Was your mother a "yeller," how did it affect you?

[Anonymous]

I have made an almost animal sound. Ok, it is an animal sound when yelling. if you recorded it, it would sound like a tortured keening sort wail. The urine on the floor from the 10 and 11yo boy's peeing on it sent me in dark, dark place. Also the constant trashing of their rooms. I sound like Regan from The Exorcist sometimes. My children mock me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom was a yeller and I couldn't stand up for myself well into young adulthood. I think there's a correlation. People who weren't close to me would probably describe me as 'meek'. Finally I decided I couldn't blame my upbringing anymore and developed into a reasonably assertive person.

PP here, also wanted to say I'm still very much a people pleaser and I'm sure that has something to do with my mom's constant yelling.

This.

My mom was a yeller and a perfectionist, and I struggle to this day with being afraid to fail. One of the reasons I love my DD's school so much? When I tell her I can't do something, she says very encouragingly , "You can try, Mom! And if it doesn't work, it's ok, you can keep trying!"

My mom yelled at us anytime we didn't do anything perfectly the first time, and for lots of other reasons too. We found out much later that she'd had a chemical imbalance that was corrected as a side effect of surgery to repair an aneurism, so I had the benefit of having a much better relationship with my mom in my adult years, but I feel the yelling, etc had a huge effect on my self esteem and the choices I made in life.

I absolutely avoid loud people, to the point of changing my religion to avoid the yelling preachers (Southern Baptist).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to with 8:30. I think there is a difference between yelling and being an abuser. My mom is a yeller, her mother was a yeller. They were best friends and my mom is my best friend. I yell at my kids, generally my rule is the third time I have to repeat myself I raise my voice. My mom and I generally don't yell at each other now, though my mom and grandmom yelled at each other when I was growing up. But they were never mean, or hurtful. Just loud.

Where is there a difference between yelling and abuse? So if a parent says, "I don't like that behavior." vs "I don't like that behavior!", neither are abusive?
That the yelling itself can intimidate, cause fear and recoil may change that.

Military basic training you are yelled at constantly - to desensitize to the act of yelling, since in combat situations the volume is often required and the emotional response shouldn't cloud a service and members judgment in any way.

[Anonymous]

My mom was a yeller and to this day, whenever I hear someone loudly calling out a name my first impulse is to look around to see if my mom is yelling for me. As I got older it became apparent that she lacked the tools to deal with difficult situations and always resorted to yelling.

DH's family is the opposite to mine, voice level-wise, and we don't like to raise our voices. However, with a spirited 2-year old that's gone out the window. I once screamed at DS when he was playing with something that he's not supposed to and I can't get to him fast enough. My mom was nearby and saw the whole thing. Later she asked me if I thought my screaming was the reason DS prefers DH over me. I can't even. Oh the irony.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to with 8:30. I think there is a difference between yelling and being an abuser. My mom is a yeller, her mother was a yeller. They were best friends and my mom is my best friend. I yell at my kids, generally my rule is the third time I have to repeat myself I raise my voice. My mom and I generally don't yell at each other now, though my mom and grandmom yelled at each other when I was growing up. But they were never mean, or hurtful. Just loud.

Where is there a difference between yelling and abuse? So if a parent says, "I don't like that behavior." vs "I don't like that behavior!", neither are abusive?
That the yelling itself can intimidate, cause fear and recoil may change that.

Military basic training you are yelled at constantly - to desensitize to the act of yelling, since in combat situations the volume is often required and the emotional response shouldn't cloud a service and members judgment in any way.

Hmmm, NP. I am not even sure I entirely know what "yeller" means in this discussion. If it means raising ones voice to warn a kid to cut something out (running away, hitting sibling) or repeating an order loudly after being ignored, then I think it is not harmful. Perhaps even helpful in the warning context. If that is the standard, then my Dad was a "yeller" (and very loving) and it was totally a non-issue. I don't think you have to treat kids with kid gloves (no pun intended) when they are misbehaving - even if "yelling" is not always the best option. I think it is only a problem when there is something else going on. You are visibly angry. You are habitually critical. You lose control. You yell all the time and over small issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes - both parents were yellers and my mom is verbally abusive.
It has definitely affected my brother and I and we both resent her for it. The yelling was bad but we could live with it - the verbal abuse and control games are another story and I will never do that to my kids. My mother always never apologizes when she says something mean and hurtful.
I am a yeller and try desperately to control it. I am loud in general when I am happy or mad and I hate that. FWIW - my culture is a loud one in general and very dramatic.

This is me also. I have a terrible relationship with my mom because she was (still is) a yeller and was very verbally abusive (you're stupid, you're worthless type of stuff on a daily basis). She also never apologizes.

Luckily, DH is not a yeller, and I work really hard to keep it in check.

For advice with a toddler, I use 1,2,3 Magic! I know some people hate it, but for me it's been a lifesaver for the sole reason that it keeps me from screaming. I've used it with two kids now, and it has made a huge difference. When I get into a pattern where I find myself yelling about something on a regular basis (like getting ready in the AM), i try to come up with a strategy to make it better. For a while, we did a sticker chart or whatever.

Not foolproof, but I can honestly say that I don't yell nearly as much as my mom did.

[Anonymous]

I grew up as the quiet one in a family of yellers. But the scariest times were when my mom would get quiet. That's when you really knew you had to watch out ... the dreaded whisper with a pointed finger. Ugh. My father was usually tuned out, but when he tuned back in he was loud, a yeller, and a bully.

Anyway. It took me a really, really long time to find my own voice. And a good amount of money spent on therapy.

I married a loud man. Divorced him, thank god. Married a good, quiet man who is amazing and rarely raises his voice unless under extreme duress.

Sadly, I have raised my voice on occasion with my son. It is a default, I guess, to kind of go back to how you were treated as a kid. I work so hard to break the cycle. But I have come nowhere to the level my family took it. My self esteem took so many hits as a kid; I don't want my son to ever feel how I felt. I was in constant fight or flight; it sucked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Occasionally I yell, meaning raising my voice in order to be taken seriously. Very rarely (but still more than zero), I have succumbed to a ferocious kind of yelling -- the kind that originates deep from within. There's a distinct tonal difference. The first sounds exasperated and sometimes angry, and the other is darker, meaner, and decidedly angrier.

Those "dark" yells never happened when I had one chlid and worked FT out of the home. They started at the very end of my second pregnancy and continued a few months after baby #2 was born when I was FT at home. They happenned rarely, yes, but they were scary. There were no direct insults associated with them, however; mostly along the lines of "THIS WHINING NONSENSE IS MAKING ME CRAZY! STOP IT! PUT ON YOUR SHOES AND COAT ***RIGHT NOW!!!***, DAMMIT!" accompanied by a very angry face. No hitting, and the event is about 3 seconds long--just long enough for me to get the words out.

I feel a great deal of shame almost immediately afterwards. Apologies, apologies, apologies. But I don't want my very wonderful oldest daughter to think that an apology makes verbal abuse okay. I don't want her to put up with it from friends or from a sweetheart, so the answer to the problem is for me to never go there again.

Thankfully it seems that I feel much, much less of this kind of intense anger now that months have passed since #2 arrived and I'm also back to work. I chalk up the 'dark' yells, in part, to hormones and lack of sleep. Otherwise, I'm pretty darn sweet and an excellent mum.

But the yellingis a serious blemish. And I think it can have a profound impact on my oldest child, for sure. We always talked about it afterwards. I hope that helps a ton.

Same here, PP. I do/did exactly this same thing, most recently about shoes & socks of all things. IME and in reading here, socks pretty much should have a trigger warning for those of us with bad tempers. DD was just shy of her 4th birthday and we had a hell of a year with her at age 3. I lost it and felt so ashamed after, and apologized to DD. Hasn't happened since, knock wood. I'm really trying to get a handle on it.

[Anonymous]

Do you think it helps to explain to your kids that you were shouted at (or worse) by your own parents? I know it doesn't excuse shouting at them yourself, but for people who were raised that way, as another PP said, it is the default reaction that is hard-wired and hard to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Yes and now I'm often afraid that people are mad at me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom was a yeller and I couldn't stand up for myself well into young adulthood. I think there's a correlation. People who weren't close to me would probably describe me as 'meek'. Finally I decided I couldn't blame my upbringing anymore and developed into a reasonably assertive person. My workplace can be very intense and I am known as the rational one and the problem solver which I think is a good thing.

I don't do much yelling at home. DC is still an infant. On a very rare occssion, I do lose my temper (ex, telling DH to shut up) but am quick to recognize and apologize for my behavior.

This sounds like a positive outcome, a direct result of being shouted at by your mom. I was also shouted at, and I can't tell you how many times I've realized it's helped me deal with difficult bosses that others would cower in front of.

On the other hand -- not only did my mother shout at us, but my parents also shouted at each other on a daily basis. They could not be in the same room with each other without shouting and fighting. I can handle a difficult boss, but if coworkers don't get along, I get really, really stressed out....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as the quiet one in a family of yellers. But the scariest times were when my mom would get quiet. That's when you really knew you had to watch out ... the dreaded whisper with a pointed finger. Ugh. My father was usually tuned out, but when he tuned back in he was loud, a yeller, and a bully.

Anyway. It took me a really, really long time to find my own voice. And a good amount of money spent on therapy.

I married a loud man. Divorced him, thank god. Married a good, quiet man who is amazing and rarely raises his voice unless under extreme duress.

Sadly, I have raised my voice on occasion with my son. It is a default, I guess, to kind of go back to how you were treated as a kid. I work so hard to break the cycle. But I have come nowhere to the level my family took it. My self esteem took so many hits as a kid; I don't want my son to ever feel how I felt. I was in constant fight or flight; it sucked.

I wouldn't worry so much! Sounds like you are a great mom. Don't get your sons childhood confused with your own. Just because you yelled doesn't mean you're becoming your mom. It IS normal to yell on occasion! We all get frustrated and impatient, and children definitely bring it out. We all have different mechanisms to cope and they usually work but not always. When we yell and feel bad, we can simply apologize when we cooled off.

[Anonymous]

My dad was a yeller. I don't have a relationship with him anymore and despise when people raise their voices. I vowed to never do that in front of my kids and teach them it's unacceptable as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mother was a yeller. And by yeller I mean she'd go into fits and rages and would yell (very loud, very frightening voice) lashing out at anyone who was nearby, her children included. Most of the abuse (and I do think this is abusive behavior) was verbal, but occasionally she hit us. She was emotionally unstable. She drank too much and was a really self centered person. Her bad day became everyone's bad day. My brother and I are in our 30's and still recount frightening episodes from our childhood. I used to hide under the bed praying she wouldn't come to my room to yell and scream. It one of the most prominent memories of my childhood, unfortunately. As a really little kid - four or five - I'd pee myself in fear. That too - that terror - still haunts me.

Needless to say, I've invested a lot of time and money in therapy. It's affected me deeply. I find it hard to trust people, hard to be open and initimate with people, and very hard to escape those memories of my childhood. I am also a people pleaser. My husband suffered a similar experience in childhood and he's a big people pleaser too.

As you can imagine, it's affected my relationship with my mother. My mother since went to rehab and has truly transformed - she's much more pleasant and sensitive to the world around her. I think she's quite desperate to undo the way that she treated my brother and me. It cannot be undone, unfortunately, although we work hard at building our relationship, especially now that DD is in the picture. I can't say I love my mother, though. I treat her respectfully and I try to be inclusive, but I don't love her.

When it comes to how I raise my daughter, I am absolutely committed to never yelling at her and terrorizing her. Of course I'll get angry and I'm positive that I'll say things that I don't mean. But my husband and I want to provide her with love and stability and a home where even if my husband or myself is having a bad day, she isn't terrified that we'll blow up and lash out.

Boy, do you sound like a PIA. How old are you? Stop blaming mommy for everything. I'm sure she was doing the best she could at the time. Learn to forgive and move on and you might have chance at happiness.

Clearly your desire to slap a zinger on DCUM this morning has overtaken your ability for reading comprehension. If you actually comprehended my post you would have noted that my mom and I are rebuilding our relationship and that my husband and I are committed to moving forward with raising our daughter in a positive and stable environment - without the persisent yelling and screaming that characterized our respective homes as kids. I certainly don't blame mommy for everything and there wasn't anything in my post that spoke to that. To the contrary, since my early teens I've focused a lot of time and energy on moving forward. But yes, years of being terrorized by our mother's yelling affected my brother and me deeply. And no, she wasn't doing the best she could at the time, moron. She was a yelling and often verbally (sometimes physically) abusive alcoholic who ultimately sought treatment in rehab to address her behavior. Yelling all the time = dysfunction.

Maybe you feel insecure about your parenting style and behavior and my post touched a nerve .... Keep telling yourself you're doing the best you can at the time if that's what makes you feel better about yelling at your kids.

12:06, please ignore the obnoxious poster. I had a horrible mom, and read your post and thought 'Wow, I'm impressed that she can actually be respectful to her mom!.' (Since I, most definitely, cannot).

My dh was yelled at/screamed at by a raging mother at it has affected him his entire life. She quit when he was mid-20s or so and he loved her dearly the entire time I knew her (he was very close and the most doting of her sons). It really messed him up though. He has had therapy and been on anti-depressants - none of which really solved his issues.

My mother, on the other hand, was quietly mean and the meaner she got the quieter her voice got. She was extremely emotionally abusive. Hated her then and still do.

[Anonymous]

I am not a yeller. Especially when there are more calm and civil ways to get my point across.

However, I am not above yelling. Oh, no. Honey I can yell with the best of them. No doubt about it.