Moving past parents wrongs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't quite get this "they did the best" take on things. I don't think they did the best. In fact I KNOW they didn't. I know they didn't put any effort in, were winging it, dropping the ball in the process. There are lots of people who fail at their (daily) jobs and we don't say that "they did their best". Parenting is like anything else, lots of people are not "doing their best", they're just dealing with something they don't know how to do, but they don't want to put effort into doing any better job at it either. People like this get fired, because their job is not up to any standards, but in parenting they're somehow "doing their best". No.

I agree- lots of people aren't doing their best, at work/parenting/life. It's so depressing to think people have no control over how they act. Some things can't be helped (like working long hours to make ends meet) but some things really can (like creating a scapegoat or mocking your kids). Come on now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't "moved on". My childhood shaped me in lots of ways - some very positive and some very hard. I spent years figuring out who I am and who I want to be, and what some of the drivers of my behaviors are, etc...

Lots of therapy. Lots of work. Lots of patience.

I accept that my parents did the best they could.

I accept that their best was in many ways profoundly damaging to me.

I accept that they loved me and were products of their own damaging past.

I love them.

I craft careful boundaries around my interactions with them so that I felt safe and could still have a relationship with them.

I'm an adult so for quite some time have felt like I get to have primary responsibility for who I am and want to be. They shaped me but I get to reshape me as I see fit.

I did this for decades and managed to make it work. Both parents are deceased now and I have no substantive regrets - which I consider a HUGE blessing. That was pretty much my best case scenario.

So it's never really been about "moving on" for me. That just doesn't ring true.

This rings true for me. My parents are still alive but this is about what I feel. It would not be accurate to say I have "moved on" or am trying to "move on" because your childhood experiences become part of who you are. I can't magically become someone who didn't go through these things, and I think if I tried, it would just wind up coming up in other dysfunctional ways and potentially harm more people. I choose radical acceptance. This is what happened.

And like PP, I recognize that my parents were shaped by their own abusive, neglected childhoods. I can't reach back into the past and fix those anymore than I can fix my own. I actually agree with the other PP that it's not helpful to say "they did their best." I do in fact think they could have done better. If I didn't think that, I would not have become a parent myself because if I believed so little in personal agency, then I would not have believed I could break these generational patterns with my own kids.

So it's like: I love my parents. I resent my parents. I feel bad for my parents. I am sometimes angry at my parents. I know I deserved better. I know they deserved better. Also: I love myself. I love my kids. I know what my kids deserve because it's what I didn't get. I work hard to give that to my kids, and when it results in a positive family life for me, I am proud of myself for helping to create that. I am not estranged from my parents. I have good strong boundaries with my parents. Sometimes when I see my parents, I think about all this and feel sad, hurt, regretful, or mad. When I feel that way, I do the things I need to do to work through those feelings so I can show up for myself and my kids. It can feel cyclical at times but I have also come to appreciate how strong I am to keep working through this, and to find ways to get myself what I need even though I didn't get what I needed as a kid.

So no, it's not about moving on or moving past it. It's about learning to live with the hurt and find pathways to creating something new and better even while carrying that history with me.

Thank you for this. Love it. Indeed, it's not about moving on or moving past, but learning to live with it and do better ourselves, because we can, because we know we can do better.

+1. There are some real gems on this thread.

[Anonymous]

NP. I think the Boomer/millennial parent-child dynamic is often problematic because of characteristics of those generations.

In general I see less of this with Gen X/Gen Z dynamics. There are other problems but not as much with this parent-child aspect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will never move past the stuff my mother did—but it is very, very bad.

She’s dead, and I’ve had plenty of therapy, and it seems that every day something reminds me of something she did and there is rage and grief.

Let’s be friends

[Anonymous]

My mother was schizophrenic. I thought I had a rough childhood until I read this thread. I’m truly sorry for each of you who lived through such extreme horrors. Sending peace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom went through a phase of putting me in a headlock, prying open my jaw and pouring orange juice down my throat while I was crying each morning before school. Apparently our Vitamin C vitamins weren't enough and orange juice was the only solution in her mind. I don't know if it was a few weeks or few months, but she did this to both my brother and me, ensuring that neither of us ever voluntarily drank orange juice again. It's only in the last two years I've started liking mandarins and clementines.

For literally over two decades I asked her periodically (like every few years) why she did this. She always denied she did, so gaslighting was fun! Finally I asked my brother if I was making it up and he assured me it did happen. Then one day a few years before she died, we were sitting outside a museum, I asked again expecting no answer and she said, "I don't know. I guess I thought I was doing the right thing." This was all I needed. I never brought it up again with her. She was doing the best she could, was misguided, stubborn, and lost her way. I can understand all those things. So yeah, I moved past that once she acknowledged she did it.

Maybe your parent didnt want to be punished forever or even sued by their adult child for something that obviously they were just trying to give you vitamins and you survived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers really are the worst, must be the consequences of the two world wars.

I think they definitely grew up in an entitled way being a large social cohort, having money after parents went through so much, and probably growing up in an environment where it was very important to look on the bright side after all the horrors of war. They also grew up in a very capitalistic society which "won" the wars and also was the opposite of their enemy communism growing up.

[Anonymous]

Many people learn to forgive because its healthier FOR THEM. They set boundaries but its toxic to keep playing the bad parts of your life over and over and hope for a change in the story line. That time is over.

Think of Jesus saying we should forgive as a way of making yourself healthier, not excusing the behavior.

[Anonymous]

Also as an adult many of us have failings that we just wished the world would accept and you start realizing that people really cannot change that much. This is why people set boundaries because it really is difficult for people to change even ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many people learn to forgive because its healthier FOR THEM. They set boundaries but its toxic to keep playing the bad parts of your life over and over and hope for a change in the story line. That time is over.

Think of Jesus saying we should forgive as a way of making yourself healthier, not excusing the behavior.

Do you assume everyone believes in Jesus? Don’t you think that’s bit presumptuous?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many people learn to forgive because its healthier FOR THEM. They set boundaries but its toxic to keep playing the bad parts of your life over and over and hope for a change in the story line. That time is over.

Think of Jesus saying we should forgive as a way of making yourself healthier, not excusing the behavior.

Do you assume everyone believes in Jesus? Don’t you think that’s bit presumptuous?

You believe he didn’t exist?

[Anonymous]

My BF was pretty horrifically abused by his parents. Physical beatings, forcing him to do repetitive tasks for 10 hours a day, letting other people harm him. When he was 15 they got sick of him and put him in foster care.

I don’t know if he’s faking or what, but he honestly doesn’t see any of this as a big deal. Now, he’s not close with his mom - very rarely sees her - but he doesn’t think this was abusive and usually just laughs at it (which I realize may be a defensive mechanism)

But he’s seriously the most well-adjusted an emotionally mature person I’ve ever met. I have no idea how we did it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many people learn to forgive because its healthier FOR THEM. They set boundaries but its toxic to keep playing the bad parts of your life over and over and hope for a change in the story line. That time is over.

Think of Jesus saying we should forgive as a way of making yourself healthier, not excusing the behavior.

Do you assume everyone believes in Jesus? Don’t you think that’s bit presumptuous?

No. I believe we can take the lessons from any religion and see them as ways to live life better. Being stuck in the past is harmful for the person stuck in the past.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my mom allowed estrangement on my dad's side because he never really got along with his siblings. Neither of my parents showed me any affection growing up, nor did they pay attention to my emotional or mental health. I had the basics—food, shelter, help getting good grades—but if I was ever upset, their advice was to deal with it: life's hard. I forgive them. It's the same way they were parented, and they were consumed by work and their own stress. I try to do better as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as it’s not physical abuse or sexual abuse, I can move on from my parents wrongs including neglect or alcohol abuse as long as they acknowledge that the experience impacted me in a negative way, that they acknowledge my feelings (not even to validate that feeling). Children love their parents, it takes A LOT for an adult children to cut their parents off, most of the time, the parents just needed to acknowledge the child’s feelings, but for some mysterious reason they aren’t able to. Some parents would rather loose you than to acknowledge your feelings.

Then why are you pushing them for acknowledgement? I've never asked for this from my alcoholic parent. They know. It's part of the shame that keeps them drinking.