Did anyone on this forum have a nice childhood, and currently have nice elderly parents?

[Anonymous]

🙋‍♀️ Great childhood, parents still happily married over 60 years at this point. They visit and spend time with our kids (used to occasionally babysit, but those days are long over). We see them for dinner, and do activities together 2-3 times a month, and they will attend older teens sporting events. We even travel with them (with siblings and their kids too!)

Have you visited the adult children board? That is the most depressing place ever. I have to stop myself from looking, because it's always bad too

[Anonymous]

Wonderful childhood and great relationship with my parents. My dad passed away a few years ago, but they were married 50 years. My mom is still living independently, has lots of friends and keeps busy. We talk and visit regularly and she comes on vacation with us sometimes. I’m not super close to my sisters (big age and distance gap) but we all get along and are happy to see each other when we do. The more I observe other people’s families, the more grateful I am for my own.

My ex’s family is totally dysfunctional-but I have a better relationship with my former in-laws than he does!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not "the governments" responsibility to create happy families.
If it is something important to you, maybe you could volunteer your time and money to help and support individual families?

I say this as someone who had a rough, but not the absolute worst childhood. Lots of verbal/emotional abuse (from the time I was 12, my mom would tell me to "go walk the streets like a whore" whenever she was mad at me. Physical abuse (my mom would push me down to the couch, kneel on top of me, and strangle me. My dad once slapped me so hard it broke my tooth. I have a crown, but it's right up front and it affects my self esteem every single time I smile in the mirror.) They highly favored one sibling over the other two of us.

I am so sorry.

I do think governments (meaning the good adults in a society-we select and pay the government) do have a responsibility to save children from the type of upbringing you experienced.

[Anonymous]

For me it was a little bit of both.
My mentally ill mother is gone, and my dad is easy going, though not exactly well-adapted.
My childhood was good and bad at the same time; it was the mother factor.
In any case, I am happy my dad leads a healthy life and is not a difficult person. I feel very grateful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Observational bias. Happy people don't post complaints. That is generally a rule for internet message boards and social media.

This. I had a great childhood and am close to my parents. We still have issues - like everybody - and sometimes they are frustrating or rude. I post here to complain about them. If you went by my posts you'd form a less rosy view of my life than I actually hold.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I had a very nice childhood, upper middle class I'd say, but I always thought we were poor because my parents didn't spend a lot. Four kids. My parents are in their mid 80s now. My siblings and I all get along and support each other tremendously, and two siblings live in town near my parents. My mom and dad moved to an independent living place and made plans for their money to be held in a trust about 6 years ago. They are not in great health, and there's a lot of worry from me and my siblings about next steps. The two siblings who live further away try to visit and take care of the heavy duty, unpleasant stuff when we do visit, knowing that our in town siblings really bear the brunt of the daily helping (however, they also had a LOT of grandparent help when their kids were younger.) I love my family. Sure, sometimes mom gets on my nerves esp as she ages and is losing her filter a little bit...

[Anonymous]

As evidenced here, people who have great lives without as much family dysfunction don't tend to come to forums for advice.
My parents were the best of a so so bunch, so I have it better than many family members.

I wouldn't be on this forum as much if I had families like some of my friends, it looks awesome to have a functional family that isn't fighting or angry or bitter most of the time.

[Anonymous]

If your parents pass away quickly then there often aren't any issues. It is when they linger for years and years. My father had a heart attack and passed away within two weeks. My siblings I worked well together planning his funeral and getting our mother situated into a small retirement living community. That worked well for the next 5 years. All the siblings got along.
Then our mother had a stroke at 80 and suddenly went from driving, going on outings, being active to it being a sh*t show. It has been a slow decline mixed in with sudden drops in her ability to function. Now five years later our relationship has been ruined over the stress of figuring out what to do with her, who is doing more, whether to spend all the money now on better care or spread it out.

The families I know who are united had parents who didn't linger for years with dementia/alzheimers etc.

[Anonymous]

You are very luck.

[Anonymous]

Not an outlier, Op. There are things in my life, as with everyone, that I could make-out-to-be dramatic sounding but I can just as easily, and do, consider my life very happy.

[Anonymous]

Dad died at 50, Mom at 72. Loved and miss them both. Now I cherish my stepparents who are grandparents to my teen/college children.

[Anonymous]

My DH and my in laws. It's nice to be part of the family and see that

[Anonymous]

I had a relatively decent childhood, and am close to my parents, as is my brother.

But unfortunately, health has been an issue. I don't think the govt could have done anything about that (Dad has Parkinsons, Mom broke her hip helping him and he fell). The cognitive decline in Dad due to parkinsons is hard to see-he's a very intelligent man, had a career pioneering in computers, and it's really hard for Mom to accept this. Sometimes she gets upset with him for stuff he can't help. Today she was upset because he hasn't scheduled his RMD yet and I said' MOM, he CAN'T do that!!!' I told her to just do it and and tell him it's done later. They've been married well over 50 years and together since they were teenagers.

I mean, we didn't know this would happen-they were on track to have a pleasant, modest retirement. It's put a lot of stress and worry on us all, but especially Mom, who has had a hard time accepting the decline. As a family, we do try to spend as much time togehter as possible and to enjoy it. I'm blessed to be 52 and still have both parents!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents provided a nice drama free childhood and aged well to be nice in-laws and grandparents. Neither us nor our spouses ever had any major issue with them and all love and respect them.

Same here! I think I used to take this for granted, but talking to my IRL friends and reading message boards like this DCUM make me realize how lucky I am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not "the governments" responsibility to create happy families.
If it is something important to you, maybe you could volunteer your time and money to help and support individual families?

I say this as someone who had a rough, but not the absolute worst childhood. Lots of verbal/emotional abuse (from the time I was 12, my mom would tell me to "go walk the streets like a whore" whenever she was mad at me. Physical abuse (my mom would push me down to the couch, kneel on top of me, and strangle me. My dad once slapped me so hard it broke my tooth. I have a crown, but it's right up front and it affects my self esteem every single time I smile in the mirror.) They highly favored one sibling over the other two of us.

I am so sorry.

I do think governments (meaning the good adults in a society-we select and pay the government) do have a responsibility to save children from the type of upbringing you experienced.

+1. I consider myself someone who likes the USA and am happy to have been born here, with my family having lived here for 100 years. However, when I see how things are done in Europe, I can see that their government policies there are more pro-family (in terms of health care, parental leave, university educations, etc). For us in the US, it's kind of "survival of the fittest," which works fine assuming that everything goes pretty well for many people. But for some people, it would just be nicer to have more pro-family public policies. I think that you can still be a patriotic American and think that there is a role for the government to impose pro-family policies that would improve the quality of lives of children and the elderly.