Do you point out your parents' hypocrisy?

[Anonymous]

op: The therapist says my mom enables my dad's narcissism, but there's no point criticizing him because if you stick a pin in his balloon ego, it deflates and you get rage. She says to limit contact and try not to be reactive to things he says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:op: I started therapy last year. Had a giant rift with my parents 4 years ago when my 3 yo ds was in the hospital and I needed help with my 6 yo and 10 yo. Health crisis lasted 4 months, I got my mom to stay for 2 months by begging her every day, and my dad told her the whole time not to help me.

How is this on the same level as OP's story?

Did you take on intensive care of your parents when they need you previously, then when you need them, they hesitate to help? Or you are simply saying they should help you for as long snd as much you demand without questions?

[Anonymous]

op: They're in great health. My son had a health crisis when he was 3. He's now 7 with medical problems and SN. My parents do not help. I thought they'd help more in a crisis than they were willing too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:op: I started therapy last year. Had a giant rift with my parents 4 years ago when my 3 yo ds was in the hospital and I needed help with my 6 yo and 10 yo. Health crisis lasted 4 months, I got my mom to stay for 2 months by begging her every day, and my dad told her the whole time not to help me.

How is this on the same level as OP's story?

Did you take on intensive care of your parents when they need you previously, then when you need them, they hesitate to help? Or you are simply saying they should help you for as long snd as much you demand without questions?

I thought this was OP.

[Anonymous]

op: I'm the furnace story person, and I'm the mom with the chronically ill child. I'm one and the same.

[Anonymous]

I have NO problems pointing these things out.

But then that's just me...

[Anonymous]

I would point out the obvious to my parent who was complaining about a FREE visit. You get what you pay for and next time stay at a hotel. I also would not listen to any additional complaining.

[Anonymous]

Um, NO. Because I like to get along with my family. If my family was like your family, I might not want to get along with them in which case, go ahead.

[Anonymous]

Heck yeah we call out hypocrisy, but in a joking manner that still gets the point across. I probably would have said something like you two have a lot in common then reminded him that they opted not to stay in a hotel during their visit with him and repeatedly turned the heat down when you visited! I would have told my father about the lack of heat during my visit. Unless there are health reasons for keeping the temperature low him prioritizing a $5 - $10 savings in utilities above the health of his child and granddaughter is not okay.

[Anonymous]

Once and I got slapped; I’ve never done it again

[Anonymous]

Only in one specific instance with my MIL bemoaning the fact that we don't fly across country to their not-child friendly house with our two small children enough. She loves to tell a story about how she once took one of her children to see her ILs just halfway across the country when he was about 2 and how it was so terrible that she didn't travel with children again, at all, until they were 7-8. Then in the next breath starts guilting me about not bringing the (much small than that age) children on a cross country flight enough.

Astoundingly tone deaf that one.

[Anonymous]

I have a good relationship with my parents, so if something like this happened, I would probably smirk and jokingly comment something like, "Yeah, I don't know ANYONE who would refuse to turn on the heat in the winter! How SILLY!" He would get the point and probably laugh and shrug or try to explain himself, but my point would have been made. Then it would pass -- no biggie.

This incident doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. It has no impact on you directly -- it's just your dad complaining about something. I would let it go if nothing good would come of commenting.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it have been easier to just put another layer of clothes on the child?

I don't call out my parents anymore because they're not going to change, they're over 70, and my main concern is just getting along in the limited time I visit them. Sometimes you have to be the adult and let things go. At the same time I limit my visits to them to how much I can tolerate without going crazy.

[Anonymous]

OP, your relationship is already challenged so let this go.

My mom does things that are more about her own ego than the good of my family. Every time it happens, her access decreases. She doesn't even understand why she has less access to the real information about my life, and why she is visiting less. I would complain to my brother, or to dcum, but I wouldn't engage with your dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:op: The therapist says my mom enables my dad's narcissism, but there's no point criticizing him because if you stick a pin in his balloon ego, it deflates and you get rage. She says to limit contact and try not to be reactive to things he says.

This is my dad, and this has become my strategy. Every once in awhile I can't stand it, and I point something out, and then I always, always regret it. It just leads to anger, never to insight.

The last time I said something was when he started venting about how his 102-year-old mother (my grandmother) wouldn't take his advice about something having to do with her health, and how difficult she is, and how she argues about everything, and how she thinks she knows better than the doctors, and how much of a burden she is to care for. And I said, "sound like anyone you know?" And he just let loose with how when HE doesn't want to do something, it's actually the better idea because he really does know better than the doctors or anyone else. I mean, word-for-word the stuff he was mad at his mom about, but he couldn't see any correlation. That's narcissism for you. There's no way to create insight.