Reply to Does anyone have zero happy memories of their mother or father?

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[quote=Anonymous]This is so sad to read because even though it should be validating to not be alone, as another PP said it’s pretty awful to realize that more than one parent treated their children like this.

For a long time through my young adult life, I believed that I had a happy childhood full of happy memories. It wasn’t until my friends started marrying and having babies and I was surrounded by other people’s parents as an adult that I realized that not everyone grew up the way I did. I know it sounds crazy but I was truly stunned to realize this. When I was a child, I assumed when I encountered nice parents at my friends’ houses that they yelled and hit and degraded and neglected their kids behind closed doors just like mine, and everyone just hid that and it was how families behaved.

It took a couple of separate, deep talks with friends in the middle of the night (the kind you can only have when you’re in your 20s and drinking but not drunk) to put everything together.

Since then, I’ve realized that every happy memory I thought I had also had an inverse. Like my mom did something fun and spontaneous that was magical until I remembered the rest of the week years later. She was probably in a manic phase or something because they next day everything crashed down and she screamed at us and went to bed for an entire week and told my little brother and I that Christmas was cancelled. But my paternal grandparents came over for Christmas Eve dinner anyway and there was no Christmas Eve dinner and my mom hissed instructions at my dad from her bed.

Or I got into a sleepaway summer school program and my mom tore up my acceptance letter and grounded me, but then let me go but it was past the deadline to accept. She made me call the office of the program and beg to be allowed to attend while she listened. When I did go, she paid extra for fun side trips  and a rented laptop to do my work on. So for years I just remembered how supportive she was of that summer.

Parenting my children is a constant secret heartbreak because I realize how easy it is to love them and treat them well and I can’t understand why my mother wanted to do the opposite.[/quote]

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