Did you turn out like your parents?

[LAS14]

Last edited Mon Mar 4, 2019, 09:39 PM - Edit history (1)

I just read the thread about "abusive childhood" (a thread about having to watch Lawrence Welk, etc.). I think I'm a lot happier than my parents were. I remember my mother as anxious and easily annoyed. My father sort of beaten down. I think I got a good moral sense from both of them.

As I think about it, I think the great depression really made an impact on them, especially my mother. She could never stop worrying.

What about you all?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. You could write a book.

My father was so abusive, that I got the feeling he was trying to destroy me sometimes. He only hit me once and that was enough. He denigrated me, shamed me, sought to control me, and at his death, he disinherited me. I've been studying narcissists on youtube, and he was a classic textbook example. I still struggle with the repercussions.

My mother was also a narcissist but not the level of my father. She was confused by the chaos and/or was afraid to intervene. I was the only one who stood up to him. They argued a lot. I didn't grieve when she died because it was her only escape.

[cpamomfromtexas]

3. I share that with you.

One thing it taught me was patience and to pay attention.

Now parents have committed multiple felonies in last year. Got threats on phone and voicemail, texts, etc and detail of crimes on recording.

Now I hold all the cards. Currently in process of executing my strategy. Took me a long time to process it all, I grieved what I didn't have. Part of me is jealous of people who have good parents.

They had no boundaries and tried to control me and my entire family. They are positively insane!

If college psychology had talked about narcissism, I think I could have cut them off years ago. I really had no idea until I started intensive therapy in my 50's.

[Phentex]

5. All we can do is do better...

I think it's normal to grieve what we didn't have. But I have made sure my kids didn't have the same kind of childhood. We're not perfect parents but we're pretty darn good and my kids know it now that they are adults. I expect it to come full circle if they choose to have kids one day.

[cpamomfromtexas]

17. Agree. I am doing the same.

I am getting payback through my attorney.

I know I am getting better since I can talk about it and I laugh knowing they are under stress due to my uncovering their crimes.

[In_The_Wind]

2. I'm not like my parents. I raised myself better.

My father and both of my stepmothers were alcoholics. Neglectful of my needs because they were too drunk when they home from work to remember I existed. My 2nd stepmother was abusive in ways I won't list here.

I left home, never to return, the day after I graduated from high school. I do miss my Dad.

I'm basically a nice person with shopping as my only addiction.

[handmade34]

4. I truly hope not...

watching Lawrence Welk was the best part of my growing up...

[MissMillie]

6. If I could have half of their integrity, loyalty and empathy

I would consider myself to be a very successful person.

I made different choices than my parents, but I think (I hope) that my heart and soul resemble the people that they are.

[HipChick]

11. Me too...

the otherside of me is how I cope with the world..

[Ron Obvious]

7. I don't think so. They were very conventional and worried what the neighbours would think/say

I had a happy enough childhood, though a bit of a lonely one. As such, I turned out more of a loner who could amuse himself perfectly well and desperately needed privacy.

Both my parents had something like 10-12 siblings, and had to share a bed with about 5 or 6 of the ones of the same sex, as was normal for working class families back then.

I'd have gone stark-raving mad. I can't sleep in front of strangers at all.

[MissMillie]

9. Your siblings were strangers? (n/t)

.

[Ron Obvious]

10. Well, yeah, but that's not what I meant

I had two sisters who were a lot older than me so I had a bedroom to myself. They were more or less strangers, actually, but I meant that I can't sleep in such chaotic conditions as I have a highly developed sense of privacy. Yes, Mrs. Obvious and I have shared a bed for many years; I'm not an absolutist.

[Phentex]

8. Emphatically NO!

I am much happier.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. I've been thinking about this and I hope that I have.

My parents were decent, hardworking people who had the love and respect of family and friends. They taught us by example to have a strong work ethic, treat people the way we would like to be treated and to be honest. I tried to instill those same qualities in my own children.

ETA: Lawrence Well was compulsory in our house. My dad loved big band music and my mom was Swedish so she loved the polkas.

[Harker]

13. More like my mother.

My father, who just recently died at 90, was a drunken, pill abusing narcissist, and a racist republican. I learned how not to treat people from his repulsive example.

My mother was a kind, loving, decent woman who cherished a good laugh, and never at the expense of another.

At 60, I'm only two years younger than she was at the time of her death. She once told me, when her cancer was clearly going to be fatal, that she was sorry she wouldn't get to be a little old lady.

He dumped her at 50, and married his office manager. I'll never understand what she saw in him.

[Texasgal]

14. Both of my parents

are amazing people, loving and compassionate. I can only hope to be like them!

I just turned 50 and my mother Is very young at 69. My Dad is 73. They had us young and I am greatful for it.

My parents took me to my first Women's rights protest when I was six. They were hippies and later became creative artists and musicians. I am so blessed and lucky to have them in my life.

[rurallib]

15. My guide for life is to do the opposite of my parents

So far it is working fairly well. I followed their footsteps until about 35, then sobered up and shaped up and did the parenting and the spousing the opposite of what they did - for instance come home at night and stay out of bars.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. I'm afraid I'm not as nice.

[mnhtnbb]

18. No.

I am definitely the black sheep of my Republican family.

My best friend and I were having coffee Monday afternoon and talking about our parents. My mom died in 2000 at the age of 91 and my dad died about 18 months later in early 2002 also at the age of 91. My mom was anti- Semitic and my dad was a racist. Neither one of them was blatant about it, but under the right circumstances they would do or say something that made their feelings obvious. They both were contemptuous of Democrats. I'll never forget the day that JFK was assassinated and my mother's response when I came home from school and told her. She said "It's about time." I was 12 and it was the first time I remember thinking I didn't want to be like my mother. And our relationship was all downhill after that.

They both were young adults during the Great Depression and both lucky enough to have jobs. My mom graduated from UC Berkeley in 1929 and took a teaching job in the San Joaquin Valley where she'd grown up. My dad got his Master's degree in Chemistry from Stanford in 1933 and went to work for Shell Chemical. Neither one of them was ever out of work during the 30's. They didn't meet and marry until 1947. My father's first wife died from TB. My dad was the one who generally had more empathy and I think it was due to the sorrow he experienced losing his first wife. Still, that empathy only went so far and only extended to certain situations.

So, no, I didn't turn out like my parents and it's never bothered me that I didn't.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

19. Yes, very much so and still proud of them.

Both my parents went through the Depression and WWII the hard way and were kind, giving, patient and humble people. I am still trying to pass a bit of that on to my two grown kids.

In reality, the personality and nature I inherited from them is sometimes tough to cope with in today's selfish world and most days I feel like an outlier. I'm guessing that many of their generation felt the same in their later years.

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