When did you start to catch on to your parents' BS?

[Anonymous]

Assuming your parents have some BS, I'm sure some people don't. But most people do! I know I do and my kids will figure it out eventually. I'm talking about the stuff that your parents confidently assert to you as authoritative fact when you are a child, and then eventually you realize is just stuff they made up, maybe to make themselves look better or feel better about something inconvenient.

Example: my parents strongly assert that buying a home built before 1970 is a bad idea because then you will have to deal with "old house problems" and it will cost you more in the long run and be less pleasant to live there. It took me until my 30s to realize that this is a story my parents tell themselves because they bought a home in new, tract housing in the early 80s and got a bunch of flak from their families for buying a "cheap" new home (and it was much cheaper than the older homes their parents and siblings lived in) instead of either saving up or stretching to buy an older house in an established neighborhood. Like this entire elaborate line of thinking is basically a defense mechanism against criticism they (unfairly! I agree it was unfair for their family to criticize!) received over 40 years ago. But the still hold this line, despite having sold that old tract home over 20 years ago (and building two expensive custom homes since).

My parents have lots of these and I think I sort of started to cotton on when I was in my mid-20s, but it wasn't until my mid-30s and had kids of my own that I realized there were just entire philosophies and fact patterns they fully made up and then reiterated through my entire childhood for totally selfish reasons. That if you have kids, they should do the bulk of household chores so "they learn." That private education is a scam. That there's no point in taking classes in things like music or writing because "either you're already good or not, no one can teach you that stuff." Just frankly insane ideas. Some of them they inherited from their parents, some they made up on their own.

I'm now mid-40s and I've realized my parents knew next to nothing when I was a kid (they were practically kids themselves) and have had to reconsider a lot of what I learned from them growing up, especially about family life, education, and relationships. So much BS!

[Anonymous]

I think you have issues that can be better addressed in therapy

[Anonymous]

So far my parents’ BS is 100% defense mechanisms to trauma they experienced as kids. But there is a lot and it definitely informed a lot of my thinking. It is taking a long time to identify and “unlearn.”

[Anonymous]

Interesting. My parents aren’t really like this. They have some stronger feelings about various things but they don’t insist that we adhere to them.

[Anonymous]

Most people are parents. Therefore parents will generally be correct and incorrect about the same as the average person, have the same biases as the average person, etc.

The younger generation might be more knowledgeable about certain subjects, but on average parents are going to be as smart as their parents, have the same capabilities and shortcomings, and so on.

[Anonymous]

As a teen. They were cringe. So cringe. I left as soon as I could and then only saw them infrequently on vacation, which was less stressful. Now they're in the 70s, and even though they're just as cringe and socially awkward as before, their old age now excuses them vis-a-vis wait staff and medical personnel, etc. They're now roughly similar to befuddled senior people in their 80s. No one knows they were like this from the beginning...

[Anonymous]

When my mother would stand in front of me smoking a cigarette while telling me never to smoke. I could tell pretty early on what a bunch of hypocritical BS that was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most people are parents. Therefore parents will generally be correct and incorrect about the same as the average person, have the same biases as the average person, etc.

The younger generation might be more knowledgeable about certain subjects, but on average parents are going to be as smart as their parents, have the same capabilities and shortcomings, and so on.

Except we're talking about adults who are outside the bounds of average, with grown children who have managed to be more functional. I am more functional and socially appropriate than my mother, and my daughter is more functional than me. My son reverts and is less functional than anyone in the family so far: he has diagnosed autism and inattentive ADHD, with low processing speed. I suspect we all have some tendency, but his are so prominent that he has a clinical diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

The real estate example is not a good one. Older homes usually do have more problems for a homeowner including lead paint, asbestos and galvanized steel pipes.

[Anonymous]

I feel this so deeply. In my 40s and embarrassingly just fully starting to grasp this. It’s hard because it’s not all wrong - there’s good stuff with bad stuff mixed in.

[Anonymous]

When I was 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my mother would stand in front of me smoking a cigarette while telling me never to smoke. I could tell pretty early on what a bunch of hypocritical BS that was.

Wasn’t she in a unique position to know how bad it is to start smoking? Because she knows the impact and how hard it is to quit?

[Anonymous]

When do you think your kids will realize that about you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming your parents have some BS, I'm sure some people don't. But most people do! I know I do and my kids will figure it out eventually. I'm talking about the stuff that your parents confidently assert to you as authoritative fact when you are a child, and then eventually you realize is just stuff they made up, maybe to make themselves look better or feel better about something inconvenient.

Example: my parents strongly assert that buying a home built before 1970 is a bad idea because then you will have to deal with "old house problems" and it will cost you more in the long run and be less pleasant to live there. It took me until my 30s to realize that this is a story my parents tell themselves because they bought a home in new, tract housing in the early 80s and got a bunch of flak from their families for buying a "cheap" new home (and it was much cheaper than the older homes their parents and siblings lived in) instead of either saving up or stretching to buy an older house in an established neighborhood. Like this entire elaborate line of thinking is basically a defense mechanism against criticism they (unfairly! I agree it was unfair for their family to criticize!) received over 40 years ago. But the still hold this line, despite having sold that old tract home over 20 years ago (and building two expensive custom homes since).

My parents have lots of these and I think I sort of started to cotton on when I was in my mid-20s, but it wasn't until my mid-30s and had kids of my own that I realized there were just entire philosophies and fact patterns they fully made up and then reiterated through my entire childhood for totally selfish reasons.
That if you have kids, they should do the bulk of household chores so "they learn." That private education is a scam. That there's no point in taking classes in things like music or writing because "either you're already good or not, no one can teach you that stuff." Just frankly insane ideas. Some of them they inherited from their parents, some they made up on their own.

I'm now mid-40s and I've realized my parents knew next to nothing when I was a kid (they were practically kids themselves) and have had to reconsider a lot of what I learned from them growing up, especially about family life, education, and relationships. So much BS!

Granted, kids will learn when being forced to do something day in and out, but it usually makes them very resentful.
Then, when they have their own kids, they'll usually go in the far opposite direction as far as chores, because they want their own kids to experience the fun childhood that they never got to have, because they were always so busy slaving away doing housework.

Btw, if your parents were forcing you to do all of the chores, how did you even know you were doing them right?
Did they at least teach you how to do it first?

What was your mother doing while you kids were slaving away, Cinderella?

[Anonymous]

Late 20's - early 30s,I started to, but having kids was what made me realize. And I finally grew up when they threatened to not come to my child's baptism because I didn't choose who they wanted to be the Godparent. I really really sought their approval before that.