When did you realize that your parents didn't care about you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On this devastating thread, filled with so much pain, can we please have the decency to not debate whether someone's memory of a bad experience is really bad enough? WTF is wrong with you people? Some of you might want to think about your own lack of empathy and what that might mean for your own children.

Yes, I'm not sure why some people feel the need to express that they know more than the person/people who experienced these things. You don't. So stuff it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

hmm this is something that I am working on- you took something that was supposed to be a treat for your kid and pissed all over it and made it a bad memory. it doesn't matte that your kid takes forever etc.. you let them have that fun experience b/c honestly your child having a good experience IS more important than the service person having to deal with their pickiness. The next time that you are going to be in the same situation- you tell your kid- hey, take your time and choose something once so that you dont inconvenience the service worker which you shouldn't do wether the item is free or paid for regardless. let people around you have a good time at the moment and choose a neutral time to teach your kids good manners. Your children will remember you as hyper critical and dementor like and they maybe even think that you re prioritizing the worker over them and that is the worst feeling for a child.

Agree. The person is also in a service position and should be able to demonstrate some patience with a child. And don't get on me for this: I waited tables, worked in a grocery store, cleaned hotel rooms . . . having grown up poor I know what it's like and what is reasonable to expect.

[Anonymous]

When I was a teen I struggled with depression. At one point I was scared I was going to hurt myself. I called my parents ( they were always out of town and left me by myself) they ended up coming home and my mother rolled her eyes at me and walked away in what I interpreted as disgust. That scene is forever stuck in my mind. Now that I am older, I understand it wasn't me but her. Its something I will never recover from and is so indicative of her child rearing. All I wanted was love and understanding and she isn't capable of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my mother, who was a heavy drinking alcoholic, decided in my 30s to suddenly quit cold turkey after the doctor told her beer would aggravate her gout. This, after 30 years of me begging her to quit, of so many fights, of our relationship being insanely strained, and after she got super drunk at my wedding.

For gout.

I think for every person a time comes when they finally are ready for change. It may look weird and selfish but it’s just the timing

Sure, whatever you say. Did you grow up with an alcoholic parent? FFS, she sucked.

[Anonymous]

When they pushed me in TJ. However, I was still able to have sex, drink, do drugs etc, so it was like being in a typical HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was a teen I struggled with depression. At one point I was scared I was going to hurt myself. I called my parents ( they were always out of town and left me by myself) they ended up coming home and my mother rolled her eyes at me and walked away in what I interpreted as disgust. That scene is forever stuck in my mind. Now that I am older, I understand it wasn't me but her. Its something I will never recover from and is so indicative of her child rearing. All I wanted was love and understanding and she isn't capable of that.

Ah! What was needed was one slap to your parents and a slap to you. Why leave you alone if you were depressed? Why have kids when you are incapable of loving a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Wow! You expect a child to intuit that he should make a quick pick whilst looking at a variety of treats and he can choose only one? I am your opposite type of mother and bakery customer and I would ask the clerk if we can take our time to pick and call her when we're ready. I'd help my child select something he'd enjoy. I want my kids to feel happiness, not shame. Sorry that's probably not what you want to hear.

You sound like the opposite extreme who is raising entitled and annoying children. This was a near-daily treat and it is very inconsiderate to send the bakery lady away for like 5 minutes and then interrupt whatever she started doing because Your Highness has finally made her choice. If it was an infrequent treat then sure, but not daily.

PP’s mother could have handled it a million times better by not yelling at her child and instead gently and constructively correcting her and coming up with a more efficient way to do things (“You pick what you want on Wednesdays and every other day, let her surprise you with whatever’s nearest”). But the overall message that we should be considerate of others, including retail workers, is 100% correct.

+1 Maybe the yelling was too far, but the message is right. I'm curious if this was the one thing that really stuck out about their childhood? I scolded my child for something similar (not for cookie selection, but for doing something inconsiderate that held up a planned lunch with friends at a restaurant). I hope that's not the one thing she remembers about her childhood!

The yelling and shaming is too far and not needed. The PP says mom belittled him or her, saying child wasting her time etc.
It's the shaming and anger that can be traumatic, the beginnings of emotional abuse.

What child benefits from hearing a message from the person you depend on to survive, that you are wasting their time, or feeling tat persons anger, over and over again?

Anyone who can't appreciate how emotionally vulnerable it would be to be yelled at, to be ridiculed and shamed, emotionally abused by the person you depend on to survive in the world, is just in denial.

Yes, that was what I said. The yelling was too far. I disagree with some of the other PPs that said the retail worker's time wasn't important. That message is totally wrong. All people deserve respect despite their jobs and no one is more important than anyone else.

I didn't say the worker's time wasn't important. I said I'd ask the worker if we could have some time to decide and then call her when we are ready. This models respect for the worker's time to the child. If the worker said, "No", I would quickly explain to my child they have to pick now and would guide them in their choice. I didn't realize this was an every day event. I didn't allow my kids treats every day when they were little, so picking one would have been special and I certainly wouldn't spoil that by yelling at them. I hope this clears things up.

DP. It would be the mom/adult responsibility to ensure the server or worker’s time is not wasted. I think this would be a fine response. Retails workers are part of the village in raising a child - there’s no need for them to become impatient with a child but agree, maybe worker could be annoyed with mom if not handling child well.

I didn’t hear you say that the retail workers time was not important either- it just seems some posters are trying to find issue with your response. My reaction to your response Is that I would have loved to have you as a mom. Sorry people are piling on you.

My DS was also a slow to warm up child - needed a lot of time to make decisions, likes to become familiar with the situation and get comfortable before making a move. I tried to support him while moving him towards making quicker decisions. Some of that is becoming confident in their decisions. It also turned out later he had ADHD, so there were cognitive issues making it hard for him to decide.

I’m so glad to say that the ADHD never became a point of shame for him (I come from a family of high achieving people) and he started college last fall studying engineering. But I can see if I had become angry every time he took too long, if I yelled and belittled him, it would have been hard for him to gain confidence in himself and his abilities and knowledge to get to engineering school.

Thank you so much for this! You sound like a great mom, too.

[Anonymous]

The title of this thread makes me sad. I feel so sorry for you, OP. A parent's love should be unconditional and unending.

My kids are both over the age of 30. I still care deeply about them and their lives and they both know it.

I always felt my parents cared deeply about me and my life and the same with my siblings.

Being a parent doesn't end when a child leaves home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was an adult. The signs were there all along, but it was so normal, I didn’t realize it was abuse and neglect. It was just mom and dad being mom and dad. I remember incidents from childhood that I recognize now as uncaring, but they always had an excuse, a way to blame me, and/or minimized my feelings if I were brave enough to express them.

Same. Having my own kids made me realize how sh*tty my parents were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was an adult. The signs were there all along, but it was so normal, I didn’t realize it was abuse and neglect. It was just mom and dad being mom and dad. I remember incidents from childhood that I recognize now as uncaring, but they always had an excuse, a way to blame me, and/or minimized my feelings if I were brave enough to express them.

Same. Having my own kids made me realize how sh*tty my parents were.

Same here. Also, seeing how sh*tty of a grandparents they are to my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was an adult. The signs were there all along, but it was so normal, I didn’t realize it was abuse and neglect. It was just mom and dad being mom and dad. I remember incidents from childhood that I recognize now as uncaring, but they always had an excuse, a way to blame me, and/or minimized my feelings if I were brave enough to express them.

Same. Having my own kids made me realize how sh*tty my parents were.

Completely agree.

[Anonymous]

This is a weird anecdote but stay with me:

I grew up in a hoarder household, and usually there was not a space where we could chill because there was stuff everywhere. We also didn't really have meals and my mom didn't really cook; I do remember her making crepes once and buttered rice another time, but I feel like that sort of ended when I was in upper elementary. I ate a lot of raw top ramen and Mac and cheese that I made myself (and sometimes even bought myself). My mom also yelled at us constantly, and seemed to get angry at us for everything.

Once, her friend's husband went to prison, and my mom babysat their daughter. My mom cleaned off a space on the floor for her to watch TV, and bought her a roast beef sandwich from Arby's and a canned Hawaiian Punch. While this girl was watching the show, she kept wiggling around her can of Hawaiian punch and a lot of it spilled. When my mom saw it she was furious and yelled "who did this?" I told her what happened, and she looked calmly at the girl and said in a really nice voice, "we need to be careful and not spill, okay sweetie?"

I asked my mom why this girl got the sandwich and why she didn't get yelled at, and my mom said in this angry voice, "her dad is in PRISON. Yours is not!" This happened several more times, where my mom treated kids from worse home environments better than she treated us. In a therapy session my mom basically said that we shouldn't complain about anything because we had a childhood that was much better than hers. She did a lot of messed up things but if we said anything we were told that we were entitled and didn't even deserve what we had.

I am sort of okay with this all now, I feel like she did her best and she is really just too mentally ill for our relationship to be good and I'm okay with the distant and yet friendly thing we have going now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was an adult. The signs were there all along, but it was so normal, I didn’t realize it was abuse and neglect. It was just mom and dad being mom and dad. I remember incidents from childhood that I recognize now as uncaring, but they always had an excuse, a way to blame me, and/or minimized my feelings if I were brave enough to express them.

Same. Having my own kids made me realize how sh*tty my parents were.

Same here. Also, seeing how sh*tty of a grandparents they are to my kids.

Yes agree with both. You realize you didn't deserve that maltreatment as a child, and realize you lacked the emotional and cognitive maturity to see that, when you see your child being mistreated by your parents and you know he or she did nothing to deserve that. I spent a lot of time making sure my DS understood he wasn't to blame for my parents' comments and their neglect of him when he visited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Wow! You expect a child to intuit that he should make a quick pick whilst looking at a variety of treats and he can choose only one? I am your opposite type of mother and bakery customer and I would ask the clerk if we can take our time to pick and call her when we're ready. I'd help my child select something he'd enjoy. I want my kids to feel happiness, not shame. Sorry that's probably not what you want to hear.

You sound like the opposite extreme who is raising entitled and annoying children. This was a near-daily treat and it is very inconsiderate to send the bakery lady away for like 5 minutes and then interrupt whatever she started doing because Your Highness has finally made her choice. If it was an infrequent treat then sure, but not daily.

PP’s mother could have handled it a million times better by not yelling at her child and instead gently and constructively correcting her and coming up with a more efficient way to do things (“You pick what you want on Wednesdays and every other day, let her surprise you with whatever’s nearest”). But the overall message that we should be considerate of others, including retail workers, is 100% correct.

+1 Maybe the yelling was too far, but the message is right. I'm curious if this was the one thing that really stuck out about their childhood? I scolded my child for something similar (not for cookie selection, but for doing something inconsiderate that held up a planned lunch with friends at a restaurant). I hope that's not the one thing she remembers about her childhood!

The yelling and shaming is too far and not needed. The PP says mom belittled him or her, saying child wasting her time etc.
It's the shaming and anger that can be traumatic, the beginnings of emotional abuse.

What child benefits from hearing a message from the person you depend on to survive, that you are wasting their time, or feeling tat persons anger, over and over again?

Anyone who can't appreciate how emotionally vulnerable it would be to be yelled at, to be ridiculed and shamed, emotionally abused by the person you depend on to survive in the world, is just in denial.

Agree. And it's not about just one time at the bakery; it's about repeated messages that the child doesn't matter, the child is a bother, the child is a burden.

When my DS was about 5-6 I was in a phase where I was really stressed. I'll never forget - we were in a hardware store and I felt like he was getting in the way (he has poor body control/personal space). Being "polite" in public has always been a bit of a trigger for me. I said to him "DS look where you are putting your body, you are IN THE WAY!" A man standing behind us made a comment - I can't remember what it was exactly - but it was something a little sarcastic calling out how harsh I sounded, like "Oh yes, children should be seen and not heard!" In that moment I instantly realized how I sounded, how harsh it might have appeared to my DS (who wasn't really doing anything wrong). Really made me reflect on how I interact with him in public and the choice between giving a gentle correction and a harsh correction, and when to just not GAF about appearing polite. Thank you random dude! Not like I am perfect, but I always try to ensure that I don't give my DS a message that he is a bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Wow! You expect a child to intuit that he should make a quick pick whilst looking at a variety of treats and he can choose only one? I am your opposite type of mother and bakery customer and I would ask the clerk if we can take our time to pick and call her when we're ready. I'd help my child select something he'd enjoy. I want my kids to feel happiness, not shame. Sorry that's probably not what you want to hear.

You sound like the opposite extreme who is raising entitled and annoying children. This was a near-daily treat and it is very inconsiderate to send the bakery lady away for like 5 minutes and then interrupt whatever she started doing because Your Highness has finally made her choice. If it was an infrequent treat then sure, but not daily.

PP’s mother could have handled it a million times better by not yelling at her child and instead gently and constructively correcting her and coming up with a more efficient way to do things (“You pick what you want on Wednesdays and every other day, let her surprise you with whatever’s nearest”). But the overall message that we should be considerate of others, including retail workers, is 100% correct.

+1 Maybe the yelling was too far, but the message is right. I'm curious if this was the one thing that really stuck out about their childhood? I scolded my child for something similar (not for cookie selection, but for doing something inconsiderate that held up a planned lunch with friends at a restaurant). I hope that's not the one thing she remembers about her childhood!

The yelling and shaming is too far and not needed. The PP says mom belittled him or her, saying child wasting her time etc.
It's the shaming and anger that can be traumatic, the beginnings of emotional abuse.

What child benefits from hearing a message from the person you depend on to survive, that you are wasting their time, or feeling tat persons anger, over and over again?

Anyone who can't appreciate how emotionally vulnerable it would be to be yelled at, to be ridiculed and shamed, emotionally abused by the person you depend on to survive in the world, is just in denial.

Yes, that was what I said. The yelling was too far. I disagree with some of the other PPs that said the retail worker's time wasn't important. That message is totally wrong. All people deserve respect despite their jobs and no one is more important than anyone else.

I didn't say the worker's time wasn't important. I said I'd ask the worker if we could have some time to decide and then call her when we are ready. This models respect for the worker's time to the child. If the worker said, "No", I would quickly explain to my child they have to pick now and would guide them in their choice. I didn't realize this was an every day event. I didn't allow my kids treats every day when they were little, so picking one would have been special and I certainly wouldn't spoil that by yelling at them. I hope this clears things up.

Well, now that you have understood the situation, would you stick by your stance of sending the retail worker away every day so your child can take their time and have their special moment? Or would you gently ask them to be more considerate of the retail worker’s time?