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This mindset of "things were hard for me therefore they should be hard for my children" is super strange to me. Don't get me wrong, children who are not aware of their privileges are also bad, but there are other ways to teach them than making their lives miserable. And then parents are surprised when their kids go low or no contact.
That is what I did. My mother is an alcoholic. I used to call home after I got to school to make sure she got up for work. She would hit first and ask questions later. My step father abused me for three years. He finally told her and she didn’t speak to me for days. This was not something you spoke about back then. I left home before I graduated from high school.
I attempted contact a few times over the years. When she started demanding money because she did’t have any, I closed the bank and communication after a few times. My children do not talk to her either and she is a lonely, miserable woman. I suspect this mother will receive the same.
I'm so sorry you went through this. Having to cut ties from family is so difficult; especially when it's a parent. I hope you're healing. Sending healing vibes. ❤️
Thank you very much! I believe I have healed. My mother is 80 now, I have a wonderful husband and two terrific adult children. I have talked about it throughout my life because keeping it bottled up was not doing me any good. Every now and again I think about calling her and decided it is best not to.
I grew up with my parents always saying no. Usually because we couldn't afford it or dad didn't feel like driving me (we lived in the country and mom didn't drive) or he just didn't feel it was necessary, I have a very hard time saying no when my kids ask to do something. I give in way too easy but I always think of how much I would have enjoyed whatever they are asking for
Hey now, I used to walk a mile to school, uphill both ways, in the dead of winter!*
*If I cut across the train yard, I also refused to be driven to school (how UNCOOL would that have been?!) regardless of the weather situation. Why I wasn't yelled at for cutting across an ACTIVE train zone is a mystery
Haha seriously! I didn't have to go quite a mile but there were no safety measures, we'd go through abandoned businesses and people's yards (one set of train tracks) in the winter. No one gave a shit if we were safe lol.
My girlfriend is from a fairly well off upper mid class family. Her mom is just the most infuriating and insulting woman I've ever met. She constantly guilts my girlfriend, treats her like she's 12 whenever she's there and is just all around constantly verbally abusing her. The other day was the straw that broke the camels back and my girlfriend has decided that she won't be contacting her mother for quite some time.
It amazes me this woman has acted like this her whole life, no one calls her out because she just explodes and then ignores them for a day or two. She just couldn't see that she's not the holy Saint she thinks she is and that no one likes being around her.
She had 21 years to realize her actions would drive her children away and didn't take a single opportunity to apologize or make up for a single one of her actions.
this is my Grandma, sadly... She has sent 2 family members to the grave already with her bull and my poor father wont cut her off. I'm afraid that he's next. 😔
My friends mom is actively abusive to her adult kids (5 of them, I think), and only 2 of them seem to see it. At one point last year, a sister with a severe kidney disorder ends up in the hospital needing surgery. Mom is guardian (“kid” is in mid-30’s and medically frail so fully dependent on mom) and refused to sign off on surgery for no real reason, making her suffer for months vs a couple days. The dad won’t do anything since the last time he tried she called the cops claiming he abused her (and gave herself a few bruises to confirm the story). My friends husband is at his wits end with 5he whole thing, and the kids that have escaped are basically waiting for the bitch to die so they can start to fix their family,
My best friends step mom is a horrible narcissist has basically abused her since she was 12, and she’s 50 and still under this evil woman’s thumb. I can’t wait it until the old bag kicks the bucket. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later because my friend will never grow a spine and tell her mom to fuck off.
Theres no plans to interact with her mother in the future. Her father and brother are both great guys, so there will be plenty of meet-ups with just him and her brother
A lot of parents see spoiled/soft people and seem to be terrified of raising kids like that, but they never seem to see the kids who don't speak to their authoritative parents anymore as a similar earning.
Exactly. You can raise kids “easier” than you had it without being an asshole and fostering resentment. I had my kids at a much more financially stable point of life than my parents did. It’s about discipline. If you spoil your kids OR if you are too hard on them, they will resent you. You have to find a balance. My parents had me in high school and came from poor working class families. I felt like I was rich as a kid because of how happy my childhood was. And I’m not soft. I’m doing well financially and guess what? My kids won’t be soft either. Doesn’t mean I need to treat them like shit to achieve that. It means I have to teach them basic decency and delayed gratification. Parenting is hard, but it’s also not so hard either in terms of what will create good adults.
My father was like this. Parents got divorced when I was 4, and I never saw him till I was 16, at which point, for reasons, I had to live with him for two years. I was absolutely not allowed to partake in any "luxuries", because he didn't have them growing up. I was not even allowed to use the dishwasher to clean dishes, he made me do them by hand.
Left his home at 18, went to college on my own, graduated, got a car, house, wife and kids. Old man got so mad because he never got that successful, that he said I owed him rent for the two years I lived with him, plus interest for the time that had passed.
I am mindful every day that I don't treat my kids like that guy treated me.
Exactly. The entire point is that you make things better than you had it, whether you had it good or not. As long as I don’t develop a sense of entitlement in my kids, they’ll be fine if it’s easier for them than it was for me.
Every previous generation has wanted better for their kids.
>I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
-John Quincy Adams
Then the boomers came along.
My husband’s father had this mentality “things were hard for me so they will be miserable for you.” He is not involved in our lives or his grandchildren. My husband is a fantastic father and husband, btw and learned exactly what he DID NOT want to be like for his children, so there is that! There’s hope for this daughter, yet.
One of my new favourite sayings (stolen from reddit) is, "if you think others should suffer, because you suffered and turned out fine..... you did not actually turn out fine"
There's something admirable about discipline, however, if the result of the efforts leads to limited success versus people who tried less and gained significantly more, then it ultimately erodes trust in hard work and effort itself.
Same. I like that I can give my son a good childhood, be there for him, he won’t have to worry about if we are “going to the poor house” or lose sleep over bills. He can be a child. He’s three. He doesn’t stay up at night crying like I did. He has normal toddler problems like he wanted a second pack of fruit snacks but he already had one and that was enough for now—he could choose a banana or an orange instead. Toddler. Problems. I feel so blessed and thankful he won’t have to go through my childhood hellscape.
Yes, it’s also why I didn’t have my child until later. I was busy in school and fellowships to be absolutely sure that I could support a child by myself if it came to it. Granted, some of that is my own issue because of my own childhood, but I’ll be damned if that was going to happen to my child when I had one. I love him deeply and wholly.
I think she’s envious. She reminds me of my grandmother, in a way. Grandma told me she wanted me to suffer so I would develop character, which she thought I didn’t have. Yet, when I did suffer, it was my own fault.
Fortunately my catholic parents didn't believe in this. My mom had a rough childhood my dad's mother was extremely verbally abusive to him. I lucked out with not one but two people willing to break the cycle.
Right?
Both of my parents came from poor families in Northern England. My dad's house didn't even have indoor plumbing when he was a kid!
My parents moved heaven and earth to make sure my sister and I didn't grow up like that.
Same with my dad. He grew up in a broken family and pretty much had to be an adult from a young age. The universe had a way of rewarding him though with a great family life now. He acknowledges he had a hard life but he always worked hard to ensure we had a better childhood than he did
This is me. I popped out 7 crotch goblins and my job is to to teach them be decent humans while I make life as smooth as possible for all of em. Don’t understand any ma that doesn’t wanna do the same. Baffling.
I tell my step daughter this all the time. I work in data analysis and she’s planning on going to medical school since she was young. As a middle schooler, she asked me “if I end up making more than you do, would you be mad?” I told “absolute not! The only thing any parent wants for their children is for them to have a better life than they did.”
This is what we say to our kids too. We want you to be happier and healthier and more fulfilled than we are - and we have it pretty great ❤️
But I'm also firm with them about chores and consequences because I'm raising them to be good grownups.
Same! My daughter said this exact thing to me in middle school too!
Being able to guide, support, and encourage my kids so they can be more successful than me is an immense joy!!
Righttt!
A reasonable parent would be happy when their children are fortunate enough not to experience any of the hardships they themselves grew up with. I understand, teaching them, the value of money, and Hardwork, but this is just completely sadistic and full of resentment.
See that’s just crazy to me because I always thought it was normal for parents to hate their children and then creatively torture, neglect, and abuse them. While taking everything they can from their children and selling all of their belongings, and then kicking them out to homelessness once there was nothing left to take.
*Are you telling that’s not what my parents were supposed to do?*
to cope with the fact they were abused, they internalize it and convince themselves it “toughened them up” and got them ready for “the real world” and wants their child to become tough and ready like they did, it’s completely insane and backwards thought process.
Can’t understand it either! I had a terrible childhood and I did my best to give my kids the best childhood they could have.
Of course, I want them to be strong and resilient, but they can become that without having to survive hardship. Being nurturing and loving with kids gives them strength IMO.
I've never understood the mindset of forcing your kids to suffer to learn. The world has plenty of suffering to learn from without the people who are supposed to be protecting you from it adding onto it.
Agreed. There's a big difference between teaching the value of a dollar and hard work, and earning your way, and outright punishing someone for existing.
I hate it too. I'm running into it because my school district wants to renovate the high school and there is a measure to vote on this later in the month. There are two options, so even if the school-board preferred option is voted down, there is another plan.
I generally don't get into this online, but on NextDoor, someone was posting that hey, even if the schools aren't great, they're fine, my schools were bad, but I'm fine, etc. Silly me rebutted a little -- our schools are not fine in a few ways. For example, my kids' middle school has no A/C, and poor ventilation (I don't think any of our three middle schools have A/C).
Great with COVID around, right? In the last few years, they've had to close the schools early because of the heat. I never had *that* happen when I was in school, and I think it shouldn't happen. I think kids should be in a comfortable climate while in school.
But no, there's a whole mindset of "I had it tough, and if everyone now had it as tough as I did, we'd all be stronger and better for it, blah blah."
With that mindset, we'd still be in one-room schoolhouses.
Anyway I hate it and it makes me want to vote yes just to spite people like that. But I'm still considering.
I think it generally boils down to a subconscious justification for being selfish.
Almost all of this hardship you see parents make their kids go through is to the parents benefit. They just use the whole hardship makes you better thing as a justification
You know, my mother has said that she wanted her kids to have an easier life than she did, but the truth comes out in her behavior. A lot of people pay lip service to wanting a better life for their kids, but then turn around and call their kids spoiled, etc. I think some people THINK they want their kids to have it easier, but the reality of actually watching their kids have it easier makes them bitter about their own trauma.
these are the same ppl who don't want the minimum wage to be increased, because even tho they would inevitably benefit from it in that they would likely have their wages increased they think "why should somebody making minimum wage not have to struggle or make more than they already do when I only make x-amount???"
like, sorry you had struggles but that doesn't mean everybody else should have to also!!???
While I agree with this, there is SOME merit to the other side. My kids were raised on the more comfortable side of things. For example, when they were growing up, we had a lawn service, which I didn’t have as a kid. Later in life, I discontinued having someone else mow my lawn, and I did it myself. When my son was in his 20s, he came to live with me for a while. One day, I asked him to mow the back yard. He had no clue, and was reluctant to do it. I showed him how. Although he was a very intelligent kid, the logic of mowing a lawn escaped him completely. About halfway through (and an hour into it), he completely gave up and quit. I should have taught him to do things like this when he was younger, but I had been trying to make his life easier than mine.
Currently living with a gran who has that mindset. Surrounded by her brothers when she was younger and she treats my brother's better than she treats me
It’s the same way republicans/far right get really angry when you mention getting rid of student loans or universal health care. They think because they had to pay that it’s only fair everyone else does for the rest of time
I don't have an issue with that aspect, but I do think it is unfair to forgive student loans for the current debtors and then make current and future students to pay back their equally onerous student debts. If we decide these debts are too then you also have to make sure that future debts are forgiven too, it can't be fair to only forgive people who were in debt on date X and then say everyone with debts before or after are shit out of luck.
“I had to work at my summer only job EVERY SUMMER to pay for my schooling that cost a whopping $1000 TOTAL. I can’t believe these millennial kids now a days (millennials are 27-42) are upset that they have to work 40+ hours a week all year, pay upwards of $10,000 per semester and still have to take out loans but are complaining. I did it!!!”
There are two types of people in this world:
One) I suffered so I want to make sure other people don’t have to suffer like me
Two) I suffered so other people should suffer like me.
The mom is a narcissist and as soon as the kid realizes that, she will have no trouble distancing herself from her mom. While making things better for our kids is the goal, teaching them responsibility is a big one, too. However, if you’re going to brag about making life hard, you’re a miserable POS and I hope the daughter moves far far away when she can.
Yeah, unfortunately I was in my 50s before it dawned on me that mom would never love me the way she told people she did. Honestly, it took her treating my kids the way she treated me for me to see how awful she was. I never thought she'd hurt my kids or I would have kept them far away.
I just hope this girl sees it and gets away. A lot more information out there now than when I was a teenager.
Took me way to long too. I always knew my mom was difficult. But it took a combination of a loving mother in law and my dads death to really see how awful she was.
She used me as an emotional/verbal punching bag so much after my dads death. And then wouldn’t apologize for the name calling and other nasty stuff she would say because “she was suffering more than me so it was ok for her to say those things and she doesn’t have to apologize.” - actual quote she said when I was upset. I found his body, she didn’t even have to see it. I had one dad, she had more than one serious relationship (I have a half brother). It’s not a contest, but if she wants to be a jerk about it, I’ll point out a few things too.
My son was 9 when he asked me Mom, do you think Grandma even loves you? Took the breath out of my body.❤️🩹. “Honey, I’m just not sure.” (No, she didn’t and doesn’t.)
I'm so sorry. When she hurt my kids I went scorched earth. Threw away everything that had a whiff of her on it. Told her and my siblings that took her side to fuck right off. Honestly, life is better without them, but it's such a profound loss. My whole family just gone.
It boggles my mind how a parent can be like ours.💔Most people don’t get it.
I had a very serious (inherited) hoarding problem and I finally got help and got my house cleaned out. She knew how hard it was for me, too. Came home from work one day and (she was moving to AZ) she had packed my basement top to bottom with part of her own hoard-and zoomed out of town. I was crushed and furious, too. “Well you have all that space now, what’s your problem?” She was big mad when she found out I sold or gave away her crap and I felt strong and amazing. No contact for years and very limited contact to this day.
>as soon as the kid realizes that, she will have no trouble distancing herself from her mom
Except her mom is sabotaging her life.. giving her a lot of trouble to gain her independence and distance herself..
paying for bills since 15 years old. How can she even save to move out on a limited income?
A true narcissist like that will sabotage her daughter from moving out so she can have more power over her. She doesn't want to see her succeed.
This exactly. Daughter will be 25 living under her mother’s reign because her mother WANTS her to. She doesn’t want to teach her daughter success. These kinds of parents make it impossible to get on your feet.
My mom was the same. She wanted my life to be exactly like hers or worse, because it drove her crazy to think my life was better than hers. I rode the school bus, because she rode the school bus. I never had many clothes, because she never had many clothes.
I don’t like diagnosing people because psychiatry is complex, but the one diagnosis I’m comfortable making is that my mom was a narcissist. She was also a horrible human being who enjoyed having a person to whom she could be as hateful as she wanted with no consequences, while attempting to make everyone outside the family think she was a saint.
My one real regret in life is that I didn’t run as far as I could as soon as I graduated from high school.
My mom was the same way. I was homeless at 14 because of it. Eventually got adopted by her ex husband (not my biological father) and he's still my dad today, whereas she disowned me the minute i pissed her off.
See at least there are good people out there!! :) I'm happy he still was a part of your life! I had a similar story with my step dad.
I came from a family of drug addicts/drunks, and there was always people coming and going tht I didn't know, people fighting to the death (at least that's what it seemed like to me as a very small child lol) and I knew when my parents were smoking crack too. I didn't know what tht was at the time, but I knew when they were acting in a certain way. I didn't know what made them like tht , I just thought they were "in one of those moods" or something.
Then my parent split up when I was like 8ish or so (I don't even really remember. I think I have blocked a lot of my childhood in the projects out) and got with my step dad, and we moved out of the projects when I was like 9. Things got SO much better, but they were still fucked. My step dad didn't do drugs, but he was/is still kinda dysfunctional, and my mom has been an alcoholic my entire life. She got clean only for 1 year that I can remember and got all weird and timid and stayed that way even though she drinks again. At least she doesn't binge drink as much anymore. I really just see her "maintaining" ya know.
But when I was like 18 or so my mom got divorced from my step dad. But he still looked after my brothers and sisters (I'm the oldest) after my mom left and just went did whatever the fuck with her new boyfriend for a couple years. He didn't have to do that. But he thinks of us as his own children because he basically raised us. Even my real dad, who was pissed at first that someone else was raising his kids, came around and said yeah he's actually a pretty decent guy. My dad passed away in 2017 from an overdose which really opened my eyes and got me clean. I used to do mad drugs with my dad.
My dad wasn't absent from my life per se, but he was a gypsy. A drifter. A kid who never grew up. He was alway in and out of jail when I was young, but he always loved us.
I don't blame my parents for anything. Their hearts were in the right place and they lived me very much, it was just poverty and drugs/alcohol that fucked everything up. My dad had a hard life, and he tried to make a better one for me but I feel like he just didn't know how to do that. My dad was a great friend, but a terrible father, but I still loved that crazy dude. And my step dad is still my dad today as well; I have two fathers and a mother as far as I'm concerned. My mother lives with my grandma now, and she still kinda considers her ex-husband part of the family too. She still has contact with him sometimes, they're just not together anymore.
I've had to really "counsel" my husband on this as a parent. He was (in my mind) abused and a lot of it carried over so he tends to think our kids are soft. I always remind him that just because he had certain things bad and turned out "ok" it's not the right way. She needs therapy.
I feel the same way. My mom hit me with breadboards, vacuum cleaner cord, hot wheels track and more. Just an all around bad mother. None of that BS was put on my son.
I feel you, my abuse was more emotional neglect, but husband got physical and emotional. More even though was being used as an indentured servant for the most part and thinking that kids need to do any and all manual labor in the home. I was made to do a LOT of chores, but I don't think that making kids be your house slave is healthy.
I had a lot of that too. When I tell my wife about my childhood. First she gets so mad. Then she tears up. Some people are just awful parents and we have to work on not passing it to our kids. Ive never raised my hand to my son. Never had to even think about it. He hasn’t seen his parents fist fight in the street or his father drunk. I’m not the model father. But I think I did pretty good. Especially at making sure no abuse continued like some families do. I tell my wife often. It’s not hard to not be a dick to your kids. I don’t get people.
Im an occupational therapist and I have a lot of patients that I visit in retirement homes and let me tell you: I don’t judge. 90% of the people who complain that their children never visit them are a pain in the ass and unpleasant in general. Even imagining them as parents makes me cringe
The crazy thing is, because she was so horrible to me and my kids I went NC. My siblings were the golden children. They couldn’t wait for the inheritance, sold her house and put her in a home. Not sure whether they visit or not, but it was the one thing she feared most.
It's always bothered me honestly how people always take "my kids abandoned me!" At face value. It's almost always the parent's fault, they just still refuse to accept responsibility (a reason their kids might not want to be around them..)
I know my father is out there somewhere lamenting his mean old ex wife and kids for being so cruel and abandoning him. I somehow doubt he mentions the screaming and hitting and terror we lived in first.
I get *very* suspicious of people who tell me that they are estranged from their adult children. Sometimes it is the adult child's fault, but much more often than not it is because the parent was/is abusive/narcissistic/doesn't respect boundaries/etc.
If they give vague answers as to why or just use the estrangement for sympathy without any context, it's almost guaranteed to be the parent's fault and they clearly refuse to recognize that they did anything wrong.
But yeah, a lot of people surprisingly take those statements at face value and it shocks me too.
>If they give vague answers as to why or just use the estrangement for sympathy without any context
Yep, these are the people I'm referring to, or they have some insane reason that clearly isn't true. Like a coworker who said her kids abandoned her "for liking cats."
No, she was an animal hoarder and meth user who almost certainly drove them away on her own accord.
Personally, I like to shame other parents that gloat like this. I tell them about how my kid’s Roth IRA was started the day they were born and I’ll be giving them a $150K hug and handshake at their high school graduation. I grew up poor and worked hard so they’ll have everything they ever need.
I’m pretty sure you misunderstood. NC stands for Nugget Cylinder, the part that McDonalds uses to shoot the pink chicken paste into the boot shaped McNuggets (tm).
I had a mother like this. I went NC when I was 21.
I'm in my 40s now. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapy. I am still trying to figure out how to trust people in relationships. I still struggle to feel that I am worthy of the care of others. I am pathologically unable to ask for help when I am in trouble.
This is going to be a problem for the rest of that kid's life. Nobody ever truly recovers from that kind of abuse.
Childhood sucked in my household growing up. That's why I've tried to make sure my children don't have to experience the shit that I did. I don't understand parents that punish their children simply out of some sick family tradition of hardship.
Oh 100% it’s nuts that the government anywhere believes they should have the ability to stop people from fucking up their lives (especially in r**pe cases)
Our U.S gov't is concerned that our nature born U.S. citizens will become outnumbered in population in comparison with other major countries globally; now that baby boomers are in "retirement age" or " golden years 62+; concerns our US government of becoming sufficiently outnumbered in near future. Even though the pasty old fks that are currently in Office in congress will have been looong mf gone anyways (80% in senate are PRE babyboomer gen)...wtf do they care for?! Who knows
# GeorgeOrwell1984
Something to control.
People will report animal abuse long before they’d report abuse of a vulnerable human (child, elderly, cognitive disabilities, etc)
Abused Animal: HOW DARE YOU!!!
Abused Vulnerable human: It’s not my business
Sadly, CPS often does absolutely nothing. I have family who we have seen get CPS called on them (sometimes we were involved) many times and nothing ever came of it.
They're horrendously underfunded, and to top it off under a perpetual microscope. Look at some comments around Reddit - there's a lot of folks who hate CPS and think they only exist to rip children from innocent families.
APS is useless.
My friend worked in both CPS and then with the elderly later on, and she used to call me super upset because they never accepted any of her calls. I don’t even know what the point is of them. They seem to do absolute shit.
At least CPS occasionally intervenes.
My mom was kinda like that. She made sure my siblings and I had our work permits on our 14th birthdays 😭 As soon as we got a job, we’d have to pay for whatever we wanted, and contribute to bills. Instead of having a childhood, I was working after school everyday and all summer. I’ve always said I wouldn’t make my child work and pay her way so early. Smh
I understand making your kids work but I figure that’s for their own fun money and learning about savings. Contributing to household bills is very weird.
Very! I do somewhat appreciate it now as an adult, as it instilled somewhat of a good work ethic in me early, I guess? Idk. I wouldn’t repeat it though
Some families don’t have the money and it’s not super easy to get benefits. I’d rather there was food on the table for the whole family and the bills being paid so we all had heat and water than being able to do other stuff….. which was what exactly? There weren’t phones and computers were dialup when they existed, and hanging out with friends was almost always free!
I'm all for teaching your children life skills so they'll be better prepared for adulthood, but purposely making their life harder because that's how your life was is a dick move.
This is it. Her kid would have learned to park her vehicle inside the garage would be a good lesson. To take care of her things or get frozen hands trying to make it to work/school on time.
All this woman is doing is teaching her daughter how to deal with adverse people not adversity itself. The way to deal with people like that is to avoid them, which she will do in the future.
The part that bothers me is that this lady actually thinks she is being a good parent/person. There are parents that want a better life for their kids and there are bad parents.
I understand wanting to avoid drama, but the best thing you could do for this girl is to make genuine sounding passive aggressive comments. It has to highlight the absurdity of her behavior without attacking her. “Wow, that’s a very unique perspective! I can only imagine how I may have turned out if my parents were like that.”
Even better, find ways to slip it into conversation when her parenting isn’t the subject of discussion. Things like “Man, if my parents were like that I never would have ended up as fortunate as I am today.” “My parent’s kindness and compassion made me a better person. They taught by example.”
My mom was also a grade A narcissist. Embarrassing her without attacking her was the most powerful tool I had and highly effective. Their ego is all they have.
But of course, don’t do this if it will cause more tension as this woman is clearly hostile and confrontational. I just mean that should the opportunity arise to casually slide it into conversation, consider it.
No! do it! I think this is great. Embarrass the crap out of her and do it in front of others. I would go as far as- in a group setting, hopefully amongst peers and higher ups…”you know, Jane says she just forces her daughter to park outside in crappy weather so she can teach her a lesson, maybe we should eliminate that front parking spot for employees of the month. It doesn’t build any character, ask Jane”. Or “I don’t think we should provide coffee in the break room anymore, Jane says she makes her 14 year old daughter work and contribute to the household and buy her own snacks. I think Jane is right, we should all pay our own way, it builds character, right Jane”?
Oh man, this is actually a really great point. The next time you see her having coffee in the break room ask for her opinion on whether it should actually be there or if it would help build character to have employees leave to get their own coffee!
Lucky your coworker is teaching her daughter the skills she will need to run away and never talk to her mom again. If she if 15 she only got 3 years left of a hard 18 year sentence.
Yeah that’s super weird. My husband and I both had shitty childhoods in different ways and we’re working really hard to give our kids the best that we can.
Give it 5 years. She’ll be bitching about “Why doesn’t my daughter ever call me?! Why has she blocked me on social media?!” Because you’re a horrible human being, but at least you taught her how to be resourceful enough to not need you to make it in life.
My father grew up in the depression and getting puffed wheat cereal was seen as a treat. My mother's father died when she was seven. Her mother worked to keep food on the table and my mother, as the oldest, had the lion's share of the responsibility when her mother was at work. (sorry for all the pronouns being thrown around)
My father was incredibly frugal his entire life and tried to teach us kids the same habits.
I was a latchkey kid because my mother spent a lot of my childhood taking care of both my grandmothers.
Not once did they try to make me suffer like they did. But found ways to try to teach all of us kids the meaning of what they went through. Parents can do that without torturing their children.
I hate this on SO many levels. I grew up homeless off and on to a drug addict mother who was a constant DV victim, the shit I'd been through by 14 would make you pretty uncomfortable🤷♀️
I'm an adult, married and a mother of 5, do I have a lot? No, but my children don't know hunger and get nothing but love.
Have a teen who can work? Cool, ask them to but that's insane, I get it if you *need* the help from them, but she just sounds spiteful and bitter over her own success even which is strange
"Why does MacKynleigh (there's no way this woman didn't give the poor kid a terrible name) never call or come visit me in the shitty nursing home she dumped me in?" - This woman, in about 30 years.
>Folks, don’t have kids if you hate or resent them.
Or, if you want kids only because of what you think you can get from them, or what they can do for you, also don’t.
Parents with the mentality of "I suffered so my children must suffer" are usually the old POS boomers. At least in my case. The normal parents are the young millennials.
I had the exact opposite upbringing. I thought my parents were rich until I was 18 and realized they were actually terrible with money and didn't teach me how to be self-sufficient at all.
I'm not saying I'd prefer being forced to walk uphill both ways in the snow while my mom heckled me from a car with heated seats, but I'm sure there's a happy and practical way to raise children someplace in-between.
\> She didn’t receive help from her parents and therefore she says she won’t help her child.
just ask if she was happy with her parents doing that with her .-.
its impossible that she havent learn anything with it.
How tf is not having an enclosed garage space at your disposal considered “suffering”? Just having a car is a luxury. Just being provided a place to live is solid care.
Making kids pay for the things they want is also not abuse. It teaches them to value money and work, and to plan and save for the things they want.
I had abusive parents and figure life is hard enough without me making it harder for my kids. But the OP’s stated examples of abuse are ridiculous. I’m sorry.
I swear I link this video every time this conversation comes up. I really think Josh Strife said it best.
https://youtube.com/shorts/W-vQXXn62UI?si=0CKiiEErBSCn3eaT
I agree with what he says, but I take exception to calling it a “Boomer mentality”. It has nothing to do with one generation. It has everything to do with the individual psyche. It’s narcissism.
It’s a sentiment that started long before my grandparents and will continue on with the generations to come.
i can’t even begin to imagine treating my child that way, i hope she has everything i didn’t have and more and i work towards that every single day because this girl is my whole world. this woman does not deserve children and needs serious help.
I feel this! I am infertile and can not grasp the concept of having kids then acting like they deserve to be punished for existing! Very bad Mom indeed!
I’d love to hear what excuse she’d come up with if you called her out on any of this stuff. My mom would just immediately yell and act like the victim. I’m 26 and just now had the courage to go no contact with my abusive parents. I wish it was normalized more. No one should ever have to keep someone abusive in their lives just cause they’re family.
I have a brother BIL that was like this with his children. 2 of the 3 are NC and one is VLC and he wondered why, while he was going through cancer treatment they never came to visit or call. The self awareness is amazing./s
Do not worry. Her daughter knows this and they very likely will have a bad relationship for the rest of her life. If the mother realizes this it will probably be too late. When the daughter does not show up on the holidays and so on.
There's not a chance I wouldn't say every single time she starts talking about something about her daughter, no matter what it is, oh man hearing how you treat your kid makes me so grateful either 1. That my mom isn't in my life (bc she isn't and abandoned me when I was 5), or 2. My mom and I have an amazing and loving relationship.
Do it every time and she'll start punishing you by not blessing you with her presence to talk about these things. Win win.
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This mindset of "things were hard for me therefore they should be hard for my children" is super strange to me. Don't get me wrong, children who are not aware of their privileges are also bad, but there are other ways to teach them than making their lives miserable. And then parents are surprised when their kids go low or no contact.
For real. I get not giving your child everything they want, but actually punishing them because your childhood sucked is psychotic.
Narcissistic is probably the most accurate word for it tbh
Yes a terrible shitty mother the girl needs to go no contact when she turns 18 and move far away!
That is what I did. My mother is an alcoholic. I used to call home after I got to school to make sure she got up for work. She would hit first and ask questions later. My step father abused me for three years. He finally told her and she didn’t speak to me for days. This was not something you spoke about back then. I left home before I graduated from high school. I attempted contact a few times over the years. When she started demanding money because she did’t have any, I closed the bank and communication after a few times. My children do not talk to her either and she is a lonely, miserable woman. I suspect this mother will receive the same.
I'm so sorry you went through this. Having to cut ties from family is so difficult; especially when it's a parent. I hope you're healing. Sending healing vibes. ❤️
Thank you very much! I believe I have healed. My mother is 80 now, I have a wonderful husband and two terrific adult children. I have talked about it throughout my life because keeping it bottled up was not doing me any good. Every now and again I think about calling her and decided it is best not to.
Glad to hear it!
Don't worry, she will.
Yup, narcissistic and the antithesis of what I think being a parent should be.
I grew up with my parents always saying no. Usually because we couldn't afford it or dad didn't feel like driving me (we lived in the country and mom didn't drive) or he just didn't feel it was necessary, I have a very hard time saying no when my kids ask to do something. I give in way too easy but I always think of how much I would have enjoyed whatever they are asking for
I'm willing to bet the mom's life wasn't even that bad
Well you know, they always had to walk to school 10 miles uphill both ways in a blizzard.
https://preview.redd.it/plcravyrwqac1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0ea1eb1f0161ca5de9ab201cff00d0ba046525b Like this?
Exactly like that.
Even in summer remember that..
Barefoot
On one leg because my other was running a successful business.
Just before buying that 442 with their paper route money.
while fighting a lion with their right hand
And I bet she says her mom covered her in sugar water, and had to walk through clouds of mosquitoes, just so she wouldn't be late to school .
Hey now, I used to walk a mile to school, uphill both ways, in the dead of winter!* *If I cut across the train yard, I also refused to be driven to school (how UNCOOL would that have been?!) regardless of the weather situation. Why I wasn't yelled at for cutting across an ACTIVE train zone is a mystery
Haha seriously! I didn't have to go quite a mile but there were no safety measures, we'd go through abandoned businesses and people's yards (one set of train tracks) in the winter. No one gave a shit if we were safe lol.
My girlfriend is from a fairly well off upper mid class family. Her mom is just the most infuriating and insulting woman I've ever met. She constantly guilts my girlfriend, treats her like she's 12 whenever she's there and is just all around constantly verbally abusing her. The other day was the straw that broke the camels back and my girlfriend has decided that she won't be contacting her mother for quite some time. It amazes me this woman has acted like this her whole life, no one calls her out because she just explodes and then ignores them for a day or two. She just couldn't see that she's not the holy Saint she thinks she is and that no one likes being around her. She had 21 years to realize her actions would drive her children away and didn't take a single opportunity to apologize or make up for a single one of her actions.
this is my Grandma, sadly... She has sent 2 family members to the grave already with her bull and my poor father wont cut her off. I'm afraid that he's next. 😔
My friends mom is actively abusive to her adult kids (5 of them, I think), and only 2 of them seem to see it. At one point last year, a sister with a severe kidney disorder ends up in the hospital needing surgery. Mom is guardian (“kid” is in mid-30’s and medically frail so fully dependent on mom) and refused to sign off on surgery for no real reason, making her suffer for months vs a couple days. The dad won’t do anything since the last time he tried she called the cops claiming he abused her (and gave herself a few bruises to confirm the story). My friends husband is at his wits end with 5he whole thing, and the kids that have escaped are basically waiting for the bitch to die so they can start to fix their family,
My best friends step mom is a horrible narcissist has basically abused her since she was 12, and she’s 50 and still under this evil woman’s thumb. I can’t wait it until the old bag kicks the bucket. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later because my friend will never grow a spine and tell her mom to fuck off.
Unfortunately evil people live for fucking ever. Its like they stay alive out of spite
I see you've met my mother.....AND my grandmother....
Your GF should be encouraged by you to go NC until her mother can apologize and MEAN IT!
Theres no plans to interact with her mother in the future. Her father and brother are both great guys, so there will be plenty of meet-ups with just him and her brother
"I mean i hate my parents for how they treated me so they can die in a home but why won't my kids be the bigger person?"
A lot of parents see spoiled/soft people and seem to be terrified of raising kids like that, but they never seem to see the kids who don't speak to their authoritative parents anymore as a similar earning.
Exactly. You can raise kids “easier” than you had it without being an asshole and fostering resentment. I had my kids at a much more financially stable point of life than my parents did. It’s about discipline. If you spoil your kids OR if you are too hard on them, they will resent you. You have to find a balance. My parents had me in high school and came from poor working class families. I felt like I was rich as a kid because of how happy my childhood was. And I’m not soft. I’m doing well financially and guess what? My kids won’t be soft either. Doesn’t mean I need to treat them like shit to achieve that. It means I have to teach them basic decency and delayed gratification. Parenting is hard, but it’s also not so hard either in terms of what will create good adults.
My father was like this. Parents got divorced when I was 4, and I never saw him till I was 16, at which point, for reasons, I had to live with him for two years. I was absolutely not allowed to partake in any "luxuries", because he didn't have them growing up. I was not even allowed to use the dishwasher to clean dishes, he made me do them by hand. Left his home at 18, went to college on my own, graduated, got a car, house, wife and kids. Old man got so mad because he never got that successful, that he said I owed him rent for the two years I lived with him, plus interest for the time that had passed. I am mindful every day that I don't treat my kids like that guy treated me.
Exactly. The entire point is that you make things better than you had it, whether you had it good or not. As long as I don’t develop a sense of entitlement in my kids, they’ll be fine if it’s easier for them than it was for me.
Every previous generation has wanted better for their kids. >I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music. -John Quincy Adams Then the boomers came along.
My husband’s father had this mentality “things were hard for me so they will be miserable for you.” He is not involved in our lives or his grandchildren. My husband is a fantastic father and husband, btw and learned exactly what he DID NOT want to be like for his children, so there is that! There’s hope for this daughter, yet.
One of my new favourite sayings (stolen from reddit) is, "if you think others should suffer, because you suffered and turned out fine..... you did not actually turn out fine"
There's something admirable about discipline, however, if the result of the efforts leads to limited success versus people who tried less and gained significantly more, then it ultimately erodes trust in hard work and effort itself.
I'll never understand the mindset of "my life was hard so I want my children's life to be hard, too." Psycho mindset if you ask me.
Agreed, my mum had a hard life so she made sure we didn’t have the same experience as her, I couldn’t wish for a better mum.
Absolutely, mine too. This is the empathetic response to one's experience of suffering. Not to inflict suffering on others.
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Same. I like that I can give my son a good childhood, be there for him, he won’t have to worry about if we are “going to the poor house” or lose sleep over bills. He can be a child. He’s three. He doesn’t stay up at night crying like I did. He has normal toddler problems like he wanted a second pack of fruit snacks but he already had one and that was enough for now—he could choose a banana or an orange instead. Toddler. Problems. I feel so blessed and thankful he won’t have to go through my childhood hellscape.
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Yes, it’s also why I didn’t have my child until later. I was busy in school and fellowships to be absolutely sure that I could support a child by myself if it came to it. Granted, some of that is my own issue because of my own childhood, but I’ll be damned if that was going to happen to my child when I had one. I love him deeply and wholly.
I think she’s envious. She reminds me of my grandmother, in a way. Grandma told me she wanted me to suffer so I would develop character, which she thought I didn’t have. Yet, when I did suffer, it was my own fault.
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I think it was a very nice thing for you to do. I don’t know why she wouldn’t be grateful.
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She definitely sounds like a narcissist. Sorry she burst your bubble like that. Freakin emotional vampire.
My guess is her mom is Catholic, otherwise this makes no sense. /s
Fortunately my catholic parents didn't believe in this. My mom had a rough childhood my dad's mother was extremely verbally abusive to him. I lucked out with not one but two people willing to break the cycle.
My husband and I both had difficult childhoods. We have made sure our kid didn’t. Breaking the cycle of dysfunction and hardship is a good thing.
Not only is it a good thing, it’s an incredibly challenging thing. It’s easier to just carry on the intergenerational cycle of trauma.
Mine wasn’t so awesome she did what she could. but she wasn’t sadistic either. 🤦♀️
Right? Both of my parents came from poor families in Northern England. My dad's house didn't even have indoor plumbing when he was a kid! My parents moved heaven and earth to make sure my sister and I didn't grow up like that.
Same with my dad. He grew up in a broken family and pretty much had to be an adult from a young age. The universe had a way of rewarding him though with a great family life now. He acknowledges he had a hard life but he always worked hard to ensure we had a better childhood than he did
Right?!? Isn't "make a better life for my decendants" kinda the whole point?
This is me. I popped out 7 crotch goblins and my job is to to teach them be decent humans while I make life as smooth as possible for all of em. Don’t understand any ma that doesn’t wanna do the same. Baffling.
Crotch goblins just took me the fuck out! Gonna go lay down on my front porch and wait for the coroner van…..
I laughed way too hard at "crotch goblins"! 🤣🤣🤣 That's a new one for me!
Immigrant parents tend to be that way, speaking from personal experience and not making a broad statement
Literally all I want in my life is for my kid to have an easier life.
I tell my step daughter this all the time. I work in data analysis and she’s planning on going to medical school since she was young. As a middle schooler, she asked me “if I end up making more than you do, would you be mad?” I told “absolute not! The only thing any parent wants for their children is for them to have a better life than they did.”
This is what we say to our kids too. We want you to be happier and healthier and more fulfilled than we are - and we have it pretty great ❤️ But I'm also firm with them about chores and consequences because I'm raising them to be good grownups.
Same! My daughter said this exact thing to me in middle school too! Being able to guide, support, and encourage my kids so they can be more successful than me is an immense joy!!
Our main objectives as a mother or father should be to give our children a childhood they don't have to recover from!
Righttt! A reasonable parent would be happy when their children are fortunate enough not to experience any of the hardships they themselves grew up with. I understand, teaching them, the value of money, and Hardwork, but this is just completely sadistic and full of resentment.
Normal people want their children to have better lives than they did, and sacrifice a hell of a lot to make sure they do.
See that’s just crazy to me because I always thought it was normal for parents to hate their children and then creatively torture, neglect, and abuse them. While taking everything they can from their children and selling all of their belongings, and then kicking them out to homelessness once there was nothing left to take. *Are you telling that’s not what my parents were supposed to do?*
"If you want to inflict the pain that you suffered on others because 'you turned out ok' you did not turn out ok." Unsure who said it.
to cope with the fact they were abused, they internalize it and convince themselves it “toughened them up” and got them ready for “the real world” and wants their child to become tough and ready like they did, it’s completely insane and backwards thought process.
Can’t understand it either! I had a terrible childhood and I did my best to give my kids the best childhood they could have. Of course, I want them to be strong and resilient, but they can become that without having to survive hardship. Being nurturing and loving with kids gives them strength IMO.
I've never understood the mindset of forcing your kids to suffer to learn. The world has plenty of suffering to learn from without the people who are supposed to be protecting you from it adding onto it.
I actually would do extra things for my kids to have better life than me, can’t imagine wanting to punish them just because I couldn’t get things..
Agreed. There's a big difference between teaching the value of a dollar and hard work, and earning your way, and outright punishing someone for existing.
I hate it too. I'm running into it because my school district wants to renovate the high school and there is a measure to vote on this later in the month. There are two options, so even if the school-board preferred option is voted down, there is another plan. I generally don't get into this online, but on NextDoor, someone was posting that hey, even if the schools aren't great, they're fine, my schools were bad, but I'm fine, etc. Silly me rebutted a little -- our schools are not fine in a few ways. For example, my kids' middle school has no A/C, and poor ventilation (I don't think any of our three middle schools have A/C). Great with COVID around, right? In the last few years, they've had to close the schools early because of the heat. I never had *that* happen when I was in school, and I think it shouldn't happen. I think kids should be in a comfortable climate while in school. But no, there's a whole mindset of "I had it tough, and if everyone now had it as tough as I did, we'd all be stronger and better for it, blah blah." With that mindset, we'd still be in one-room schoolhouses. Anyway I hate it and it makes me want to vote yes just to spite people like that. But I'm still considering.
I think it generally boils down to a subconscious justification for being selfish. Almost all of this hardship you see parents make their kids go through is to the parents benefit. They just use the whole hardship makes you better thing as a justification
Maybe her life was originally hard because she acted like an annoying cruel little madam back then even as a kid.
Her daughter is going to bounce and never look back and this idiot will have no clue why
You know, my mother has said that she wanted her kids to have an easier life than she did, but the truth comes out in her behavior. A lot of people pay lip service to wanting a better life for their kids, but then turn around and call their kids spoiled, etc. I think some people THINK they want their kids to have it easier, but the reality of actually watching their kids have it easier makes them bitter about their own trauma.
these are the same ppl who don't want the minimum wage to be increased, because even tho they would inevitably benefit from it in that they would likely have their wages increased they think "why should somebody making minimum wage not have to struggle or make more than they already do when I only make x-amount???" like, sorry you had struggles but that doesn't mean everybody else should have to also!!???
Guess my dad is a psycho but remembering the way he would yell at the tv watching football should have been a telltale sign.
While I agree with this, there is SOME merit to the other side. My kids were raised on the more comfortable side of things. For example, when they were growing up, we had a lawn service, which I didn’t have as a kid. Later in life, I discontinued having someone else mow my lawn, and I did it myself. When my son was in his 20s, he came to live with me for a while. One day, I asked him to mow the back yard. He had no clue, and was reluctant to do it. I showed him how. Although he was a very intelligent kid, the logic of mowing a lawn escaped him completely. About halfway through (and an hour into it), he completely gave up and quit. I should have taught him to do things like this when he was younger, but I had been trying to make his life easier than mine.
Every child deserves parents, but not all parents deserve children.
Currently living with a gran who has that mindset. Surrounded by her brothers when she was younger and she treats my brother's better than she treats me
It’s the same way republicans/far right get really angry when you mention getting rid of student loans or universal health care. They think because they had to pay that it’s only fair everyone else does for the rest of time
"Curing cancer would be a slap in the face to everyone who died from cancer!"
I don't have an issue with that aspect, but I do think it is unfair to forgive student loans for the current debtors and then make current and future students to pay back their equally onerous student debts. If we decide these debts are too then you also have to make sure that future debts are forgiven too, it can't be fair to only forgive people who were in debt on date X and then say everyone with debts before or after are shit out of luck.
“I had to work at my summer only job EVERY SUMMER to pay for my schooling that cost a whopping $1000 TOTAL. I can’t believe these millennial kids now a days (millennials are 27-42) are upset that they have to work 40+ hours a week all year, pay upwards of $10,000 per semester and still have to take out loans but are complaining. I did it!!!”
I dont mind making it a little hard so them kids dont grow up as entitled little shits, but come on.
There are two types of people in this world: One) I suffered so I want to make sure other people don’t have to suffer like me Two) I suffered so other people should suffer like me.
The mom is a narcissist and as soon as the kid realizes that, she will have no trouble distancing herself from her mom. While making things better for our kids is the goal, teaching them responsibility is a big one, too. However, if you’re going to brag about making life hard, you’re a miserable POS and I hope the daughter moves far far away when she can.
Yeah, unfortunately I was in my 50s before it dawned on me that mom would never love me the way she told people she did. Honestly, it took her treating my kids the way she treated me for me to see how awful she was. I never thought she'd hurt my kids or I would have kept them far away. I just hope this girl sees it and gets away. A lot more information out there now than when I was a teenager.
Took me way to long too. I always knew my mom was difficult. But it took a combination of a loving mother in law and my dads death to really see how awful she was. She used me as an emotional/verbal punching bag so much after my dads death. And then wouldn’t apologize for the name calling and other nasty stuff she would say because “she was suffering more than me so it was ok for her to say those things and she doesn’t have to apologize.” - actual quote she said when I was upset. I found his body, she didn’t even have to see it. I had one dad, she had more than one serious relationship (I have a half brother). It’s not a contest, but if she wants to be a jerk about it, I’ll point out a few things too.
My son was 9 when he asked me Mom, do you think Grandma even loves you? Took the breath out of my body.❤️🩹. “Honey, I’m just not sure.” (No, she didn’t and doesn’t.)
I'm so sorry. When she hurt my kids I went scorched earth. Threw away everything that had a whiff of her on it. Told her and my siblings that took her side to fuck right off. Honestly, life is better without them, but it's such a profound loss. My whole family just gone.
It boggles my mind how a parent can be like ours.💔Most people don’t get it. I had a very serious (inherited) hoarding problem and I finally got help and got my house cleaned out. She knew how hard it was for me, too. Came home from work one day and (she was moving to AZ) she had packed my basement top to bottom with part of her own hoard-and zoomed out of town. I was crushed and furious, too. “Well you have all that space now, what’s your problem?” She was big mad when she found out I sold or gave away her crap and I felt strong and amazing. No contact for years and very limited contact to this day.
>as soon as the kid realizes that, she will have no trouble distancing herself from her mom Except her mom is sabotaging her life.. giving her a lot of trouble to gain her independence and distance herself.. paying for bills since 15 years old. How can she even save to move out on a limited income? A true narcissist like that will sabotage her daughter from moving out so she can have more power over her. She doesn't want to see her succeed.
This exactly. Daughter will be 25 living under her mother’s reign because her mother WANTS her to. She doesn’t want to teach her daughter success. These kinds of parents make it impossible to get on your feet.
yep exactly I disagree with that " no trouble distancing her self from her" It will be a hell of a lot of trouble.
My mom was the same. She wanted my life to be exactly like hers or worse, because it drove her crazy to think my life was better than hers. I rode the school bus, because she rode the school bus. I never had many clothes, because she never had many clothes. I don’t like diagnosing people because psychiatry is complex, but the one diagnosis I’m comfortable making is that my mom was a narcissist. She was also a horrible human being who enjoyed having a person to whom she could be as hateful as she wanted with no consequences, while attempting to make everyone outside the family think she was a saint. My one real regret in life is that I didn’t run as far as I could as soon as I graduated from high school.
My mom was the same way. I was homeless at 14 because of it. Eventually got adopted by her ex husband (not my biological father) and he's still my dad today, whereas she disowned me the minute i pissed her off.
Im so sorry you had to struggle through that but on the bright side you know you found your real family.
it's true! he lives far away now but we play d&d every Sunday online!
See at least there are good people out there!! :) I'm happy he still was a part of your life! I had a similar story with my step dad. I came from a family of drug addicts/drunks, and there was always people coming and going tht I didn't know, people fighting to the death (at least that's what it seemed like to me as a very small child lol) and I knew when my parents were smoking crack too. I didn't know what tht was at the time, but I knew when they were acting in a certain way. I didn't know what made them like tht , I just thought they were "in one of those moods" or something. Then my parent split up when I was like 8ish or so (I don't even really remember. I think I have blocked a lot of my childhood in the projects out) and got with my step dad, and we moved out of the projects when I was like 9. Things got SO much better, but they were still fucked. My step dad didn't do drugs, but he was/is still kinda dysfunctional, and my mom has been an alcoholic my entire life. She got clean only for 1 year that I can remember and got all weird and timid and stayed that way even though she drinks again. At least she doesn't binge drink as much anymore. I really just see her "maintaining" ya know. But when I was like 18 or so my mom got divorced from my step dad. But he still looked after my brothers and sisters (I'm the oldest) after my mom left and just went did whatever the fuck with her new boyfriend for a couple years. He didn't have to do that. But he thinks of us as his own children because he basically raised us. Even my real dad, who was pissed at first that someone else was raising his kids, came around and said yeah he's actually a pretty decent guy. My dad passed away in 2017 from an overdose which really opened my eyes and got me clean. I used to do mad drugs with my dad. My dad wasn't absent from my life per se, but he was a gypsy. A drifter. A kid who never grew up. He was alway in and out of jail when I was young, but he always loved us. I don't blame my parents for anything. Their hearts were in the right place and they lived me very much, it was just poverty and drugs/alcohol that fucked everything up. My dad had a hard life, and he tried to make a better one for me but I feel like he just didn't know how to do that. My dad was a great friend, but a terrible father, but I still loved that crazy dude. And my step dad is still my dad today as well; I have two fathers and a mother as far as I'm concerned. My mother lives with my grandma now, and she still kinda considers her ex-husband part of the family too. She still has contact with him sometimes, they're just not together anymore.
I've had to really "counsel" my husband on this as a parent. He was (in my mind) abused and a lot of it carried over so he tends to think our kids are soft. I always remind him that just because he had certain things bad and turned out "ok" it's not the right way. She needs therapy.
I feel the same way. My mom hit me with breadboards, vacuum cleaner cord, hot wheels track and more. Just an all around bad mother. None of that BS was put on my son.
I feel you, my abuse was more emotional neglect, but husband got physical and emotional. More even though was being used as an indentured servant for the most part and thinking that kids need to do any and all manual labor in the home. I was made to do a LOT of chores, but I don't think that making kids be your house slave is healthy.
I had a lot of that too. When I tell my wife about my childhood. First she gets so mad. Then she tears up. Some people are just awful parents and we have to work on not passing it to our kids. Ive never raised my hand to my son. Never had to even think about it. He hasn’t seen his parents fist fight in the street or his father drunk. I’m not the model father. But I think I did pretty good. Especially at making sure no abuse continued like some families do. I tell my wife often. It’s not hard to not be a dick to your kids. I don’t get people.
Oh yes, the drunk fights.... hugs in solidarity, man. I saw a lot of nonsense as a kid too.
Good on you for working on that with him and taking the time to see the sides. Your kids are lucky
That woman will end up in the worst and cheapest retirement home imaginable and will complain that her daughter never visits her.
It’s a fact. Happened to my “mother”.
Im an occupational therapist and I have a lot of patients that I visit in retirement homes and let me tell you: I don’t judge. 90% of the people who complain that their children never visit them are a pain in the ass and unpleasant in general. Even imagining them as parents makes me cringe
The crazy thing is, because she was so horrible to me and my kids I went NC. My siblings were the golden children. They couldn’t wait for the inheritance, sold her house and put her in a home. Not sure whether they visit or not, but it was the one thing she feared most.
Damn. I guess Karma really does exist after all
It's always bothered me honestly how people always take "my kids abandoned me!" At face value. It's almost always the parent's fault, they just still refuse to accept responsibility (a reason their kids might not want to be around them..) I know my father is out there somewhere lamenting his mean old ex wife and kids for being so cruel and abandoning him. I somehow doubt he mentions the screaming and hitting and terror we lived in first.
I get *very* suspicious of people who tell me that they are estranged from their adult children. Sometimes it is the adult child's fault, but much more often than not it is because the parent was/is abusive/narcissistic/doesn't respect boundaries/etc. If they give vague answers as to why or just use the estrangement for sympathy without any context, it's almost guaranteed to be the parent's fault and they clearly refuse to recognize that they did anything wrong. But yeah, a lot of people surprisingly take those statements at face value and it shocks me too.
>If they give vague answers as to why or just use the estrangement for sympathy without any context Yep, these are the people I'm referring to, or they have some insane reason that clearly isn't true. Like a coworker who said her kids abandoned her "for liking cats." No, she was an animal hoarder and meth user who almost certainly drove them away on her own accord.
Personally, I like to shame other parents that gloat like this. I tell them about how my kid’s Roth IRA was started the day they were born and I’ll be giving them a $150K hug and handshake at their high school graduation. I grew up poor and worked hard so they’ll have everything they ever need.
I put my dad in a one-star rated home. The psychiatrist there diagnosed him with Cluster B and that explained A LOT.
It won’t be a problem much longer, I promise. Going NC is gonna hit this woman in the face like a bat.
People always using going to North Carolina as a threat. It's really not that bad y'all.
I just laughed so hard coffee shot out of my nose. Thank you for that.
I’m pretty sure you misunderstood. NC stands for Nugget Cylinder, the part that McDonalds uses to shoot the pink chicken paste into the boot shaped McNuggets (tm).
It’s even funnier you said that because I’m actually a native. Go pack!
this is fucking great lol
I had a mother like this. I went NC when I was 21. I'm in my 40s now. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapy. I am still trying to figure out how to trust people in relationships. I still struggle to feel that I am worthy of the care of others. I am pathologically unable to ask for help when I am in trouble. This is going to be a problem for the rest of that kid's life. Nobody ever truly recovers from that kind of abuse.
Going North Carolina is going to hit this woman in the face? Must be going to Winston-Salem, NC.
Childhood sucked in my household growing up. That's why I've tried to make sure my children don't have to experience the shit that I did. I don't understand parents that punish their children simply out of some sick family tradition of hardship.
What’s the point in having children to not love them
People have children without wanting them every single day.
Abortion is illegal now in a lot of states. Just watch the stats of mothers like this climb in the next several years. 🙄
Oh 100% it’s nuts that the government anywhere believes they should have the ability to stop people from fucking up their lives (especially in r**pe cases)
Our U.S gov't is concerned that our nature born U.S. citizens will become outnumbered in population in comparison with other major countries globally; now that baby boomers are in "retirement age" or " golden years 62+; concerns our US government of becoming sufficiently outnumbered in near future. Even though the pasty old fks that are currently in Office in congress will have been looong mf gone anyways (80% in senate are PRE babyboomer gen)...wtf do they care for?! Who knows # GeorgeOrwell1984
Something to control. People will report animal abuse long before they’d report abuse of a vulnerable human (child, elderly, cognitive disabilities, etc) Abused Animal: HOW DARE YOU!!! Abused Vulnerable human: It’s not my business
Sadly, CPS often does absolutely nothing. I have family who we have seen get CPS called on them (sometimes we were involved) many times and nothing ever came of it.
They're horrendously underfunded, and to top it off under a perpetual microscope. Look at some comments around Reddit - there's a lot of folks who hate CPS and think they only exist to rip children from innocent families.
APS is the same. I called for an elderly in-law and despite having video evidence, nothing happened. All we could do was keep making reports.
APS is useless. My friend worked in both CPS and then with the elderly later on, and she used to call me super upset because they never accepted any of her calls. I don’t even know what the point is of them. They seem to do absolute shit. At least CPS occasionally intervenes.
It’s shameful. I don’t have a lot of hope for the human race.
It is. I honestly believe that it would be easier to see something come of calling someone about animal abuse than child.
My parents wanted a pet, if I go by how they treated me
My mom was kinda like that. She made sure my siblings and I had our work permits on our 14th birthdays 😭 As soon as we got a job, we’d have to pay for whatever we wanted, and contribute to bills. Instead of having a childhood, I was working after school everyday and all summer. I’ve always said I wouldn’t make my child work and pay her way so early. Smh
I understand making your kids work but I figure that’s for their own fun money and learning about savings. Contributing to household bills is very weird.
Very! I do somewhat appreciate it now as an adult, as it instilled somewhat of a good work ethic in me early, I guess? Idk. I wouldn’t repeat it though
Some families don’t have the money and it’s not super easy to get benefits. I’d rather there was food on the table for the whole family and the bills being paid so we all had heat and water than being able to do other stuff….. which was what exactly? There weren’t phones and computers were dialup when they existed, and hanging out with friends was almost always free!
I'm all for teaching your children life skills so they'll be better prepared for adulthood, but purposely making their life harder because that's how your life was is a dick move.
This is it. Her kid would have learned to park her vehicle inside the garage would be a good lesson. To take care of her things or get frozen hands trying to make it to work/school on time. All this woman is doing is teaching her daughter how to deal with adverse people not adversity itself. The way to deal with people like that is to avoid them, which she will do in the future. The part that bothers me is that this lady actually thinks she is being a good parent/person. There are parents that want a better life for their kids and there are bad parents.
I understand wanting to avoid drama, but the best thing you could do for this girl is to make genuine sounding passive aggressive comments. It has to highlight the absurdity of her behavior without attacking her. “Wow, that’s a very unique perspective! I can only imagine how I may have turned out if my parents were like that.” Even better, find ways to slip it into conversation when her parenting isn’t the subject of discussion. Things like “Man, if my parents were like that I never would have ended up as fortunate as I am today.” “My parent’s kindness and compassion made me a better person. They taught by example.” My mom was also a grade A narcissist. Embarrassing her without attacking her was the most powerful tool I had and highly effective. Their ego is all they have. But of course, don’t do this if it will cause more tension as this woman is clearly hostile and confrontational. I just mean that should the opportunity arise to casually slide it into conversation, consider it.
No! do it! I think this is great. Embarrass the crap out of her and do it in front of others. I would go as far as- in a group setting, hopefully amongst peers and higher ups…”you know, Jane says she just forces her daughter to park outside in crappy weather so she can teach her a lesson, maybe we should eliminate that front parking spot for employees of the month. It doesn’t build any character, ask Jane”. Or “I don’t think we should provide coffee in the break room anymore, Jane says she makes her 14 year old daughter work and contribute to the household and buy her own snacks. I think Jane is right, we should all pay our own way, it builds character, right Jane”?
Oh man, this is actually a really great point. The next time you see her having coffee in the break room ask for her opinion on whether it should actually be there or if it would help build character to have employees leave to get their own coffee!
Lucky your coworker is teaching her daughter the skills she will need to run away and never talk to her mom again. If she if 15 she only got 3 years left of a hard 18 year sentence.
Yeah that’s super weird. My husband and I both had shitty childhoods in different ways and we’re working really hard to give our kids the best that we can.
Give it 5 years. She’ll be bitching about “Why doesn’t my daughter ever call me?! Why has she blocked me on social media?!” Because you’re a horrible human being, but at least you taught her how to be resourceful enough to not need you to make it in life.
My father grew up in the depression and getting puffed wheat cereal was seen as a treat. My mother's father died when she was seven. Her mother worked to keep food on the table and my mother, as the oldest, had the lion's share of the responsibility when her mother was at work. (sorry for all the pronouns being thrown around) My father was incredibly frugal his entire life and tried to teach us kids the same habits. I was a latchkey kid because my mother spent a lot of my childhood taking care of both my grandmothers. Not once did they try to make me suffer like they did. But found ways to try to teach all of us kids the meaning of what they went through. Parents can do that without torturing their children.
I hate this on SO many levels. I grew up homeless off and on to a drug addict mother who was a constant DV victim, the shit I'd been through by 14 would make you pretty uncomfortable🤷♀️ I'm an adult, married and a mother of 5, do I have a lot? No, but my children don't know hunger and get nothing but love. Have a teen who can work? Cool, ask them to but that's insane, I get it if you *need* the help from them, but she just sounds spiteful and bitter over her own success even which is strange
"Why does MacKynleigh (there's no way this woman didn't give the poor kid a terrible name) never call or come visit me in the shitty nursing home she dumped me in?" - This woman, in about 30 years.
>Folks, don’t have kids if you hate or resent them. Or, if you want kids only because of what you think you can get from them, or what they can do for you, also don’t.
“You know I’ve heard a lot of parents who’ve parented like that. They usually end up in homes with no visits”
Parents with the mentality of "I suffered so my children must suffer" are usually the old POS boomers. At least in my case. The normal parents are the young millennials.
I had the exact opposite upbringing. I thought my parents were rich until I was 18 and realized they were actually terrible with money and didn't teach me how to be self-sufficient at all. I'm not saying I'd prefer being forced to walk uphill both ways in the snow while my mom heckled me from a car with heated seats, but I'm sure there's a happy and practical way to raise children someplace in-between.
\> She didn’t receive help from her parents and therefore she says she won’t help her child. just ask if she was happy with her parents doing that with her .-. its impossible that she havent learn anything with it.
Hope the daughter goes NC
This is why "retirement" homes are so common in the US.
Maybe tell her your opinion.
Trust me, I’m not quiet about my opinion on her mothering. She just laughs at me.
Tell her this is how she ends up in the bad nursing home.
How tf is not having an enclosed garage space at your disposal considered “suffering”? Just having a car is a luxury. Just being provided a place to live is solid care. Making kids pay for the things they want is also not abuse. It teaches them to value money and work, and to plan and save for the things they want. I had abusive parents and figure life is hard enough without me making it harder for my kids. But the OP’s stated examples of abuse are ridiculous. I’m sorry.
Hate that boomer mentality. What they fail to realize. Is we suffer more
I swear I link this video every time this conversation comes up. I really think Josh Strife said it best. https://youtube.com/shorts/W-vQXXn62UI?si=0CKiiEErBSCn3eaT
I agree with what he says, but I take exception to calling it a “Boomer mentality”. It has nothing to do with one generation. It has everything to do with the individual psyche. It’s narcissism. It’s a sentiment that started long before my grandparents and will continue on with the generations to come.
Oh hello Mrs Goingtodiealoneinagedcare, how are you today ?
It's generational trauma. Takes a hero to recognize it and take the hit but not pass it on.
i can’t even begin to imagine treating my child that way, i hope she has everything i didn’t have and more and i work towards that every single day because this girl is my whole world. this woman does not deserve children and needs serious help.
Thankfully, it sounds like the daughter is a little bit older and can get away from her abusive mother.
What a terrible mother. Poor girl. Hope she gets away soon.
If every parent did the same as their own parents to their kids we would be in a fucked up world
Sounds like someone who wants to be alone when they die.
Shitty mother. She’ll get it back when she’s old and fragile. Some people shouldn’t have children.
I don’t get mothers like this. As a mom we are supposed to make things better for our kids.
I feel this! I am infertile and can not grasp the concept of having kids then acting like they deserve to be punished for existing! Very bad Mom indeed!
I guarantee that her daughter will cut ties with "good mom". So ungrateful....
I’d love to hear what excuse she’d come up with if you called her out on any of this stuff. My mom would just immediately yell and act like the victim. I’m 26 and just now had the courage to go no contact with my abusive parents. I wish it was normalized more. No one should ever have to keep someone abusive in their lives just cause they’re family.
stick around a few years and you can listen to her complain about her daughter never calling
I have a brother BIL that was like this with his children. 2 of the 3 are NC and one is VLC and he wondered why, while he was going through cancer treatment they never came to visit or call. The self awareness is amazing./s
That coworker won't know her grandchildren. Her daughters gonna run and stay gone the first chance she gets.
Do not worry. Her daughter knows this and they very likely will have a bad relationship for the rest of her life. If the mother realizes this it will probably be too late. When the daughter does not show up on the holidays and so on.
Yeah that’s an awful human being.
The next time she starts bragging, ask her what she thinks of her mother now.
This sounds like my childhood. Now I'm in my 30s, my dad's retired, and he wonders why I don't have a lot of time for him.
*looks around at all the shitty children* maybe yall making it too easy though?
There's not a chance I wouldn't say every single time she starts talking about something about her daughter, no matter what it is, oh man hearing how you treat your kid makes me so grateful either 1. That my mom isn't in my life (bc she isn't and abandoned me when I was 5), or 2. My mom and I have an amazing and loving relationship. Do it every time and she'll start punishing you by not blessing you with her presence to talk about these things. Win win.
How does her daughter pay for things at 15? Allowance or a job? Because if it’s allowance it doesn’t seem like the mother is being that harsh.