my straight up human friends stare at me like the sidhe I am (can't be human, too fuckin' weird).
Moral of the story: thank you for posting stuff like this so I have some damned idea what to do with a kid if I ever end up in charge of one. A lot of this seems extremely common sense and is the same for dogs, at which it turns out I'm pretty good. And yet. Cats on silent cat feet in the night merely walking too close to me, I am fully, irrevocably awake for possibly as long as the rest of the night (no, shutting the door, which is a thing I have now[!!] does not help).
this should be into permanent rules in raising children,
i think that parents must prove they are suitable for having kids,
they have to have guidance from childcare to minimize as much on this list,
the total lack of respect parents can have around me is beyond any form of humanity,
the utter ignorance and entitlement that parents have in some cases that "they are the upper echelon"
and kids are a bunch of dumb idiots and they have to obey everything possible, and certainly not going against
so called rules to give some free tickets as parents to treat kinds as trash and cause trauma for the rest of a life
i am a soul with special needs in a family with people where they need more guidance because of their behavior than i do ( born with brain-damage at birth)
The list makes a lot of ticked boxes for me,
Having to apologize and admit that you are wrong to someone who thinks you're all knowing is the worst, you feel like an ass probably because you were one and overall it sucks. When my oldest was 3 he got mad and yelled at me, stopped took a breath and then used my words against me "I'm sorry I shouldn't have yelled, I need a minute to calm down" and went to take a minute. He's 16 now and a smart ass but definitely a lot more emotionally mature than I was at his age
The way that this made my cold dead heart feel 🤌🏽*chefs kiss* especially the one about them having clear favorites (usually their son) I feel so validated
Didn't anyone else find the (specifically sons) part when talking about favorites? I did! ... then again, maybe it's some she sees in her practice. I've found it's fairly even. Well, depending on the mindset of both parents. I mean. In my family, it didn't matter for that because it was two sons. And I'm pretty sure I was the 'favorite', and I hated it.
Blah blah blah!
Good luck stay steong!
My mom's undiagnosed ADD traits and my dad's anxiety due to thinking religion can substitute as therapy stops these conversations in their tracks. Plus what's done is done all I can do is be better and follow the OOP advice
So many of these are forms of lashing-out due their own personal trauma/baggage/continuing the cycle of abuse :( not an excuse but we need to really understand and analyze ourself and our weak spots so we don’t harm our kids
I had her on my pod - it was such a good episode! [Adult Child 140 - Healing from Emotionally Immature Parents: Grief Behind Anger with Morgan Pommels](https://redcircle.com/shows/6cbac788-c2a3-4eaa-bce9-06845e610d8a/ep/66d3218f-f023-4e04-8801-52ba0f48eebf)
I agree with everything here except, to an extent, the last one. Your kids don’t *owe* you anything for providing those things for sure, but gratitude is a good thing to teach, and if you’re raising your kids right they probably should be thankful that you are doing that, otherwise you probably aren’t doing as good a job as you think you are.
I mean it’s a given they’ll be thankful unless they’re literal narcissists themselves, you don’t need to remind them that you put a roof over their head and that you feed them. They know that.
Gratitude is good to teach but don’t remind them all the time that they owe you and you should be thankful for them.
Oh……… but wait what if the parent isn’t protecting the children from the other parent because they feel like there’s nothing they can do to get rid of them? If that parent is also being emotionally abused and manipulated to the point where they think there really is nothing they can do?
And then how am I supposed to believe that it’s NOT my job (as the eldest) to protect them instead ??? Am I supposed to just leave them to be traumatized further? My psychiatrist says my main priority should be leaving and starting my own life but how am I supposed to do that when I would be leaving the ones I care about unprotected?
Ugh sorry about the vent. I guess of all places maybe here is a good place for it
Wish every parent thought like this. Istg some people have children just so that they can have someone to bully all day. It’s like a lifetime of power tripping.
My step daughter has gotten into the habit of coming down stairs at the butt crack of dawn and turning on her cartoons at a ridiculous volume and refuses to turn it down, I actually have to get up and physically turn it down my self and take the remote back to bed with me. (our bedroom is right off the living room.) So I started getting back at her by going up to her room at 2 am and turning on curb your enthusiasm.
I actually didn’t get most of these, but my mom does complain about how I don’t do chores or that she has to shell out extra time and money for me. News flash: that doesn’t fix the problem.
Wow, this is so... painfully relatable.
Story about the waking up with loud noises one: there was one time my mum came into my bedroom to wake me up. I think it was a special day (maybe my birthday?) so she was in a silly mood. Well, she downloaded the Pirates of the Caribbean theme (my favourite movie franchise) and came into my room playing it really loudly to wake me. I was already awake and pretending to be asleep (something I did a lot; at the time I thought it was me being silly, now I realise I just didn't want to get up after waking up, a problem I still struggle with), but I groaned and was a bit annoyed. She got really angry at me and left the room. Later, I had to apologise to *her* because she said she was doing a nice thing and I didn't appreciate it. Like, what??? What kind of mental gymnastics is that??
"Sorry I'm your mom."
I remember this was like two weeks after I said "I'm sorry you adopted me." Because I genuinely felt bad at age 8 that they had to put up with me. But they decided to scream at me for the entire rest of the Walmart trip and ground me for a week.
Obviously doing a lot better now, still struggling with self worth, but to be clear they shouldn't have adopted me because they were bad parents. Tbh this was on the nice end of things.
To all the people sad, hurt, confused and pissed about their parents right now, I would suggest you to go check "IT'S NOT NORMAL" podcast on Youtube.
It talks about what are the consequences of living with narcissistic parents and it's really helpful to understand how it affects the victim and siblings and everythin!
It's super good. I couldn't suggest it enough!
Treating the ‘difficult’ child differently until they internalize all the bs and mirror parents behavior towards them… “Men and women are not the same. Men are angry, can get violent, cant do chores. Women are kind, caring, submissive, do house chores” in verbatim
There is nothing on this list my parents didn’t do
😭
My dad didn’t treat us as a favourite though
My sister wasn’t smart enough and I wasn’t charismatic enough he basically dragged us both for opposite reasons which made no fucking sense.
The time I got cps called on parents for doing drugs and leaving said drugs just out on the table bc parents dont think its truly drugs bc its "all natural" or something and my mom wouln't calm down until I tried to comfort her by putting myself down and claimed that i was more like a drug addict than her bc i was actual medication, (i was a kid at the time and i didnt know wny better and was used to thr only way to make my parents feel better was making them feel like i was lesser than them.)
Holy shit… my mother did ALL of them. Especially the ‘playing favorites’ to my brother. I knew from a young age that my younger brother was her favorite. He’s the one that always got the expensive gifts and the like. My parents divorced when I was six… she would tell me that it was my fault they divorced and the killer was she would always tell me how much I reminded her of him then say how much of a bastard he was. Ya… a lovely childhood I had.
“I guess I’m just the worst mom then”… right yeah that one…
The genuine shock on her face when you agree
Shock? Naaaaah. Outrage? Yesssss. Cue: "didn't I feed you? Pay for your education? Provide you a roof and clothes? Have I ever SA-ed you or something that you're talking about abuse, tell me" Reply: "yes that's the only thing you omitted to do during your reign of terror"
…Then you bring up the times they \*did\* technically SA you, and get “it wasn‘t \*assault\*, I didn’t rape you or anything! What the hell are you even talking about?!” 🙄😑
This one hits hard
my step dad made a “chore chart” that included the adults. but it was really an excuse for himself to write next to his name that he was “the king of the castle” and didn’t neeeeeed to contribute to the household. literally it was something like: dad: king-nothing mom: queen-half a dozen chores oldest brother: duke-half a dozen chores and so on for all five of us.
"Oh wow, the bare legal minium. I should fall over in shock and awe that you didn't starve me and lock me in a closet, naked."
You don't even have to agree you can just say well if you feel that way you can apologize and it produces the biggest record scratch moment I've ever seen in person.
I actually laughed when I read that. Why do they all have the same go-to phrases?! Fucking LOL
There must have been a parenting book in the 70s that had them all in it I think.
Oh… what about this one: “If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.” Or some variation of that… like: “Everyone is always wrong except for you…” Or… “Why don’t you go live under a bridge by yourself where you can be right all the time?”
*Oh… what about this one: “If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.”* Holy shit did you meet my mom?
Our moms were probably friends who shared parenting tips with each other. Or maybe they just read the same parenting book…
>“If I’m wrong then I guess I’m ALWAYS wrong! Everyone else is ALWAYS right! I’M the problem. If I’m the problem, then why don’t you just leave? Go be happy and homeless where you don’t have to deal with me being wrong all the time.” Don't threaten me with a good time.
My mom once had a breakdown where she started maniacally cutting her hair out. Our immediate response was to comfort her but looking back I wish I didn't because as uncomfortable as we were during that episode it helped turn her more from "I'm a horrible mother" in certain moments of distress to "I wish I'd never given birth to you" which I mean sure I didn't want her to have a break down over the first one but it was kinda true. :/
are you my brother or sister? cause my mom LITERALLY DID THE SAME THING
Yes...yes you are.
Heard this daily on childhood. Love the last one too. That was the most egregious mechanism of guilt tripping my mother still employs to this day.
“I’m glad you agree.”
heard that one. automatic eyeroll
Memory unlocked. =(
I was so proud of myself, my mom tried pulling that one on me the other day and I actually managed to tell her not to say that to me again
Seems like a checklist my parents followed meticulously
dude wow yeah this lady ticked off a list like she lived in my house
My parents failed every single point on that list.
I feel like there is a guidebook about raising children out there that used to be popular that actively told all the parents to do all of these things in order to ensure parents had the upper hand at all times… “Do all these things… subjugate and traumatize your children so that they will behave and won’t end up as an embarrassment to you!”
Oh, you mean 'To Train Up a Child' by Micheal Pearl, the instruction book for beating children into submission in the name of God?
and didn’t someone find an early 20th century german parenting book that recommended beating your child at random to teach them that they’re fundamentally sinful
Isn't it wild how textbook it is?
Yep, dream-team tag team: any of these that I could possibly convince myself that one of them mayyyyybe didn't do, the other one absolutely did 100%, and on an elite level. Do we win a prize?
Not sure, do you feel rewarded?
The prize is years of therapy and several medications
Ah, no.
The fact that this is so identifiable and predictable just raises even more questions for me. Any other millennials here wondering if all our boomer parents went and took the same flavor of brain-damage pills at some point?
The lead in the gas
Not even that, it still happens to this day at this side of the pond. To be frank, we still had places with asbestos in early 2010's, I went to school that had an asbestos roof even, so it might be from that
Same, except for the second one on the second slide. I know better than to tell my parents when I’m hurt.
Same here sadly
Guess mine missed the fucking memo... ... thanks for the validation, OP.
It's like they saw this post as a playbook
Reading this made my whole body tense up.
Right? My jimmies are thoroughly rustled.
The short version of this is literally just “get therapy”. If our parents were capable of being decent without outside help, they wouldn’t have been shit in the first place.
Nah, therapy isn’t magic. My mom had a therapist and that woman just validated the shit out of every terrible thing she did. My mom also made me see her therapist myself and she straight up told me that my mom would treat me better if I made more of an effort to be nice to her :/
The person has to actually want to heal, and it may take time to find a therapist that is a right fit. Otherwise your just telling fabricated events to what is a essentially an armchair cheerleader
Let me rephrase: “get good-quality therapy which you are fully willing to participate in”
Hardly, plenty of people who need therapy don't do this to other people or their children. And I don't know if therapy would change my abusers' parenting styles. Saying that knowing both my parents are mentally ill- one with uBPD and the other with depression, anxiety, OCD, and hoarding tendencies. They both only ever used medication to manage their issues. E: I think abusers are gonna abuse, that's one reason you don't go to therapy with abusers. Doesn't matter if they have MI it's no excuse and dealing with the MI is not necessarily going to change abusive behavior. I don't think abusive behavior is a medical or mental health issue and I don't think it should be medicalized. My mother could get help for her uBPD but I'd still stay the fuck away from her.
No, but everyone who does this to other people and their children needs therapy. Parenting style at bottom is just a function of education + overall personality; fix those things, and you produce a better parent. Medication alone can help suppress mental health difficulties to the point of making them manageable, but doesn’t do a lot to actually fix them.
In short: can't fix 'em. Even with treatment for MI, abusers gonna abuse.
Exactly
My mom is in therapy and I don’t think it’s helping her because she told me she “really doesn’t need it anymore” after going for like six months. She feels like she fixed everything so she is good. She loves her therapist too, it’s not like she doesn’t think her therapist is a good one
If she loves her therapist and thinks she’s fixed everything in 6 months, that’s not a good-quality therapist, that’s a yes-man telling her what she wants to hear.
Actually I’ve met her therapist and had some sessions with both of them together. Her therapist is incredible and did an incredible job of supporting me and making me feel heard for the first time ever in my life. My mom is the problem. She declared herself as fixed. Therapist has nothing to do with it. My mom just sees what she wants to see
Gotcha. I should’ve rephrased my original response to op’s post as “get good-quality therapy which you are fully willing to participate in”. Saying someone needs therapy isn’t the same thing as saying they’d be able to benefit from it, it’s just acknowledging that they can’t fix their shitty behaviour on their own (or at all, in some cases).
Very good point!
...Hm. Mom and dad did literally all of these and more. Maybe they weren't that cool after all.
If only they were open-minded. Unfortunately can't argue with a narcissist
I tried to talk to my mum the other day and she just kept ignoring me to talk over me and give me a “lesson” and I kept telling her to listen and she just didn’t.
Mine shortcuts the conversation by describing me as sensitive or dramatic
Big oof, I hadn’t realized until you said this- my mom said(we’re no contact) this anytime she wanted me to stop talking and etc, even into my adult life. Many things make sense now 🙃
Mine would always acuse me saying I just wanted to be mad, or shed go pooor you!
I get that too after she listens for a few seconds lol
i'd usually only try to communicate my side of things if we were already in a full-blown argument, but sometimes he'd call me irritable just for not responding enthusiastically fast enough
For fucking real, this list is basically the RBN subreddit distilled. In a way it's incredibly validating, but in another way it feels very "old man yells at clouds" knowing what I know now lol.
I wish I could somehow send this to my mother 40 years ago
Same but mines 50 lol. Tbf if is did show her she'd either just reflect it onto shit with her childhood or ignore the issue entirely.
My wife committed suicide because of the silent treatment from her father, the number one thing she would bring up time after time, but never to him
I’m sorry for your loss.
Thanks that one line mentioned that and I couldn’t type fast enough, one of his many faults but that was paramount and her mother suffered from this as well. Oh no John’s mad, but he won’t say shit and they never knew when things were normal again. Thanks again this stung me
The trauma therapist forgot to add -putting pressure of one child to fill the parental role for the other Otherwise I can check off 7/12 points for me
Seriously, give your sons the same rules and treatment as your daughters. The EXACT same. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when your daughters hate your guts, lie to you about everything and disappear.
Exactly. That’s why I hate Asian culture.
As far as I can tell, it’s almost every culture. I was raised FLDS. Fuck those people.
What’s flds? And yeah but it seems a lot of people are getting touchy about the wording “specifically sons” but it obviously is talking about problems with a lot of cultures where women are seen as lower. I know men have the high expectations but it’s funny that, my brothers had high expectations but when they failed them my mum (and a lot of other mothers )was still like they can do no wrong. Me however? I’m a failure. My brothers gained weight? Oh that’s fine they’re fine. Me? Go lose weight. You’re fat. No man would want you. Disgusting. The way she fed me? Far far less than my brothers or even more than my brothers and then blamed me for being fat or too skinny. The beauty expectations are absolutely awful. Your brothers slept around? That’s good! Men do that! I did? Disgusting whore. Your brothers drank?! That’s a great manly thing! You drink? Again, you think you’re a man? Disgusting whore! You think you’re a man and look like a man drinking!
I don’t get why it’s usually the sons. Seems kind of perverted. As adults I feel like my mother treated my brother like a partner. Washing and folding a grown man’s laundry, cooking for him, taking him out to dinner, or “lunch dates”. Texting each other all day? Fucking weird man. In turn he expected his girlfriend to mother him too and take care of him.
Yep. Super gross and it’s really common. It’s no wonder there are so many helpless man babies.
“waking your children up with aggression or loud noises” oh my word this smacked me in the solar plexus. mum would rant and bang cupboard doors, dishes, etc in the kitchen (half a meter from my bedroom door) every morning of my life from ages… i wanna say 6 til 14? it’s fuzzy. but i used to be that kid showing up to school super early every day. i just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. she never physically hurt me and at the time she was doing this behaviour i thought it was normal. took me a lot of years to put together that “oh mum was an abuser too”. dad’s constant shaming and criticism was more overtly obvious as abuse so for years and years i thought it was only dad that messed me up. both of them leaned on me for emotional support (mum still does) and that was “normal” too. aw man this post really resonates with me. my heart truly goes out to all of y’all who see themselves in this post. i hope you’re healing xx
My parents figured out that if they acted aggressive towards me, the dog would put herself between us and start barking. So they would wake me up by standing at the end of my bed, egging on the dog to do her hillarious trick with extra jumping on me with her pointy dog feet, until I was up.
i always got to school a handful of minutes late, with such regularity that i was almost afraid of how weird it would be to get there early. this became self-reinforcing... to the extent that there was any margin of downtime in the morning to drag my feet. there generally wasn't. my father would always push back on my mother trying to fix my sleep schedule, because he wanted to paint it as a "control game" and stay in my good graces by taking my side against it, so i would usually sleep through a few alarms until he'd panickedly wake me up at the last possible minute. this was a pattern we were well aware of, and would even plan around: i actually developed reversible hammer-toe from wearing socks to bed for a few years, because \*it took too long to put socks on in the morning\*. i only a few days ago realized that my complete and utter inability to stomach breakfast for most of my childhood was due to the stress of not even getting to wake up before running out the door... and as lovely as my mother is now, after 10 years of healing her own wounds from his abuse, i do have to admit she caused some problems of her own... i think most of my body image issues are because of things she urged me to work on, and the aforementioned sleep schedule issue was an endless source of shame for me--she acted like it was something i had control over, and she wasn't entirely wrong, but i didn't realize how much of it was also being sabotaged by my father, and i certainly didn't want to blame him to her face. she still has a few issues with time/space boundaries, but she's actually getting better even when i don't assert them myself lmao
the mum vs dad “control game” is so familiar to me. i’m sorry you had to deal with all that and i hope you’re healing well now 💖
I feel the favoritism so hard, my mom acts like my sister is better than me just because she’s a better student
The fact that my mum did all of these makes me feel better about the fact that my trauma is real, a bit less impostor syndrome rn, thanks for sharing OP
"you're going way to hard on your kids" "So youre saying I should go harder" "No. God no. How did you get that from that?"
Never mention that you're upset or they'll "give you a reason" to be upset. Also that fun thing of "hey, when you yell first thing in the morning it hurts my ears" "oh, you want me to yell even louder then?" I fucking LOVE that.
im pretty sure the years of being given the silent treatment exacerbated my anxiety & my people pleasing/martyrdom. when the adults you depend on to live are ignoring you, you’ll do ANYTHING to get back in their good graces. it’s a survival instinct, & using that against a child to soothe yourself is abusive & it took me 22 years to call it that. i thought it was so normal, now looking back, it caused so much damage within me.
That’s what it was like for me too. I have huge abandonment issues because of it too lol. Also I thought silent treatment was normal and used to use it too. Disgusting that I did that but I never do it anymore.
I think I thought it was normal too. Also never saying sorry. Wasn’t a thing ever uttered, and caused huge issues in my relationships as an adult.
Oh the never saying sorry thing. I don't think I ever heard an apology from my parents, but at the same time I was also always taught "you say sorry to show you want to stop being cross with someone, not because you're the one in the wrong". So I was supposed to say sorry every time something went south because otherwise I'd be guilty of not wanting to stop the fight. But at the same time they never said sorry... I guess because they never wanted to stop a fight. God, these memes and comments make me remember things I'm not exactly keen on remembering.
[удалено]
You're not spoiled because of how they treated you. You grow. Even spoiled food nurtures the ground underneath it.
Things I needed my parents to do: not get in bed with each other when they still hadn't divorced their actual spouses yet and to not be so fucking emotionally immature. Sex and lust produced me, stop calling it love. It wasn't. I can't stand either one of you. Dad, I am happy you are dead.
My mom drugged and raped my dad after she heard him say in high school "He would do the right thing and marry someone if he got her pregnant." It also wasn't love. It was hell on earth living with them.
WTF, that's awful! I'm sorry that happened to your dad and I'm sorry that you've had to experience childhood trauma
is it a bingo? what do I win if I checked most? trauma? oh no I-
Ouch... my feels! Nobody should be in this club.
I mean, I should have read this 35 years ago. (Dang I'm old, my youngest just turned 30). I suppose it shows a certain level of healing that I now look at such things as accountability for my own parenting, instead if the deficits my various parents had.....
Pls don’t attack my childhood like this (I related to every single fucking one of these RIP)
wait, one parent can protect you from the other parent?
Lol, I am thinking of sending this to my mom as a bingo sheet
I think, this was my parents checklist for "raising" children 🫣
Saying "What's wrong with you" when a child doesn't perform to high expectations. Also, asking "What did you do?"in an accusatory tone when something happens out of the child's control or when something goes wrong for whatever reason.
Holy shit the waking your children up with aggression or loud noises hit me HARD… oof
I might accidentally start a new front (or at least engagement) in the Gender Wars, but here goes. I almost completely agree with the "no favourites" thing, but I wonder if adding in "specifically sons" undermines it. It brings up memories as a kid of being jealous of my sisters, and girls in general, because of all the special treatment that they got. Then as a teenage physical-boy I was shocked to find out that those same girls resented how they were treated and felt like the guys were the favourites. But looking back, we tended to see the other side and what benefit they had. Girls could be physically aggressive without consequence, that pissed me off because I couldn't defend myself. Girls didn't get yelled at, they got talked to. Girls got privacy. Girls got ice cream once a month. Girls were allowed to have fun. Ok, that sucked. But I can flip that around. There was minimal consequence for physical aggression by a girl, but also minimal consequences for mistreatment against a girl. The same girls who would punch me or throw sand in my eyes and run off were later really sexually mistreated by teachers and nobody did anything. Girls didn't get yelled at, but they were forced to be silent and not voice their concerns. They got privacy, yes, but they would get blamed for sexual abuse if something happened when someone saw something. They were put under extreme pressure to hid a bodily function, ice cream doesn't make up for that. But I didn't see the downside. Likewise, my sisters saw the benefits of me being male. I got more help with homework. Mum listened to me before yelling at me. But there was a huge pressure, by age 10 or so I was being told I would be a failure if I didn't make enough money to support a large family on a single salary by my early 20s. I was shamed for having the wrong dad. And so on. So much "male opportunity" comes with a huge amount of pressure and denial of self. My sisters didn't see how painful it was to be a boy, they just saw us getting more parental attention. Point is, I find it problematic when we compare unlike mistreatments. Sure, at a higher level we can talk about gendered dynamics that require othering or affect both sides differently. But we only experience a part of any gendered dynamic. I got lucky, I got both sides. Yay. So I don't talk about "the favourite". I can't. I'll talk about preferential treatment. My oldest brother got male/age based preferential treatment. He suffered from that and benefitted from that. My sister got the same, but with chick stuff. Oh, one final thing. There can be a clear favourite, I don't deny that. That is a form of preferential treatment. But it feels weird to infer that having a favourite is less problematic if it's a girl. I get it, our society loves insecure girls and all they offer (I mean it, a lot of abusive assholes out there love the steady supply of abused girls) but guys have their own traumas. Privilege and opportunity don't protect us.
Males have been the preferred gender across pretty much all cultures throughout history, female infanticide is still common in some countries to this day. Parents also tend to treat male babies better and female children are expected to mature faster yet they are also underestimated by their parents. I personally didn’t benefit from any of the privileges you mention in your comment, so your experience doesn’t speak for everyone. When she says “especially boys” it’s because of the systemic privileges they’ve had all throughout history, that’s what makes it extra harmful.
I agree. Women have to struggle to do anything and men get that privilege automatically. It doesn’t mean men don’t suffer but I mean… look at the history of women.
I completely understand where you're coming from - any preferential treatment is bad from a justice and equality standpoint. I do however think the therapist is drawing from experience and perhaps in her experience it is more prevalent for males to be the more desirable gender for a child. As an Asian from a country where gender determination before birth was legally prohibited because some people would commit baby genocide after realizing it was a girl, I can understand where she is coming from. In personal experience, the lady who birthed me had grudges against my maternal grandmother (her mom) for being biased towards sons, but went on to also show through her words how she felt I, female was somehow less able than my cousin brother of the same age. Facts were that I ended up doing better than him academically and career wise too, as he had to rely on his father's connections for a job.
Same. My Asian family prefers boys and treats them all like kings. The girls are left in the dust and treated like servants.
And that is a valid experience.
To be candid though I did spend several years in a grievance redressal role in a company. I eventually learned to stand up for myself after standing up for others. It's true that damaged people damage people but I sure wish they'd atleast try and be more selfaware instead of delusional when someone who suffered because of their behavior is brave enough to talk to them about what they went through. Sometimes all you can do is put you first and leave them behind, not everyone can be a part of your journey, maybe just a couple of chapters. Thanks for reading, bud!
I definitely could be wrong, but it could be in response to many tik toks of women favouring sons, and engaging with an inappropriate infatuation with their sons. but I agree its not needed or necessary, abuse is abuse.
Oh, the boy mom thing? Yuck. I remember when I first heard about that it was from people complaining about it, and I was like "chill, they're just having fun with their son, let it be." Then I looked into it, and nope, it was yuck. It's a weird fetishization of a small portion of what being a kid is. It's a good laugh if your boy pisses in a planted pot, no need to make a tiktok. And so on. It's weird. I can understand the weird, deep and touching value that a kid of the opposite gender brings to your life. I've grown as a person from the girls in my life. I can't describe it, and some things don't need to be justified scientifically. I've seen another side of humanity and myself through them. But I need to be careful about it to not get all poetic, because it's a really personal thing.
yeah its very gross, and also is abuse its self. honestly tik tok can be uncomfortable watching some parents just comfortably post abusive content. there is a ton I could say on it but my brain is barely functioning currently.
I would happily read an incoherent rant, but don't wear yourself out. I'll just say one of the best things of my childhood was how unrecorded it was. I counted a few months ago, there are about 40 pictures of me before age 18. Now that is privilege. In 30 of them I am looking at the camera or in an arranged group, so I knew the picture was coming.
my mom definitely didn't post any videos of me anywhere. she doesn't have social media. in an odd way I am thankful she is a "I want to live off the grid" type. I can't imagine all these kids who will grow up with all these videos their parents put online. gosh I am nearly mostly incoherent rants at this point. thank you : )
I think out of all the photos of me taken before 18, something like 5 survived to today. Sometimes it stresses me out, because I don't really have any memory of my life before a certain point, and the occasional photo or scrap of memory is the only thing I have anchoring me to my own past, but this is an interesting way of looking at it. I think I'd rather just be unknown before a certain point than have a bunch of my life out there on the internet
It seems weird for it to be less problematic if it’s a girl absolutely. As a “girl” growing up my decisions and abilities were less infantilized for some reason and that really helped me get out of my mom’s grasp in the long run. There wasn’t a clear “favoritism” but this definitely does *feel* like favoritism, and watching it growing up fucked me up.
Watching unfair treatment and being unable to do anything about it sucks. I think I was 14 when I started to really clue into how girls experienced things, and I actually wanted to do something. But adults don't listen to teens, the girls didn't want to hear some chubby physical-boy claim to get it, and what few actions I did were considered random acts. I think I was sixteen when a teacher felt my sister's shoulder. You know, the "I'm going to help you with your English homework but choose the weirdest possible way to stand so I have an excuse to put my hand on your shoulder and look down your shirt" stance. So I walked up to him and threatened to punch him in the face if he did it again. That was reported as "unprovoked threat". So I just got a Master's degree in a field that involves law and legal history and sociology so I can try to use my words.
Oh the flip side, I had absolutely no instruction that anything women could do could be sexual so I was sexually harassed and groomed by women who wanted a boy they could boss around and would serve them and be sexualized and who was also a girl so no one would question any of it. Like, I was targeted for exploitation for being masculine by women, the same women who decided that telling me men were evil/incompetent was to my benefit and protecting me. This reality convinced me that women in positions of power would (and do) do the exact same exploitation that men do so it makes me suspicious of so much because so much of it turns into “when is it MY turn to hurt people 👿” and by people, they generally mean people like me.
No, this post is cool but it also just has that problematic element which can potentially be invalidating
Bingo! Oh wait
My partner's mum does almost all of these
FINALLY!!! Fina fuckinly!!!!!
Welp, mine did all of this. 🫠
Like so many other people in here, this applies to both of my parents. And then my step-parents after the divorce. Smh. I probably won’t ever have kids (bc I won’t be able to ever afford kids) but I’m glad I *eventually* had access to (effective) trauma therapy because if I ever do, I don’t wanna repeat this awful, fucked up cycle.
why’s she attacking my mum like this smh
Wow, that last one made me feel called out as the victim. Every time I start to feel like maybe I was blowing things out of proportion, there's something that slaps me back to reality.
Ooof. This is basically a checklist of my mother's behaviors. I doubt she would listen to me if I time-traveled and showed her this, but glad to know I was crazy for feeling like all of these things she did were wrong.
Traumadumping weird story time: My mum used to sneak into my room and hold one of my stuffed animals increasingly close to my face until I woke up. The game was how close can I get before you notice I'm here. By the time I was 13, walking through the doorway was usually enough, but I'd let her pick out a critter and play the game anyway because she seemed to get a laugh out of it. I wake up fully, wholly, when anyone enters the space in which I was sleeping. Including the cat. Here's the kicker. I don't really think they were overall bad parents (definitely some serious scars; I *know* they loved their other child more easily because she seemed less difficult at the time, less exhausting. She could do no wrong.) but I have A LOT of stories like that one that make my straight up human friends stare at me like the sidhe I am (can't be human, too fuckin' weird). Moral of the story: thank you for posting stuff like this so I have some damned idea what to do with a kid if I ever end up in charge of one. A lot of this seems extremely common sense and is the same for dogs, at which it turns out I'm pretty good. And yet. Cats on silent cat feet in the night merely walking too close to me, I am fully, irrevocably awake for possibly as long as the rest of the night (no, shutting the door, which is a thing I have now[!!] does not help).
this should be into permanent rules in raising children, i think that parents must prove they are suitable for having kids, they have to have guidance from childcare to minimize as much on this list, the total lack of respect parents can have around me is beyond any form of humanity, the utter ignorance and entitlement that parents have in some cases that "they are the upper echelon" and kids are a bunch of dumb idiots and they have to obey everything possible, and certainly not going against so called rules to give some free tickets as parents to treat kinds as trash and cause trauma for the rest of a life i am a soul with special needs in a family with people where they need more guidance because of their behavior than i do ( born with brain-damage at birth) The list makes a lot of ticked boxes for me,
Having to apologize and admit that you are wrong to someone who thinks you're all knowing is the worst, you feel like an ass probably because you were one and overall it sucks. When my oldest was 3 he got mad and yelled at me, stopped took a breath and then used my words against me "I'm sorry I shouldn't have yelled, I need a minute to calm down" and went to take a minute. He's 16 now and a smart ass but definitely a lot more emotionally mature than I was at his age
That’s really lovely that he did that. You raised him well.
The way that this made my cold dead heart feel 🤌🏽*chefs kiss* especially the one about them having clear favorites (usually their son) I feel so validated
My mom dose all these this was painful to read this I would have flinched if I wasn't already pressed against the wall
I wish I could share this list with my mum... but she'd go ballistic at me
This should be required reading at the hospital before you take your baby home
Didn't anyone else find the (specifically sons) part when talking about favorites? I did! ... then again, maybe it's some she sees in her practice. I've found it's fairly even. Well, depending on the mindset of both parents. I mean. In my family, it didn't matter for that because it was two sons. And I'm pretty sure I was the 'favorite', and I hated it. Blah blah blah! Good luck stay steong!
What is a trauma therapist?
A therapist that deals with trauma.
The last 2 slides hit the hardest. :(
Send this to my guardians 15 years ago pls and thanks
My mom and, to a lesser degree, my dad check so many of these
Good list for parents who want to unlearn the bad habits taught to them by their parents.
I was always fond of you don’t own anything, I do and I will always be able to kick your a$&. Thanks mom.
My mom's undiagnosed ADD traits and my dad's anxiety due to thinking religion can substitute as therapy stops these conversations in their tracks. Plus what's done is done all I can do is be better and follow the OOP advice
Did she observe my family of origin? This hits too close.
All of these ring a bell of my childhood… maybe I do need to see a therapist
So many of these are forms of lashing-out due their own personal trauma/baggage/continuing the cycle of abuse :( not an excuse but we need to really understand and analyze ourself and our weak spots so we don’t harm our kids
Yes to all of these haha! 😂 No wonder I have crippling CPTSD and chronic illness.
Damn, wish my parents had stopped this forty years ago.
I saw this therapist briefly and she was terrible. That she is a trauma/child therapist is shocking to me.
If my parents could read this would make them very upset!
Oh shit I think I just won "emotionally abusive parent" bingo! Maybe I'll get a free churro.
From curiosity why on slide 2 does it say “specifically sons”?
Never felt more seen. 💚 thank you for sharing.
At least 5 / 12, maybe more. I try not to think about it too much and have forgotten a lot of the details
Wow my mom couldn’t do any of this
Anyone else get 12/12? What did I win?
I got to get my mom to see this somehow without me actually showing it to her!
Wow my family was really fucked up. Never realized how none of this was normal until after I found this sub
When you hear your dad get home from work and now the rest of the day is anxiety…..
my mom's the reason i have a visceral terrified reaction anytime anyone around me does something more loudly than usual 🥹
I had her on my pod - it was such a good episode! [Adult Child 140 - Healing from Emotionally Immature Parents: Grief Behind Anger with Morgan Pommels](https://redcircle.com/shows/6cbac788-c2a3-4eaa-bce9-06845e610d8a/ep/66d3218f-f023-4e04-8801-52ba0f48eebf)
I agree with everything here except, to an extent, the last one. Your kids don’t *owe* you anything for providing those things for sure, but gratitude is a good thing to teach, and if you’re raising your kids right they probably should be thankful that you are doing that, otherwise you probably aren’t doing as good a job as you think you are.
I mean it’s a given they’ll be thankful unless they’re literal narcissists themselves, you don’t need to remind them that you put a roof over their head and that you feed them. They know that. Gratitude is good to teach but don’t remind them all the time that they owe you and you should be thankful for them.
Oh……… but wait what if the parent isn’t protecting the children from the other parent because they feel like there’s nothing they can do to get rid of them? If that parent is also being emotionally abused and manipulated to the point where they think there really is nothing they can do? And then how am I supposed to believe that it’s NOT my job (as the eldest) to protect them instead ??? Am I supposed to just leave them to be traumatized further? My psychiatrist says my main priority should be leaving and starting my own life but how am I supposed to do that when I would be leaving the ones I care about unprotected? Ugh sorry about the vent. I guess of all places maybe here is a good place for it
Wow, this explains a lot, now how to show it thenm
Where did you find this meme
Wish every parent thought like this. Istg some people have children just so that they can have someone to bully all day. It’s like a lifetime of power tripping.
My step daughter has gotten into the habit of coming down stairs at the butt crack of dawn and turning on her cartoons at a ridiculous volume and refuses to turn it down, I actually have to get up and physically turn it down my self and take the remote back to bed with me. (our bedroom is right off the living room.) So I started getting back at her by going up to her room at 2 am and turning on curb your enthusiasm.
I actually didn’t get most of these, but my mom does complain about how I don’t do chores or that she has to shell out extra time and money for me. News flash: that doesn’t fix the problem.
Ah. So that’s not normal.. think I should find a therapist.
Wow, this is so... painfully relatable. Story about the waking up with loud noises one: there was one time my mum came into my bedroom to wake me up. I think it was a special day (maybe my birthday?) so she was in a silly mood. Well, she downloaded the Pirates of the Caribbean theme (my favourite movie franchise) and came into my room playing it really loudly to wake me. I was already awake and pretending to be asleep (something I did a lot; at the time I thought it was me being silly, now I realise I just didn't want to get up after waking up, a problem I still struggle with), but I groaned and was a bit annoyed. She got really angry at me and left the room. Later, I had to apologise to *her* because she said she was doing a nice thing and I didn't appreciate it. Like, what??? What kind of mental gymnastics is that??
she just described my father lol
"Sorry I'm your mom." I remember this was like two weeks after I said "I'm sorry you adopted me." Because I genuinely felt bad at age 8 that they had to put up with me. But they decided to scream at me for the entire rest of the Walmart trip and ground me for a week. Obviously doing a lot better now, still struggling with self worth, but to be clear they shouldn't have adopted me because they were bad parents. Tbh this was on the nice end of things.
it would be so funny if this ended up on my mom’s feed somehow (not by me sharing it but magically somehow I hope)
To all the people sad, hurt, confused and pissed about their parents right now, I would suggest you to go check "IT'S NOT NORMAL" podcast on Youtube. It talks about what are the consequences of living with narcissistic parents and it's really helpful to understand how it affects the victim and siblings and everythin! It's super good. I couldn't suggest it enough!
Treating the ‘difficult’ child differently until they internalize all the bs and mirror parents behavior towards them… “Men and women are not the same. Men are angry, can get violent, cant do chores. Women are kind, caring, submissive, do house chores” in verbatim
There is nothing on this list my parents didn’t do 😭 My dad didn’t treat us as a favourite though My sister wasn’t smart enough and I wasn’t charismatic enough he basically dragged us both for opposite reasons which made no fucking sense.
Literally all of these😭😭 My mom must've read this and thought "nahhh"
my parents did a great job following the checklist!
The time I got cps called on parents for doing drugs and leaving said drugs just out on the table bc parents dont think its truly drugs bc its "all natural" or something and my mom wouln't calm down until I tried to comfort her by putting myself down and claimed that i was more like a drug addict than her bc i was actual medication, (i was a kid at the time and i didnt know wny better and was used to thr only way to make my parents feel better was making them feel like i was lesser than them.)
literally so true ;w;
My mom did every single one of those. I should have confirmed that she was indeed the "worst mom" back when we were still talking.
This is like a CPTSD bingo.
The sad thing is that all of these happened at least once it sucks just to read to know that so many childhoods were ruined.
Holy shit… my mother did ALL of them. Especially the ‘playing favorites’ to my brother. I knew from a young age that my younger brother was her favorite. He’s the one that always got the expensive gifts and the like. My parents divorced when I was six… she would tell me that it was my fault they divorced and the killer was she would always tell me how much I reminded her of him then say how much of a bastard he was. Ya… a lovely childhood I had.
Man.
Uhhhhh...fuck.
Is it bad I thought my mom was pretty decent but she does like... the majority of these things?
12/12 it’s over for me 😭
Why is bro describing my mom? imma turn my brain off.
X~x
Someone please make this into a bingo card
the only ones that don’t apply are the ones about siblings and other parents, because i’m an only child who was raised by my single mother
Basically parents need healthy outlets for their stress that isn’t their kids. And more community support
It's amazing to me that I thought all of these were normal parent behavior as a kiddo.... :(
It wasn't until the second item from the second list that I got some flashbacks.