What do you do when your adult child goes into therapy and lays blame at your feet.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

This is a really interesting, and I don't know that we owe our parents a supportive ear for their trauma in the way we may want to listen to a friend. Particularly, if the relationship is not a peer-to-peer relationship in other ways.

Yes. Parents going to kids for comfort from their traumas is parentification, which is abusive. An explanation like "My mother screamed at me, and I unfortunately didn't learn better not to scream at my own children" seems OK enough, as long it is delivered in a factual, neutral way. Parents ideally are strong and in charge. If they messed up, they need to own it without needing sympathy or comfort from the children they hurt with their ignorant and/or abusive behavior.

I don't think this is necessarily true for parents and adult kids. I think part of growing up is relating to our parents as adults, and sometimes that means our emotions aren't always the primary focus. I'm not perfect at this myself, in some ways I do want my mom to be my rock instead of a person who comes to me with her flaws and struggles, but I think things change in adulthood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is always the parents fault and I am not being sarcastic.

+1

You did the best you could with what you had, OP. Apologize to your son but explain to him the childhood you came from. He needs to understand your childhood so he can see how you were trying to make it better for him. Of course you made mistakes (everyone does). Through therapy he can mourn the loss of the ideals he had and move forward with a clear picture of why you patented the way you did and how he can parent differently with his own children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

This is a really interesting, and I don't know that we owe our parents a supportive ear for their trauma in the way we may want to listen to a friend. Particularly, if the relationship is not a peer-to-peer relationship in other ways.

Yes. Parents going to kids for comfort from their traumas is parentification, which is abusive. An explanation like "My mother screamed at me, and I unfortunately didn't learn better not to scream at my own children" seems OK enough, as long it is delivered in a factual, neutral way. Parents ideally are strong and in charge. If they messed up, they need to own it without needing sympathy or comfort from the children they hurt with their ignorant and/or abusive behavior.

I don't think this is necessarily true for parents and adult kids. I think part of growing up is relating to our parents as adults, and sometimes that means our emotions aren't always the primary focus. I'm not perfect at this myself, in some ways I do want my mom to be my rock instead of a person who comes to me with her flaws and struggles, but I think things change in adulthood.

Ok sure, parentification applies to kids who are actually children, when that damage happens, not adult children. If you have a good base and now you're all grown up, chances are, you have healthy parents who can lean on you if they need to. I have one parent who would never, ever lean on me in 1 million years, but he could and I would be happy to be leaned on by him. My other parent was a parentifier and so needy, it's as if she's a toddler. I resent her very strongly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am asian. Reading this post makes very sad. This cultural is certainly not very kind to old people. When you guys talk about diversity and inclusion, you only mean lgbt and minority. You don’t extent the same curtesy to old generation, and what they once believed. You don’t stop to think twice that was actually your own history. When you talk about love you the way you are, you don’t really think you should love your parent the way they are. Isn’t it kind of hypocritical?

I think you need to read the whole post. And no, I do not think it is hypocritical for children to have different standards for parents than vice versa. They are not symmetrical relationships. FWIW I know several Asian people who cut off their parents.

DP. This must be the company you keep. I live in a community with a very large Asian population and I know literally no families with cut off parents.

There are plenty of overbearing Asian parents in the DMV. They think they are doing their adult kids a favor by stressing them out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

This is a really interesting, and I don't know that we owe our parents a supportive ear for their trauma in the way we may want to listen to a friend. Particularly, if the relationship is not a peer-to-peer relationship in other ways.

Yes. Parents going to kids for comfort from their traumas is parentification, which is abusive. An explanation like "My mother screamed at me, and I unfortunately didn't learn better not to scream at my own children" seems OK enough, as long it is delivered in a factual, neutral way. Parents ideally are strong and in charge. If they messed up, they need to own it without needing sympathy or comfort from the children they hurt with their ignorant and/or abusive behavior.

And in that vein, your parents owe you nothing then either, correct? They don't have to listen to you drone on about why you think they are parents and they don't owe you an apology. You seem so rigged. You want to be pissed so be pissed. No one said the parents were looking for comfort, rather offering insight into their life which caused them to screw up in your eyes so maybe you can move towards forgiveness out of understanding. This is why so many families are broken. Compassion and forgiveness work both ways princess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is always the parents fault and I am not being sarcastic.

+1

You choose to have children, you choose ALL the consequences, good and bad. If I’ve learned anything in 51 years I’ve learned that a great many people have zero positive parenting skills without learning them in a structured way, and many people are willing to learn to diaper, feed, clean etc. properly but it never occurs to them to learn anything about the care and feeding of a developing human brain - the part of your child that matters SO MUCH MORE than feeding and cleaning the body that houses their brain. If fact, most people are so full of opinions about correct parenting they are not even open to the suggestions of medical professionals or psychological professionals about those issues, and are instead determined to pass on the intergenerational dysfunction of their own experiences being parented.

Most parents hurt their children in some fashion while raising them, and many parents hurt them profoundly. Most likely the majority of those parents mean well, and have spent oodles of money getting the baby in the first place and acquiring all the physical stuff necessary to give baby a good start. With all the industry around children and childrearing it’s almost funny that we still behave as a society as though the parenting instinct is innate and all that’s really required to succeed in the endeavor. And yet all around us is the evidence of widespread failure yet we plod on as we have always done without any organized effort to rescue children. We go after the obvious cases of physical neglect and abuse and leave aside the millions of cases of psychologically traumatizing parenting.

I almost believe that the core flaw in our species is that our brains have gotten too big, too complex and our innate parenting skills remain limited to those which in most cases ensure the survival of the offspring without promoting the psychological thriving of the offspring. We have so far to go in that regard.

How many kids have you raised? I'm betting zero. You are an armchair quarterback.

I agree with them and I’ve raised more kids than 95% of DCUM, with the youngest in elementary and the oldest successfully launched. Next “bet?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making someone's life better than your own doesn't necessarily mean they had a GOOD life. If you were beaten twice a day and you only beat your child once a week, you still beat your child, you see?

Saying "I'm sorry if I contributed to your unhappiness...." is not a real apology. It's the word "if" that's the problem. You need to change it to the word "that".

But lets review what he's saying: his parents were fighting, you wouldn't let him be an independent thinker regarding religion, and on top of all that, he was isolated via homeschooling. Yeah, who wouldn't be upset by all that?!

An adult who recognizes their parent was doing the best they could for their child at the time. An adult who accepts responsibility for making their own life choices that got them to where they are at 30. Most parents raise their children in their own religion at least until they are 18/an adult and start making religious decisions. There's nothing wrong with home schooling and once you turn 18 you can decide how you want to learn. An adult who recognizes their parents are humans and human interactions are complicated and their parents may not always portray ideal communication with each other. The 30year old needs to grow up and take responsibility for their current lot in life.

+100 An mature adult child owns their life choices and their issues. At some point, they stop running back to mommy and daddy with their problems.

This is true. And in my case, being a mature adult meant cutting my parents out of my life. If that's your goal for your relationship with your adult children, congrats, you are on track.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never understand these people who try to talk to their parents about their failures. You really think your mom and dad are going to change after 60+ years of life and announce “of course! we failed! thank you for showing us the light.”

Your parents failed. So have you. You were a spoiled brat at times and a sweet, misunderstood angel at others. The best thing you can do is the hard work of being a parent yourself. Forgive your wretched parents and hope that your child will do the same for you.

They will be “forgiven” when they actually own up to specifically what they did wrong and ask forgiveness, not some vague, handwaving BS like “whatever I may have done” or “I’m sorry you felt that way.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never understand these people who try to talk to their parents about their failures. You really think your mom and dad are going to change after 60+ years of life and announce “of course! we failed! thank you for showing us the light.”

Your parents failed. So have you. You were a spoiled brat at times and a sweet, misunderstood angel at others. The best thing you can do is the hard work of being a parent yourself. Forgive your wretched parents and hope that your child will do the same for you.

Uh, no. The child was a CHILD. The parent was an ADULT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making someone's life better than your own doesn't necessarily mean they had a GOOD life. If you were beaten twice a day and you only beat your child once a week, you still beat your child, you see?

Saying "I'm sorry if I contributed to your unhappiness...." is not a real apology. It's the word "if" that's the problem. You need to change it to the word "that".

But lets review what he's saying: his parents were fighting, you wouldn't let him be an independent thinker regarding religion, and on top of all that, he was isolated via homeschooling. Yeah, who wouldn't be upset by all that?!

An adult who recognizes their parent was doing the best they could for their child at the time. An adult who accepts responsibility for making their own life choices that got them to where they are at 30. Most parents raise their children in their own religion at least until they are 18/an adult and start making religious decisions. There's nothing wrong with home schooling and once you turn 18 you can decide how you want to learn. An adult who recognizes their parents are humans and human interactions are complicated and their parents may not always portray ideal communication with each other. The 30year old needs to grow up and take responsibility for their current lot in life.

+100 An mature adult child owns their life choices and their issues. At some point, they stop running back to mommy and daddy with their problems.

This is true. And in my case, being a mature adult meant cutting my parents out of my life. If that's your goal for your relationship with your adult children, congrats, you are on track.

Just remember that your own kids are watching how you treat your parents and they will think it's pretty normal to cut ties with you one day.

If I treated my kid like my parents treated me, I would want him to cut ties. As he gets older I fully expect to give him more details about the family so he will understand.

But nice - so you both think that parents can treat their children however they want, and that children have a duty to their parents? Sorry, no, does not work that way.

You are already harming your kid by keeping his grandparents from him. So when he is an adult and they are passed, he will ask you 'Why didn't you let me see my grandparents?' I wish I had grandparents like my friends. See how that works? You are all about you and not thinking about what you are doing to your kid.

They aren't like other grandparents, though, which is the point. My in laws refused to not smoke inside their house when we came to visit with our babies. They were offended when we asked to open a window. They wouldn't come to our house because they weren't allowed to smoke. They chose cigarettes over their grandkids. They were in a power struggle of their own making. We just wanted our kids to know their grandparents, they just wanted to blow smoke in their faces. Wtf is up with that?

The smoke is avoidable by meeting up outside. My parents were cigarette fiends too, they were completely addicted. Kids made them nervous, so they needed the cigs.

No, they didn’t “need the cigs.” How asinine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

Nope. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never understand these people who try to talk to their parents about their failures. You really think your mom and dad are going to change after 60+ years of life and announce “of course! we failed! thank you for showing us the light.”

Your parents failed. So have you. You were a spoiled brat at times and a sweet, misunderstood angel at others. The best thing you can do is the hard work of being a parent yourself. Forgive your wretched parents and hope that your child will do the same for you.

They will be “forgiven” when they actually own up to specifically what they did wrong and ask forgiveness, not some vague, handwaving BS like “whatever I may have done” or “I’m sorry you felt that way.”

Np. I didn’t even want my mother to accept what happened. I just wanted her to stop abusing me as an adult. People who are terrible parents to children are also frequently terrible parents to their adult children. My rift with my mother was more about her current behavior than her past behavior. I was willing to let the past go, but I wasn’t willing to put up with current abuse.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

This is a really interesting, and I don't know that we owe our parents a supportive ear for their trauma in the way we may want to listen to a friend. Particularly, if the relationship is not a peer-to-peer relationship in other ways.

Yes. Parents going to kids for comfort from their traumas is parentification, which is abusive. An explanation like "My mother screamed at me, and I unfortunately didn't learn better not to scream at my own children" seems OK enough, as long it is delivered in a factual, neutral way. Parents ideally are strong and in charge. If they messed up, they need to own it without needing sympathy or comfort from the children they hurt with their ignorant and/or abusive behavior.

I don't think this is necessarily true for parents and adult kids. I think part of growing up is relating to our parents as adults, and sometimes that means our emotions aren't always the primary focus. I'm not perfect at this myself, in some ways I do want my mom to be my rock instead of a person who comes to me with her flaws and struggles, but I think things change in adulthood.

Ok sure, parentification applies to kids who are actually children, when that damage happens, not adult children. If you have a good base and now you're all grown up, chances are, you have healthy parents who can lean on you if they need to. I have one parent who would never, ever lean on me in 1 million years, but he could and I would be happy to be leaned on by him. My other parent was a parentifier and so needy, it's as if she's a toddler. I resent her very strongly.

I disagree that parentification can only happen to kids. Yes, things change. We can share more with our kids as they age. But the parent should still always be the parent, the one who is willing to provide more emotional support.

And the problem is that a lot of parents who think that once their kids are adults you can treat them like anybody else is that they often think this means they can dump the struggles they had as parents on their kids, the same way they would go a friend. And in those conversations some parents make their difficulties with parenthood the primary focus, rather than letting the adult child’s difficulties of being parented be the primary focus. So the adult child is stuck being the one who supports rather than is supported (that’s where parentification comes in) or accused of being entitled and childish.

We don’t need to cry to our kids about how hard we had it as parents. We have friends and spouses for that. Sure let’s empathize with them when they come to us talking about how hard it is to be a parent, but in a way that doesn’t center our feelings at the expense of theirs.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It is always the parents fault and I am not being sarcastic.

+1

You choose to have children, you choose ALL the consequences, good and bad. If I’ve learned anything in 51 years I’ve learned that a great many people have zero positive parenting skills without learning them in a structured way, and many people are willing to learn to diaper, feed, clean etc. properly but it never occurs to them to learn anything about the care and feeding of a developing human brain - the part of your child that matters SO MUCH MORE than feeding and cleaning the body that houses their brain. If fact, most people are so full of opinions about correct parenting they are not even open to the suggestions of medical professionals or psychological professionals about those issues, and are instead determined to pass on the intergenerational dysfunction of their own experiences being parented.

Most parents hurt their children in some fashion while raising them, and many parents hurt them profoundly. Most likely the majority of those parents mean well, and have spent oodles of money getting the baby in the first place and acquiring all the physical stuff necessary to give baby a good start. With all the industry around children and childrearing it’s almost funny that we still behave as a society as though the parenting instinct is innate and all that’s really required to succeed in the endeavor. And yet all around us is the evidence of widespread failure yet we plod on as we have always done without any organized effort to rescue children. We go after the obvious cases of physical neglect and abuse and leave aside the millions of cases of psychologically traumatizing parenting.

I almost believe that the core flaw in our species is that our brains have gotten too big, too complex and our innate parenting skills remain limited to those which in most cases ensure the survival of the offspring without promoting the psychological thriving of the offspring. We have so far to go in that regard.

How many kids have you raised? I'm betting zero. You are an armchair quarterback.

I agree with them and I’ve raised more kids than 95% of DCUM, with the youngest in elementary and the oldest successfully launched. Next “bet?”

How many daddies? I'll bet you have some major dysfunction in your fam.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I feel like the parents who think it is unnecessary or messed up to listen to an adult child, validate feelings, etc. might not have great relationships in other realms of their lives? Unless you genuinely think that your relationship with adult children follows a different set of rules, it sounds like all this resistance to basic relationship principles--empathy, self-reflection, genuine care for how the other is feeling, non-defensiveness, etc--aren't something these posters see as valuable or are practiced with.

So maybe t's not a matter of how adults see their adult children, but rather how these commenters approach interpersonal relationships generally. Which shouldn't be surprising; most of us are bad at interpersonal relationships. They are hard.

The parent-child relationship is not like other relationships. The parent puts the child's needs first and the child is front and center in the parents' life. Other relationships don't demand that of us. That CANNOT last forever. But some kids never move on from being the center of the universe. They never see themselves as adults, just like their parents. They're stuck being needy children. Meanwhile the parents are exhausted from all the work of parenting the needy child.

In many relationships, people get caught up with “well what about all I have done for you?” You see this all the time in marriages. It’s like if someone does a lot for the other, they don’t get to point out how something hurt because that means they’re ungrateful. I see the same dynamic happening here. And if you want a good relationship , you can’t believe that your efforts to help the other person means their feelings don’t matter. So this isn’t about how relationships with adult children are different, it’s just lack of skill in relationships generally

DP. You don’t see that happening here because OP has admitted to specific things she regrets doing and she said she’s apologized. Whatever you’re projecting onto OP, just stop already and go deal with your own issues. Talk about inability to stop centering yourself….

That was a poor apology which is a big part of the problem.

What would a 'good' apology look like? Getting down on bended knee at DS feet and apologizing for everything DS didn't like about his upbringing?
Would that solidify DS's belief that his unhappiness is due to his parents choices and not his own? And that DS is not responsible for any of the problems he has in life? Psrents made the problems so they must fix them.

Getting down on bender knee? Your hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously. Why can’t OP apologize her poor choices, some of which she can now see are wrong. Why can’t she acknowledge that these choices hurt her child? Why does OP (and apparently you) need an apology need to come with a defense. There is not a person on this 30 page thread who disagrees that the adult must take of his own life at this point. Why do you continue to raise strawmen?

OP says she has apologized. She hasn’t told us how she did it or whether bended knees were involved. She has acknowledged here some of her poor choices. You’re ready to condemn her because she hasn’t painted a picture of abject self-abasement, but in fact we don’t know the details.

Your problem is equating any criticism of OP with "condeming" her, and any attempt to understand her child or see his point of view with "abject self-abasement." Which speaks volumes about your own ability to handle criticism, and hence puts your view of OP's situation into a certain light.

Slightly related, my 40 something dh is going through some things emotionally and trying to make sense of a couple of childhood occurrences. He asked hid mom to fill in the blanks or set the record straight on 2 things. She answered his questions and he thought it was a good talk. He never mentioned to her the horrible fights his parents had, nor the effect they had on him. She called him a week later and asked if he-thought she was a bad mom. He told her she did the best she could (she was a bad mom, imo) and that he was trying to understand why he feels and reacts a certain way when it comes to feeling and expressing emotions. He never blamed or accused her of anything. The next time they spoke, she cried to him about the horrible fights her parents had in front of her and her siblings and how they were scared and cried and hid (dh and sibs did same). Dh now sees and is trying to accept that he cannot have more than a superficial relationship with his mom. He told her he was suffering and she found a way to make it about her and her suffering.

Don't you think that DHs suffering is an extension of his mom's suffering? Her history puts his experience into context. It's like a person that grew up poor and blaming his parents without understanding what brought them into poverty. Just resenting your parents without context is simplistic childish thinking.

I actually see that as his mom trying to share a part of her past which might explain why she is the way she is to give him perspective and understanding so he could work on the reason he reached out to her in the first place. You are completely writing her off and encouraging your husband to do so as well. Why not just listen? You'd listen to your friend talk about their trauma but Mom doesn't get/deserve the same consideration?

This is a really interesting, and I don't know that we owe our parents a supportive ear for their trauma in the way we may want to listen to a friend. Particularly, if the relationship is not a peer-to-peer relationship in other ways.

Yes. Parents going to kids for comfort from their traumas is parentification, which is abusive. An explanation like "My mother screamed at me, and I unfortunately didn't learn better not to scream at my own children" seems OK enough, as long it is delivered in a factual, neutral way. Parents ideally are strong and in charge. If they messed up, they need to own it without needing sympathy or comfort from the children they hurt with their ignorant and/or abusive behavior.

I don't think this is necessarily true for parents and adult kids. I think part of growing up is relating to our parents as adults, and sometimes that means our emotions aren't always the primary focus. I'm not perfect at this myself, in some ways I do want my mom to be my rock instead of a person who comes to me with her flaws and struggles, but I think things change in adulthood.

Ok sure, parentification applies to kids who are actually children, when that damage happens, not adult children. If you have a good base and now you're all grown up, chances are, you have healthy parents who can lean on you if they need to. I have one parent who would never, ever lean on me in 1 million years, but he could and I would be happy to be leaned on by him. My other parent was a parentifier and so needy, it's as if she's a toddler. I resent her very strongly.

I disagree that parentification can only happen to kids. Yes, things change. We can share more with our kids as they age. But the parent should still always be the parent, the one who is willing to provide more emotional support.

And the problem is that a lot of parents who think that once their kids are adults you can treat them like anybody else is that they often think this means they can dump the struggles they had as parents on their kids, the same way they would go a friend. And in those conversations some parents make their difficulties with parenthood the primary focus, rather than letting the adult child’s difficulties of being parented be the primary focus. So the adult child is stuck being the one who supports rather than is supported (that’s where parentification comes in) or accused of being entitled and childish.

We don’t need to cry to our kids about how hard we had it as parents. We have friends and spouses for that. Sure let’s empathize with them when they come to us talking about how hard it is to be a parent, but in a way that doesn’t center our feelings at the expense of theirs.

If we've raised our kids right, they will have empathy for others - even their parents, instead of being ego centered aged babies.