Question for those with difficult childhoods

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband had a difficult childhood. He has has a strained relationship with his mom. We ended up caring for her in our home for a year and moved her to a nursing home. I manage everything and we do buy her what she needs as she has no money. She has always been nice to me. I do it as that is the example I want my child to have and do the same for me.

There is so much wrong with this statement. You are raising your children to feel obligated to take care of you when they should be focused on their families when they are grown. This is a selfish, not selfless, reason.

+ 1. Children (including mine) didn't ask to be born at all, let alone to the specific parents they happened to get, and don't owe their parents (including me) anything. Ever, but certainly not as an adult. Parents have obligations to their minor children no matter what, but other than that all relationships should be optional and the context based on the emotional ties between the people and their actual wishes regarding contact. The biological state of being blood-related does not automatically entitle anyone to anything in adulthood and should not hold an adult child hostage to obligations unless said blood relatives acted in ways that allowed 'family' to mean something and thus created a relationship where providing assistance to an elder is mutually desired.