How much praise and affection did you receive as a child?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
My Dad's parents were pretty cold to him. But, he was more affectionate than my mom. I have no idea with my mom as her parents were very helpful and affectionate. I know they were with her. |
Anonymous
|
My parents definitely gave me love and affection, though I think my mom has a hard time comforting people when they’re upset. Once I got past about 7 I was made to feel like if I cried I was “too emotional.”
But I’m grateful for them. |
Anonymous
| I’m Iranian American and was smothered with praise and affection from my parents. It’s pretty typical for the culture! |
Anonymous
| My parents always said they would give me something to cry about, if I was upset about something. I think my mother was maybe depressed or something. She came from a stiff upper lip British family and my father came from a physically and emotionally abusive family. |
Anonymous
| None from my parents, tons from my grandparents who were very present in my life as a child until they died. |
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
| How old are you OP? It is time to stop harboring a grudge about this. Your perception is your reality and delving deeper on this with your mom will result in a back-and-forth that you will never be able to win because the two of you will have different perceptions. Acknowledge to yourself that you feel cheated, and move forward. In AA terms it is called "name it, claim it, dump it." Life is too short to spend so much getting hung up on things you cannot change. |
Anonymous
|
Very little from my dad. He was very perfunctory and treated me like I was a short adult. I was proud to have gotten a 97 on a spelling test in elementary school and he told me it was unacceptable to get anything less than 100 since I had all the answers ahead of time.
He complimented ballet recitals I'd done in the past after coming home from another recital and telling me he liked the ones my other dance studio choreographed more. He gave me my first compliment when I was 12 and I tried on my bat mitzvah dress for him before we bought it. It felt so unnatural that I asked my mom if she told him to say that. I don't think HIS mother was particularly affectionate - everyone says she was "cold" or "difficult" or "angry". My mother gave me a lot of ... empty praise. You know the phrase "everyone's beautiful to their mother"? Well, I was an ugly child. My mother gave me terrible advice regarding looks and would tell me how pretty I looked, even though I told her I wanted to look cool, not pretty. She only told me I was good at things that served her. I was good at making tea. I don't drink tea, but guess who does? Stuff like that. She hugged me too tightly and for too long - I always felt like I was suffocating. She would yell at me for some minor infraction, spank me and send me to my room and then call me back down and force me to hug her. |
Anonymous
|
Tons and tons of affection! Zero praise. It’s who my parents are. They never wanted us to get “big heads”. But the love, affection, support and pure enjoyment at being with us was phenomenal.
|
Anonymous
| Tons of affection and praise from both of my parents. Absolute unconditional love. The problem is, nothing else can ever measure up. |
Anonymous
|
Very little. Doing well in school was taken for granted and slipping up meant we would never hear the end of it. The funny thing is that when I was talking to some of my parents’ friends recently they said how our parents were always so proud of us and would brag about our accomplishments.
I wish they had just conveyed even a tiny bit of that to our face. |
Anonymous
Affection from my parents? Very little. In fact, I was the classic latchkey. I didn't see them that much. In daycare from my first breath. With grandparents for weekends or at points during the summer. And when old enough, home while they worked or did whatever. Praise? They def acknowledged my good grades, bizarrely taking credit as THEY are the reasons I was smart, even though they showed zero interest. Beyond that, I was not permitted to celebrate any accomplishment because my sister a) struggled more in school and with sports and b) in addition to it being harder, she was also lazy. Any celebration of my accomplishments was viewed as not being sensitive to her. Whatever. We aren't close. We never will be. But, I don't dwell on this aspect of my growing up. THere are worse things to remember. |
Anonymous
| I got tons of affection and praise privately. But when were on front of people, they downplayed my achievements. For example, when I was the valedictorian, and people who tell me I was very smart, my mom was sort of shrug and say I worked really hard. Well when I modeled as a child and through high school, strangers would run up to me and say how beautiful I was. My mom would say thank you awkwardly and add that I had a kind heart. That sort of downplay all the time. I wonder if it messed me up somehow, even though I have a great career and a great family now. I guess my mom was always worried people would be jealous of me |
Anonymous
|
Very little and it was conditional or for show/ I got praise for good grades, losing weight and basically making them look good through achievements and appearance. Affection wasn't there. Dad bragged about as a lot and over-embellished, but that was about him and his need to look superior in every way. Grandparents were not warm and affectionate at all.
I am very different. I am very affectionate. I give praise for achievements because I do think accomplishing things builds self esteem, but I also praise demonstrations of good moral character and KINDNESS something my parents did not seem to value. |
Anonymous
| None. Eastern European parents. I know they loved me, but the way I knew was that dad brought chocolate home from work. |