Anonymous wrote:My experiences as a daughter and as a mom is that you get what you give. My parents were not great parents and I have a lot of issues with them, but I do try to be polite and respectful towards them if only to model that behavior for my own child and to make our visits more pleasant. I am stingy with visits though, because they can be real pills and stress me out a lot, and I have to give myself breaks between visits or the resentment will build up and I will really struggle to stay polite.

As a parent, I am trying to do better than my parents. I don't hit my kids, for starters. I think that's really awful behavior and I think the fact that my parents hit us has been really terrible for our mental health and for our relationship with them. I know they'd justify it by saying it was more normalized back then, but I know plenty of Boomers who didn't hit their kids. At the end of the day it's a choice.

I also talk to my kids respectfully, am interested in their lives, and apologize to them when I screw up. These are things my parents didn't do when I was a kid. They were very authoritarian and spoke to me with a lot of condescension or frequently sarcasm -- like I was dumb and they were smart and they resented having to explain things to me. They didn't seem interested in my life, my thoughts, my dreams for myself. And they never apologized. Not even when they were clearly in the wrong, like if they lost their temper over something that turned out to be a misunderstanding, even when it became clear they misunderstood, they wouldn't apologize, they'd just scold us for not clarifying things for them sooner.

I think the reason I have a really positive relationship with my kids but not a great one with my parents is a lot of this behavior. It's just hard to have a mutually respectful and warm relationship with people who used to hit you in anger, criticize you all the time, talk down to you, dismiss you, and were never accountable to you for any of their own behavior.

I do still try to be polite though. And I maintain a relationship with them. But I know often they feel I don't welcome them enough, or visit enough, or even that I am not respectful enough of their station in life. I do my best.

Perhaps some of this will be helpful for you, OP.

Anonymous wrote:We are the "submit generation." We submitted to our elders, and now we are really submitting to our kids. One false move, something misunderstood or perceived, or really nothing, and we are tossed like old lettuce.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I think you are gaslighting us. You sound emotionally stunted and entitled.

I have a crazy aunt who is a narcissist and intensely demanding and unlikable. She however is convinced that she is a delight, an absolute delight that everyone loves yet no one can stand to be with her. She would quickly tell you how I am a big meanie that got mad at her for simply wanting to make my daughter a birthday cake. How awful, a birthday cake! She will omit that had harassed our family for months after being told no multiple times. My kids do not want to do anything with her. She’s crazy! We tried polite no thank you responses and not inviting her and this only enraged her. We tried grey rock, this enraged her more. She started calling and texting the kids demanding they do something with her. She told them to tell their meanie parents to let her see them. She scared them. She demanded that my daughter spend her birthday with her..not her friends, not us but her. This was it , we blocked her on all devices and went no contact. To ths day, she rages about us cutting her off over a birthday cake.

You may not be that bad but you certainly try to paint a picture that you are a delight when you don’t come off that way so it sounds suspicious.

My advice is to let go of feeling entitled to their children. Be pleasant when you get together, spend quality and not quantity time with them. Stop getting mad that you aren’t invited as frequently as you want.

NP- Ah, here it is. The millennial brigade assuming the worst in you, OP. I was wondering what was taking so long.

No, please do not assume this. Give these parents a break. Their kids are awful. Who calls their father a moron?

We are all sick of it. And it is very, very sad.

You’re “all sick of it?” Too damn bad.

And if it’s all THREE of OP’s kids, the problem is OP. Simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good thing about millennial is that we can talk, speak up against our abusers, speak up against pedophile Priests, pedophile rich people, be free and choose whatever we feel are

I can’t wait until the day your own children call you out for the spoiled entitled narcissistic asses you really are.

I can’t wait until the day your own children call you out for the spoiled entitled narcissistic asses you really are.

Thanks to boomers, we don't have a future for the next generations. People like you are the problem. The day we stop praising greedy rich people and pedophile priests it will be a better world

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good thing about millennial is that we can talk, speak up against our abusers, speak up against pedophile Priests, pedophile rich people, be free and choose whatever we feel are

I can’t wait until the day your own children call you out for the spoiled entitled narcissistic asses you really are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My experiences as a daughter and as a mom is that you get what you give. My parents were not great parents and I have a lot of issues with them, but I do try to be polite and respectful towards them if only to model that behavior for my own child and to make our visits more pleasant. I am stingy with visits though, because they can be real pills and stress me out a lot, and I have to give myself breaks between visits or the resentment will build up and I will really struggle to stay polite.

As a parent, I am trying to do better than my parents. I don't hit my kids, for starters. I think that's really awful behavior and I think the fact that my parents hit us has been really terrible for our mental health and for our relationship with them. I know they'd justify it by saying it was more normalized back then, but I know plenty of Boomers who didn't hit their kids. At the end of the day it's a choice.

I also talk to my kids respectfully, am interested in their lives, and apologize to them when I screw up. These are things my parents didn't do when I was a kid. They were very authoritarian and spoke to me with a lot of condescension or frequently sarcasm -- like I was dumb and they were smart and they resented having to explain things to me. They didn't seem interested in my life, my thoughts, my dreams for myself. And they never apologized. Not even when they were clearly in the wrong, like if they lost their temper over something that turned out to be a misunderstanding, even when it became clear they misunderstood, they wouldn't apologize, they'd just scold us for not clarifying things for them sooner.

I think the reason I have a really positive relationship with my kids but not a great one with my parents is a lot of this behavior. It's just hard to have a mutually respectful and warm relationship with people who used to hit you in anger, criticize you all the time, talk down to you, dismiss you, and were never accountable to you for any of their own behavior.

I do still try to be polite though. And I maintain a relationship with them. But I know often they feel I don't welcome them enough, or visit enough, or even that I am not respectful enough of their station in life. I do my best.

Perhaps some of this will be helpful for you, OP.

This right here sums up why I don't have a great relationship with my boomer parents. My dad had major anger issues (my mom to a lesser extent) and it was constant yelling and walking on eggshells. Rarely, I will feel myself going in that direction ... yelling, sarcasm, etc. And then I remember how that felt when I was a kid. I ALWAYS apologize to my daughter and give her perspective. Like "I'm sorry, Mommy was feeling overwhelmed and did not handle her feelings in an appropriate way. I'm so sorry if my behavior made you feel upset. Would you like to talk about it?" If my parents had taken time to do that (and just didn't have angry outbursts SO frequently) I think we'd be in a better place. It continued well into my young adulthood and they wonder why I pulled away.

Also, hanging out with my parents is stressful. They can't just show up to something with my DD. They expect to be catered to. Greeted out front, DD has to behave (perform) a certain way, we have to say thank you for coming X amount of times... or I hear about it later, because nothing is ever good enough for them. They get invited to less and less every time this happens.

I strongly suspect some of this is in play in this situation.

Anonymous wrote:Boomers are awful and they raised the worst generation of all time. You only have yourselves to blame.

Signed,

GenX mom with great Gen Z kids

Anonymous wrote:My experiences as a daughter and as a mom is that you get what you give. My parents were not great parents and I have a lot of issues with them, but I do try to be polite and respectful towards them if only to model that behavior for my own child and to make our visits more pleasant. I am stingy with visits though, because they can be real pills and stress me out a lot, and I have to give myself breaks between visits or the resentment will build up and I will really struggle to stay polite.

As a parent, I am trying to do better than my parents. I don't hit my kids, for starters. I think that's really awful behavior and I think the fact that my parents hit us has been really terrible for our mental health and for our relationship with them. I know they'd justify it by saying it was more normalized back then, but I know plenty of Boomers who didn't hit their kids. At the end of the day it's a choice.

I also talk to my kids respectfully, am interested in their lives, and apologize to them when I screw up. These are things my parents didn't do when I was a kid. They were very authoritarian and spoke to me with a lot of condescension or frequently sarcasm -- like I was dumb and they were smart and they resented having to explain things to me. They didn't seem interested in my life, my thoughts, my dreams for myself. And they never apologized. Not even when they were clearly in the wrong, like if they lost their temper over something that turned out to be a misunderstanding, even when it became clear they misunderstood, they wouldn't apologize, they'd just scold us for not clarifying things for them sooner.

I think the reason I have a really positive relationship with my kids but not a great one with my parents is a lot of this behavior. It's just hard to have a mutually respectful and warm relationship with people who used to hit you in anger, criticize you all the time, talk down to you, dismiss you, and were never accountable to you for any of their own behavior.

I do still try to be polite though. And I maintain a relationship with them. But I know often they feel I don't welcome them enough, or visit enough, or even that I am not respectful enough of their station in life. I do my best.

Perhaps some of this will be helpful for you, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I think you are gaslighting us. You sound emotionally stunted and entitled.

I have a crazy aunt who is a narcissist and intensely demanding and unlikable. She however is convinced that she is a delight, an absolute delight that everyone loves yet no one can stand to be with her. She would quickly tell you how I am a big meanie that got mad at her for simply wanting to make my daughter a birthday cake. How awful, a birthday cake! She will omit that had harassed our family for months after being told no multiple times. My kids do not want to do anything with her. She’s crazy! We tried polite no thank you responses and not inviting her and this only enraged her. We tried grey rock, this enraged her more. She started calling and texting the kids demanding they do something with her. She told them to tell their meanie parents to let her see them. She scared them. She demanded that my daughter spend her birthday with her..not her friends, not us but her. This was it , we blocked her on all devices and went no contact. To ths day, she rages about us cutting her off over a birthday cake.

You may not be that bad but you certainly try to paint a picture that you are a delight when you don’t come off that way so it sounds suspicious.

My advice is to let go of feeling entitled to their children. Be pleasant when you get together, spend quality and not quantity time with them. Stop getting mad that you aren’t invited as frequently as you want.

“Feeling entitled to their children?!?” This is their grandchildren and of course they want a relationship with them.

yes they can WANT one, but they are not ENTITLED to one

FFS unless they are addicts or openly abusive, yes they are entitled. What is wrong with you.

Wrong.