Reply to How do some people luck out with great adult kids and others have kids who abandon them

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Reply to "How do some people luck out with great adult kids and others have kids who abandon them"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hurt people create hurt kids. They in turn lash out and hurt those around them. Some families are in such a perpetual cycle of bullies and bullied. What this amounts to is people hurting each other as a way to feel good about themselves as they never learned to feel good and worthy on their own merit. If a parent was a bully, kids became the same as they are only thought that they are worthy by hurting others. Almost always, it comes to this. [b]Kids abandon such parents bcs parents used them to feel good about themselves. Now, power structures have changed and adult kids are only doing what they grew up with. Hurting parents by abandoning them, so they can feel good.[/b] Their kids will do the same to them. 
Breaking out of this bullying cycle might be hard.[/quote]

I was with you until the bolded. I think instead what happens is that adult children recognize the cycle of abuse and attempt to set healthy boundaries, and this is viewed as "abandonment" by parents who are still stuck in the cycle of their own childhood trauma.

You are right that breaking out of this cycle is difficult. But it is sometimes made more difficult because people will indict you for wanting some distance from people who abused or neglected you as a child, and needing independence so that you can heal from your own trauma and ensure it is not passed on to your own kids. Viewing this process as abandonment of obligations to your parents makes it much harder to do. Which is why assuming that adult children are terrible and mean because they don't visit their parents more often can be a mistake. Everyone in this scenario is an adult and responsible for their own emotions. You cannot expect people to submit themselves to further abuse simply because it will prevent an older person from feeling lonely. I cannot fix what my grandparents did to my parents. But I can do something about what my parents did to me. It might mean I don't see them as much and that might hurt them. I have to take care of myself and my children. I am not lashing out at my parents -- the opposite really.[/quote]

Yes, you are right. I thought of what I wrote and should have said some adult kids of such parents. I was about to post that not all kids of bullies end up being bullies, some do.[/quote]

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