Now in our forties, why are many people around me just discovering the mistakes their parents made?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't really believe that middle aged people suddenly "discover" something they didn't know before about their families. Usually it means that their elderly parents are in decline and exhibiting behaviors that did not exist previously, at least to such a severe extent; or it means they suddenly decided to share with you something they've long known about. If they're just now truly "discovering" something, then whatever it is must not be very bad. They're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

My close friends and I knew from our teenage years that some family dynamics were off. This is the typical age to realize such things, OP. It's not that you can do much about it until you're financially independent from your parents... but you KNOW something is wrong. I spent my 20s getting all irritated with her, then I confronted my mother about her verbal and psychological abuse in my late 20s, early 30s, and went no contact for a while.

Now I'm in my 40s. Most of my life, I've always accepted that she is the way she is and that we cannot have a trusting relationship. My close friends did the same for their problem parent, or problem sibling.

It’s actually very, very common. You have your own kids and think back to your childhood. You’re able to see that yes, it was insane behavior.

As a child and teenager, I didn’t have the maturity or knowledge to identify what was wrong. I knew I was unhappy and felt angry, but didn’t really understand why.

Here’s an example. My mom had me change schools (difficult in itself) and wouldn’t let me cut my hair. I had unfashionable very long hair that my mom was obsessed with. She didn’t care I was made fun of. I cried and begged. She refused to let me cut my hair. I absolutely hated it. As a child, I didn’t have the ability to explain it’s my body and you’re hurting me. I just knew I felt bad about it.

Now I have a young daughter and she came to me and asked to have her hair cut. I said yes. We went to the hair salon and I explained she couldn’t do anything crazy, but explain to the stylist what you want. Watching her take a look after the haircut was special. She was very proud of her new appearance and loved it. It made me happy. I was then able to fully realize that how my mom approached my body and hair was strange. I can’t imagine forcing my daughter to be embarrassed about her appearance.

I had a mother who let me continuously cut my hair from about 8th grade in because I wanted new styles . Bob after Bob, layers after layers and now my hair for decades hasn’t grown past my shoulders. I wish she had refused to let me cut it. It simply does not grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

I’m sure I’m doing all sorts of stuff wrong, but I can assure you I respect my children and love them. This wasn’t demonstrated by my parents.

Your kids may see it differently. Everyone views their upbringing subjectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

I’m sure I’m doing all sorts of stuff wrong, but I can assure you I respect my children and love them. This wasn’t demonstrated by my parents.

Your kids may see it differently. Everyone views their upbringing subjectively.

Well, then, those kids will be wrong, because PP was a perfect parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't really believe that middle aged people suddenly "discover" something they didn't know before about their families. Usually it means that their elderly parents are in decline and exhibiting behaviors that did not exist previously, at least to such a severe extent; or it means they suddenly decided to share with you something they've long known about. If they're just now truly "discovering" something, then whatever it is must not be very bad. They're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

My close friends and I knew from our teenage years that some family dynamics were off. This is the typical age to realize such things, OP. It's not that you can do much about it until you're financially independent from your parents... but you KNOW something is wrong. I spent my 20s getting all irritated with her, then I confronted my mother about her verbal and psychological abuse in my late 20s, early 30s, and went no contact for a while.

Now I'm in my 40s. Most of my life, I've always accepted that she is the way she is and that we cannot have a trusting relationship. My close friends did the same for their problem parent, or problem sibling.

It’s actually very, very common. You have your own kids and think back to your childhood. You’re able to see that yes, it was insane behavior.

As a child and teenager, I didn’t have the maturity or knowledge to identify what was wrong. I knew I was unhappy and felt angry, but didn’t really understand why.

Here’s an example. My mom had me change schools (difficult in itself) and wouldn’t let me cut my hair. I had unfashionable very long hair that my mom was obsessed with. She didn’t care I was made fun of. I cried and begged. She refused to let me cut my hair. I absolutely hated it. As a child, I didn’t have the ability to explain it’s my body and you’re hurting me. I just knew I felt bad about it.

Now I have a young daughter and she came to me and asked to have her hair cut. I said yes. We went to the hair salon and I explained she couldn’t do anything crazy, but explain to the stylist what you want. Watching her take a look after the haircut was special. She was very proud of her new appearance and loved it. It made me happy. I was then able to fully realize that how my mom approached my body and hair was strange. I can’t imagine forcing my daughter to be embarrassed about her appearance.

You were insecure and your bullies picked up on it. It wasn’t your hair. If she’d let you cut your hair, it would be wrong face (the “right” haircut is not for a face like yours, hahaha), or the way you smile, or the way your mom walks.

Nah, it was my hair. It was obscenely long and I hated it. It was more about my dislike of it than anyone making fun of me.

[Anonymous]

I du dc bf have a great childhood but my mom likely did the best she could. However, the cruelty that she treats me a now is unacceptable. I went no contact. Peace finally.
And it’s not that she had dementia or something. She’s fine w one of my sisters but estranged from the other.

[Anonymous]

My spouse refuses to talk about his parents’ neglect and avoidance, yet continues the same pattern. It’s sad to see and realize post-children that’s what’s going on.

Can one parent break the cycle?

Or will our daughters be prone to marrying someone who masks and then drops the mask to do nothing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I du dc bf have a great childhood but my mom likely did the best she could. However, the cruelty that she treats me a now is unacceptable. I went no contact. Peace finally.
And it’s not that she had dementia or something. She’s fine w one of my sisters but estranged from the other.

Do you have any examples of current cruelty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s just so much anger in them now that I struggle to relate when they share. They all seem to have had really good child and teen years. Male and Female friends. I sit with them thru tears and outbursts, some of them writing letters and emails to their parents to express their anger too.

How can I be a supportive friend?

I think for me that realizing those mistakes (mother chose an abusive, addicted partner to have a child with) and accepting that my now deceased father abandoned me is what was behind my angry teen years. I used to punch walls, scream, fight, everything you can imagine. Eating disorder and self harm (cutter). I think it helped me to become well adjusted earlier than the close people around me just coming to terms in their forties.

How do I help them now at this stage? I want to be there but I do not feel that same passion for anger in my forties that I had in my teens. But it seems they feel that fury now that they did not back then.

A lot of people realize it when they become parents and their kids are the ages they were when they first realized what was going on. My husband was late 30's when his verbally abusive father turned towards our kids and it was like a major revelation for him. He always knew his dad was an abusive jerk but it didn't click just how bad it was until he saw it directed at his own kids. He went back to therapy (he had previously done it and had worked really hard since he was a teen to be nothing like his dad) and he uncovered a lot more about how his childhood had gone. It was like having kids made him see things through a different lens.

I'm not sure if it's better or worse to discover these things later in life (like you, I dealt with my mother's alcoholism when I was younger, not older) when you're more mature, or if it's better to deal with it when you're younger such that you've somewhat moved on from it by the time you have your own kids. Either way I think it's tough, and I think people probably appreciate that you are on the other side of it. You're a good friend to be there for your friends going through something you've already somewhat healed from.

I'm not sure if you have kids, but I sometimes have to dig deep and remember what it was like when that boy in middle school was mean to me in order to empathize with my kids because how I feel about it now, 30 years later, isn't going to help my kid when she's in the moment at age 12. So while you don't feel the same level of anger now in your 40's, your friends are somewhat reverting to their teenage selves when dealing with this stuff. Perhaps you can transport yourself back to that time (if you want to and need to) in order to realize that while you don't feel that way now, you did then.

Anyway, all that to say, I think you're a good friend and I hope your friends appreciate your support. I'm also sorry for what you went through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your family was identifiably dysfunctional when you were young, in a way that was easy for you and others to grasp. Your dad abandoned you. You had a parent who was an addict and abusive in a way you recognized as abuse as a child. You processed that pain early. Even in young adulthood, if someone asked about your family, you could probably articulate what was wrong.

I grew up in a family that externally looked like it had no problems. My parents were not divorced. My dad had a successful business. We lived in a nice middle class home, took vacations, had enough to eat. I grew up believing I was fortunate and had a "good childhood." But there was always this bagging feeling if emptiness. My parents would say my siblings and I were just ungrateful or "want to be unhappy" so I though that was true.

My parents were both physically and verbally abusive but it was totally normalized as "corporal punishment." My parents (who were both raised by alcoholics) would say "you don't know how good you have it" when they'd hit us and scream at us. So I thought that was how parents were. I didn't find out until I was an adult that there are many parents who don't hit and scream at their kids.

Addiction runs on my family but my parents weren't alcoholics or drug users so I thought I was lucky I'm that respect. A few years ago in a support group I learned about the concept of a "dry drunk" which is someone who has stopped drinking but engages in all the same abusive behaviors of alcoholism -- the lying, narcissism, even "blacking out" bad behavior and pretending it didn't happen. I realized my mom, whose own mother was an alcoholic and whose dad left her family and mom died when she was a teen, has the behaviors of a dry drunk. But I didn't figure this out until I was early 40s.

You and I both grew up with neglect, abuse, addiction, abandonment. But you understood that's what you were dealing with by your teens. Back then I was still being brainwashed into thinking it was normal, that everyone's family was like that. It took me decades, and having my own kids, to understand how dysfunctional and abnormal it was. And now my parents are old and sick and there's no way to repair, I just have to pretend with them until they go because there's no reconciliation over old hurts to be had with two 75+ people with dementia.

This is so, so common. You can hear it in some posts on here where people discuss this kind of behavior as normal. Some of that comes from the people engaging in the behavior and therefore defending it for fear that they'll be exposed as actual abusers and some of it comes from the people who have been so conditioned to believe that this is normal that they can't or won't see that it isn't.

Thanks for your story, PP. I'm sorry for what you've gone through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s just so much anger in them now that I struggle to relate when they share. They all seem to have had really good child and teen years. Male and Female friends. I sit with them thru tears and outbursts, some of them writing letters and emails to their parents to express their anger too.

How can I be a supportive friend?

I think for me that realizing those mistakes (mother chose an abusive, addicted partner to have a child with) and accepting that my now deceased father abandoned me is what was behind my angry teen years. I used to punch walls, scream, fight, everything you can imagine. Eating disorder and self harm (cutter). I think it helped me to become well adjusted earlier than the close people around me just coming to terms in their forties.

How do I help them now at this stage? I want to be there but I do not feel that same passion for anger in my forties that I had in my teens. But it seems they feel that fury now that they did not back then.

Sometimes just listening is the help that you can give.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dispute the premise. I don’t think “many” people are doing this. It’s abnormal and atypical.

I think some have legitimate grievances they should work through with a good therapist. I also think social media plays a role in manipulating others into becoming performative with imagined slights and fabulism/revisionist history about things that happened.

But it’s not like this sort of thing is commonplace. It’s fringe.

Your role? I guess it’s just to listen. But don’t feel like you need to validate everything. A lot of people have these Big Feelings that actually are not valid. Whether you want to be the one to tell them that is up to you. But if they are in the performative group, you don’t have to indulge it or feed their need for attention.

Agree.
Mass media and social media are trying to make it trendy to identity trauma from one’s parents decades ago. But most mature adults go full circle and realize they were fine, loved, and nothing chronic or abusive was actually going on. The parents were doing their best and likely their teen selves were little pricks a lot. And if you have kids and yell at them occasionally when at your wits end, that’s ok too.
FYI we moved when our kids were 10 yo and they don’t even remember stuff about our old house or city unless looking at photos. So grain of salt on revisionist impressions from your early days too!

Wow. The whole "doing their best" trope is ridiculous. Corporal punishment used to be more accepted but that doesn't mean it was a good idea then. In fact, it created generations of people with unhealthy coping skills and severe insecurity/anxiety. And I bet your kids would remember if they had been abused at age 8. But go ahead with your armchair psychology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse refuses to talk about his parents’ neglect and avoidance, yet continues the same pattern. It’s sad to see and realize post-children that’s what’s going on.

Can one parent break the cycle?

Or will our daughters be prone to marrying someone who masks and then drops the mask to do nothing?

Yes, one parent can break the cycle. Teach your kids to be aware of what is going on, why it's not good, and how to make sure they don't marry a man like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

Of course I make mistakes with my children, I'm not a robot. But I acknowledge and apologize for those things. My husband's parents still insist they have never done anything wrong even though we've all witnessed their abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse refuses to talk about his parents’ neglect and avoidance, yet continues the same pattern. It’s sad to see and realize post-children that’s what’s going on.

Can one parent break the cycle?

Or will our daughters be prone to marrying someone who masks and then drops the mask to do nothing?

Depends on if you're the same sex parent. If you are a mom to dds, your influence will be stronger than dh. If dh is the one with issues, just make sure you adfress his dysfunction in real time, in an age appropriate manner. Never allow him to abuse or neglect dds. If it is mom who has the issues, then godspeed to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I du dc bf have a great childhood but my mom likely did the best she could. However, the cruelty that she treats me a now is unacceptable. I went no contact. Peace finally.
And it’s not that she had dementia or something. She’s fine w one of my sisters but estranged from the other.

Do you have any examples of current cruelty?

long story with many side examples going on for years.