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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Am I worried about my own kids? Not really. I like having them around and they know it. The conversations I have with my teens now my parents never had with me, I learned to keep everything to myself pretty early. [/quote]
There is no way that you can know whether 25 years from now, your adult children will see what you have done as sufficiently loving and supportive.  Social mores and expectations are constantly changing and the type of parenting we provided may or may not be kindly looked upon in the future.  There is no way to know.  All you can do is try your best in any given moment and hope it all works out.

[b]My parents certainly made mistakes, but I don't hold it against them personally.  They tried and did what they could with the information available to them, the societal expectations of the time, and with what they had been taught from their own upbringing.  There really is no point to hanging on to anger about something that they didn't even know was wrong[/b].[/quote]

I'm the PP who asked about the million dollar question. I agree that there's no way to know. As you say, all we can do is try our best in any given moment and hope.

What's interesting about the part I bolded is that over the years, I've said almost the very same words to my sibling. Sibling has been angry, just absolutely furious, for their whole life. And I ...wasn't? Or I didn't think I was? I'm still not sure I *was* angry. But something about this phase of life has been deeply trying in ways I didn't expect. Maybe I'm changing as I age. Or maybe it's a form of pre-grieving -- grieving not just the person that was, but also the relationship that wasn't.

At any rate, a lot of people have said thoughtful things here, and I'm grateful for that. [/quote]

My mom got this way mid 50s. Maybe she just has more time for introspection now or her tolerance for annoyances has gotten lower. I’m not sure but she has really soured on her mother. For her sake, I hope that she can work through what she is feeling as I am worried she will feel guilty and full of regret for not engaging with her mom more when her mom passes. [/quote]

NP. Yes, I think this is complicated. We grew up with an abusive mom and dad. Mom was mostly neglect, dad was emotional abuse. I was the eldest daughter, so bore the brunt of it. My brother is estranged from me and will very occasionally speak to my parents and sister, but refuses to see them. My sister is growing more distant in her late 40s --  she's missed several family gatherings/events this year. I was very angry as a child, teen, and young adult -- as I imagine them to be. However, after I graduated college, I decided that my anger was eating a hole in me. I completely changed my outlook and also changed my relationship with both parents. I think that gave them the green light to change themselves, though I never denied the reality that I wish they had been different. I think that emotional growth made me a better person, and I was able to be a very different parent breaking the cycle.

I believe my siblings were initially better parents, but the older they got the more like our parents they became, as their own children had more emotional needs/tested boundaries. My brother took away Christmas from his kids one year for a minor mistake (the last year before he cut off contact). My sister's kids have growing anxiety, and they cannot tolerate any change and she's kept them away from family recently.

The thing with my sister is that she's becoming increasingly angry with my mom, but she also doesn't give our mom any opportunity to improve either. Therein lies the difference. She sets my mom up to fail because it's basically her relationship in her head with our mom. My mom recently talked to me about the eldest daughter syndrome and how she had been reading about it and apologized. But, that's only because I haven't cut her out of my life, and gave her some space to own her mistake.

Anger is comfort, and it can be hard to break. Empathy, forgiveness, and loving boundaries is the way. You don't even need to continue a relationship, but do it out of love and honor of the past (or how the universe brought you together for some mythical reason) and let it go in peace. I love my brother and have so many fond memories that make me happy, but our relationship will not continue. I'm not angry at him, nor do I believe he needs to change. [/quote]

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