Reply to Was your mother a "yeller," how did it affect you?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My mom was a raging, screaming monster pretty much every day of my childhood, unless she was cripplingly depressed.  There was no rhyme or reason to it. One days she'd come home and scream at us about the floor that wasn't vacuumed.  The next day it would be rage because we had vacuumed but didn't put the vacuum away properly.   The next day it would because we tried to talk to her when she first walked in the door.  The next day she'd flip out because we didn't get up and start talking happily to her.

As a teen, I yelled right back at her.  I hated her.  My whole childhood with her was fear and terror.  When she grew old and needed care, I did what I could to assuage my guilt, the minimum required to meet my own definition of decency.  But I was resentful.  She mellowed somewhat with age, but was still narcissistic and awful most of.the time.

I have a 3 year old son and have not yet yelled at him except I occasionally yelled his name when I need him to hear Merton far away.  It may be my greatest accomplishment.[/quote]

Sounds like you were the kind of kid that would depress the hell out of a parent. Was your mom a single mom? Did she work outside the home? What did you ever do to help her? Were you a good student? No drugs or unwed pregnancies? Well, alrighty then. Just check back in with us in 10 years when you have multiple children and then you can weigh in--but for now just tighten your chinstrap--parenting is brutal and none of us are saints--there will be pain along the way. [/quote]

You must be the asshole who keeps minimizing the damage of parental abuse above.  I'm the PP, and you know what?  I was a fucking angel until my teen years, and even then I was still an amazing person even though I yelled back at my mom.  I did more housework than my mom...easily 10 times more than her.  My brothers and I were like her indentured servants.  As soon as we got home from school, as early as kindergarten, we were expected to clean, do laundry (all of the family's), help our dad with daily shopping and meal prep (and later cook) and generally do whatever we could to keep her rages in check.  I was on the honor roll always, nearly a straight A student, and sweet, obedient, and helpful.  All I did was try to find ways to get her to not scream at us. My middle brother was just as good, except he was often sick and my mother hated him for it.  She hit him and screamed at him when he was a toddler and preschooler because he had chronic ear infections and would cry at night. I never did drugs and never saddled my family with an unintended pregnancy.  I got a nearly full scholarship to a private college three hours away, got loans for the rest, and left home at 18.  My  middle brother died by suicide, which I laregely attribute to the stress of the abuse that we all survived and how her cruelty destroyed his self-estem and safety.  My oldest brother hated her so much that he didn't even help when she needed assisted living and then nursing care.

My mom had a tough childhood.  Her mom was even more abusive than she was.  But that is no excuse for what she did.  She did work for some years when she wasn't too depressed to get out of bed other than to buy her own junk food.  She never woke up to get us ready for school.  My dad, who worked 9 hour factory shifts, did all that.  He was an alcoholic who never missed a shift, woke us very morning, fed us every night.  He was no saint be he was a good dad.  She abused him, too.

IF my kid grows up to be 70% as responsible and decent and sweet as I was as a kid, I'd feel like I hit the kid jackpot.  But I'd be never want my kid to pay attention to my moods and needs as much as I had to do for my mom.

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