Appreciation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I appreciated my parents till I got married and spouse helped me realize how horrible they were to me and then when I became a parent, just how crummy they were. Maybe there is a good reason.

Not sure if he has made you happier with that addition. For sure it sounds like he has distanced you from your family of origin. Depending upon how dysfunctional they were, that could be healthy. I would trust the input of a mental health professional more though. (He could just be trying to control you.)

I realize that I benefitted greatly from having parents who provided me with unconditional love and a stable home. They also demonstrated good values and put our family first. Those are definitely lessons that I have carried through to raising my children.

He is the furthest person from controlling but let me see my parents were. He has given me choices and freedom vs. with my parents its all their way or no way. The irony is they want me to be grateful for them paying for college when they paid for it with grandparent money, for example. Now they want me to be grateful to them when they never babysit, never get gifts for my kids for their birthdays, or even see us or the grandkids as they have other priorities. Nope, I'm done. I am very happy to have a spouse who supports me and helped me see how damaging they are. If I don't do it their way, I'm brutally attacked. Even if I do it they're way its never good enough. Once I could see it and he helped me stand up to them, I'm much much happier. Ironically they threaten me all the time with inheritance and say I'm disowned so who knows what the truth is but I'd rather them keep their money and me keep my happiness by not having them control me with money that doesn't exist nor do I need.

I don't need a therapist to create more drama. I needed someone like my husband to agree that they were toxic and help me out of the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your AC child express appreciation for your parenting? I don't expect constant praise of course. It was a labor of love, but I guess I hoped that by her age (recent college grad) she would start to appreciate the family she has. The sacrifices that have been made. The quality of life we have given her. She just seems to take it all for granted, which is a little disappointing.

Is it, though? I see it as a mark of success that my kids believe that every family is normal, emotionally calm and loving. Why would I want them to know the hell I went through to give it to them? The whole point was to shield them from that hard stuff. (And if you did shield them from it, it isn’t their fault that they didn’t know about it.)

Interesting perspective. I just think that people walk around the world happier if they feel grateful for their good fortune.

Honestly that sounds dysfunctional and what an emotionally abusive person would say. It's one thing for people to be happy and enjoy their childhoods, it's another for a parent to tell them to be grateful.

I think that, generally, people who recognize their good fortune (which includes a hefty dose of luck) and are grateful are happier, but I don't think that it's great for parents to expect their kids to be grateful for their parenting. As we get older, we naturally do develop an understanding of what parenting involves, and we figure out how our parents sacrificed for us, we compare our childhoods to others and see the ways in which we were fortunate. But that's not really a perspective that a young adult has yet. And, frankly, kids SHOULD be able to take for granted that their parents love them unconditionally and will do their best to provide them with the things they need.

Except not all parents love them unconditionally, mine don't nor do their best. We do but I had a child because I wanted a child, for my needs, not theirs. We do the best we can but I don't expect gratitude. I just want them to do the same for their kids.

[Anonymous]

I do think parents need to teach their kids gratitude, and that appreciation for one's parents might flow from that. Eventually.

[Anonymous]

My college-aged children do express appreciation for specific acts/things we provide, both regularly (cooking dinner) and for specific things (such as paying for pricey college, taking time off to drive them to far-away summer internship, etc.)

I don't think many people have the perspective to be thankful for the entire parenting experience until they are going through it themselves.

I do suspect that my kids appreciate the upbringing they had when they compare it to friends/neighbors (ugly divorces, lack of support for LGBT kid, controlling parents, abuse) but they have not expressed it that way to us, which I am okay with. Seeing my kids as happy, healthy, independent people is thanks enough for me.

[Anonymous]

It's great if they have gratitude and express it. If they are good humans then they should. However, don't be too sensitive about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your AC child express appreciation for your parenting? I don't expect constant praise of course. It was a labor of love, but I guess I hoped that by her age (recent college grad) she would start to appreciate the family she has. The sacrifices that have been made. The quality of life we have given her. She just seems to take it all for granted, which is a little disappointing.

Is it, though? I see it as a mark of success that my kids believe that every family is normal, emotionally calm and loving. Why would I want them to know the hell I went through to give it to them? The whole point was to shield them from that hard stuff. (And if you did shield them from it, it isn’t their fault that they didn’t know about it.)

Interesting perspective. I just think that people walk around the world happier if they feel grateful for their good fortune.

Honestly that sounds dysfunctional and what an emotionally abusive person would say. It's one thing for people to be happy and enjoy their childhoods, it's another for a parent to tell them to be grateful.

I thought the poster you're talking about is talking about appreciating one's blessings generally, not being told to do so by someone who's expecting a thank-you, which I agree seems like a particularly awful form of brightsiding.

My kids are appreciative of the things we've done and they express that gratitude, but I do think a lot of that is the result of their having friends whose parents are less good at impersonating laid-back, noncontrolling people than we are (do we have a lot of notions about what are kids should do? yes! do we work really hard at shutting up about it? also yes!)

[Anonymous]

Don't expect or demand gratitude, its a gift not reimbursement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't expect or demand gratitude, its a gift not reimbursement.

What kind of person accepts a gift in silence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your AC child express appreciation for your parenting? I don't expect constant praise of course. It was a labor of love, but I guess I hoped that by her age (recent college grad) she would start to appreciate the family she has. The sacrifices that have been made. The quality of life we have given her. She just seems to take it all for granted, which is a little disappointing.

Is it, though? I see it as a mark of success that my kids believe that every family is normal, emotionally calm and loving. Why would I want them to know the hell I went through to give it to them? The whole point was to shield them from that hard stuff. (And if you did shield them from it, it isn’t their fault that they didn’t know about it.)

Same. I was seriously in my 30s before I really understood the awful childhoods that some kids had. Abuse, addiction, divorce, abandonment, screaming. It sort of blew my mind. My children are little, but they don't even think criminals are real ("oh, they're all in jail") and my dd commented that she didn't understand how a classmate only had a single mom and not a dad. She cried herself to sleep when she realized that some people get divorced and don't love each other forever (she's seen waaaayyy too many disney movies!)

I didn't appreciate my parents as much until I had kids. I always loved them, but just didn't understand how unbelievably hard it is to raise children.

In your 30s? Were you a hermit? Stories of child abuse is everywhere--on the news, in movies and tv shows, etc. I don't know how old you are, but many typical "kid shows" even dealt with topics of abuse and neglect--"Punky Brewster" was abandoned by her mom in a shopping center. Penny from "Good Times" was burned with a hot iron by her mom. Movies like "Precious" dealt with extreme physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

[Anonymous]

But the conversation is not about expecting kids to be grateful they were not abused.

It is more about adults realizing that a supportive/healthy family is the ultimate blessing. And voicing that while they are still on this planet to know how much they are loved and appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I also think I didn’t fully appreciate my parents until I had my own child. And appreciated them much more when I got to the rough teenage years. I wish they were still living so I could sit down and have an amazing conversation with them about how amazing they were.

[Anonymous]

Our three AC’s don’t need to say it because they show it in many ways one being that they love getting together with us. We never spoiled them and we taught them to make their own way and they have all succeeded. We paid for their educations but they have been on their own since then. I’m sure they are thankful that we are their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But the conversation is not about expecting kids to be grateful they were not abused.

It is more about adults realizing that a supportive/healthy family is the ultimate blessing. And voicing that while they are still on this planet to know how much they are loved and appreciated.

I am almost 40, and I am now just realizing that a supportive/ healthy family is the ultimate blessing. I have been surrounded by these kids of families mostly. So it never even occurred to me to think about it.

I am now close( indirectly- he married a close friend of mine) who comes from an extremely dysfunctional family. He does not stand a chance: he is a mess.

Now u realize just how cursed he is to be born in such a family. It's easy to think theoretically about people like this. You really begin to appreciate yours when you are close to someone from such a family.

OP, I hope your daughter never gets to witness the kinds of things it takes to open her eyes.

[Anonymous]

I had a close friend who was Vietnamese. She was raised to respect her parents. She was RAISED that way. When I said I didn't want to do something my mom wanted me to do, she would say, "Why would you choose to do something you know will bother your mom?" etc. It was part of her culture.

It's part of American culture to be selfish and and ungrateful and independent. It's so ingrained in the American experience we don't even recognize it. I didn't until it was pointed out to me by my friend, who had no problem being grateful to her parents. We were in our 20s.

[Anonymous]

Um, she didn't have a say when you chose to bring her into this world. The sacrifices that you made were on you. When you made your choice to have her, it was an expectation that you would give her a decent quality of life.

Sure, not everyone lives up to this expectation, but really, you want to receive accolades for doing what was expected of you?

Guess what - I also was given food, clothing and shelter growing up, and got an education. I was raised in what I believed to be a normal family. It wasn't until later that I learned just how much I was actually abused and set back by ingrained misogyny. Turns out my parents provided me with more than I bargained for. I'm 38 and not about to "appreciate" those extras any time soon.

Curb your narcissism and take any appreciation you may receive for your parenting as a very generous gift - not something you deserve.