Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I du dc bf have a great childhood but my mom likely did the best she could. However, the cruelty that she treats me a now is unacceptable. I went no contact. Peace finally.
And it’s not that she had dementia or something. She’s fine w one of my sisters but estranged from the other.

Do you have any examples of current cruelty?

Anonymous wrote:My spouse refuses to talk about his parents’ neglect and avoidance, yet continues the same pattern. It’s sad to see and realize post-children that’s what’s going on.

Can one parent break the cycle?

Or will our daughters be prone to marrying someone who masks and then drops the mask to do nothing?

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

Anonymous wrote:My spouse refuses to talk about his parents’ neglect and avoidance, yet continues the same pattern. It’s sad to see and realize post-children that’s what’s going on.

Can one parent break the cycle?

Or will our daughters be prone to marrying someone who masks and then drops the mask to do nothing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dispute the premise. I don’t think “many” people are doing this. It’s abnormal and atypical.

I think some have legitimate grievances they should work through with a good therapist. I also think social media plays a role in manipulating others into becoming performative with imagined slights and fabulism/revisionist history about things that happened.

But it’s not like this sort of thing is commonplace. It’s fringe.

Your role? I guess it’s just to listen. But don’t feel like you need to validate everything. A lot of people have these Big Feelings that actually are not valid. Whether you want to be the one to tell them that is up to you. But if they are in the performative group, you don’t have to indulge it or feed their need for attention.

Agree.
Mass media and social media are trying to make it trendy to identity trauma from one’s parents decades ago. But most mature adults go full circle and realize they were fine, loved, and nothing chronic or abusive was actually going on. The parents were doing their best and likely their teen selves were little pricks a lot. And if you have kids and yell at them occasionally when at your wits end, that’s ok too.
FYI we moved when our kids were 10 yo and they don’t even remember stuff about our old house or city unless looking at photos. So grain of salt on revisionist impressions from your early days too!

Anonymous wrote:There’s just so much anger in them now that I struggle to relate when they share. They all seem to have had really good child and teen years. Male and Female friends. I sit with them thru tears and outbursts, some of them writing letters and emails to their parents to express their anger too.

How can I be a supportive friend?

I think for me that realizing those mistakes (mother chose an abusive, addicted partner to have a child with) and accepting that my now deceased father abandoned me is what was behind my angry teen years. I used to punch walls, scream, fight, everything you can imagine. Eating disorder and self harm (cutter). I think it helped me to become well adjusted earlier than the close people around me just coming to terms in their forties.

How do I help them now at this stage? I want to be there but I do not feel that same passion for anger in my forties that I had in my teens. But it seems they feel that fury now that they did not back then.

Anonymous wrote:Your family was identifiably dysfunctional when you were young, in a way that was easy for you and others to grasp. Your dad abandoned you. You had a parent who was an addict and abusive in a way you recognized as abuse as a child. You processed that pain early. Even in young adulthood, if someone asked about your family, you could probably articulate what was wrong.

I grew up in a family that externally looked like it had no problems. My parents were not divorced. My dad had a successful business. We lived in a nice middle class home, took vacations, had enough to eat. I grew up believing I was fortunate and had a "good childhood." But there was always this bagging feeling if emptiness. My parents would say my siblings and I were just ungrateful or "want to be unhappy" so I though that was true.

My parents were both physically and verbally abusive but it was totally normalized as "corporal punishment." My parents (who were both raised by alcoholics) would say "you don't know how good you have it" when they'd hit us and scream at us. So I thought that was how parents were. I didn't find out until I was an adult that there are many parents who don't hit and scream at their kids.

Addiction runs on my family but my parents weren't alcoholics or drug users so I thought I was lucky I'm that respect. A few years ago in a support group I learned about the concept of a "dry drunk" which is someone who has stopped drinking but engages in all the same abusive behaviors of alcoholism -- the lying, narcissism, even "blacking out" bad behavior and pretending it didn't happen. I realized my mom, whose own mother was an alcoholic and whose dad left her family and mom died when she was a teen, has the behaviors of a dry drunk. But I didn't figure this out until I was early 40s.

You and I both grew up with neglect, abuse, addiction, abandonment. But you understood that's what you were dealing with by your teens. Back then I was still being brainwashed into thinking it was normal, that everyone's family was like that. It took me decades, and having my own kids, to understand how dysfunctional and abnormal it was. And now my parents are old and sick and there's no way to repair, I just have to pretend with them until they go because there's no reconciliation over old hurts to be had with two 75+ people with dementia.

Anonymous wrote:There’s just so much anger in them now that I struggle to relate when they share. They all seem to have had really good child and teen years. Male and Female friends. I sit with them thru tears and outbursts, some of them writing letters and emails to their parents to express their anger too.

How can I be a supportive friend?

I think for me that realizing those mistakes (mother chose an abusive, addicted partner to have a child with) and accepting that my now deceased father abandoned me is what was behind my angry teen years. I used to punch walls, scream, fight, everything you can imagine. Eating disorder and self harm (cutter). I think it helped me to become well adjusted earlier than the close people around me just coming to terms in their forties.

How do I help them now at this stage? I want to be there but I do not feel that same passion for anger in my forties that I had in my teens. But it seems they feel that fury now that they did not back then.

Anonymous wrote:I du dc bf have a great childhood but my mom likely did the best she could. However, the cruelty that she treats me a now is unacceptable. I went no contact. Peace finally.
And it’s not that she had dementia or something. She’s fine w one of my sisters but estranged from the other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't really believe that middle aged people suddenly "discover" something they didn't know before about their families. Usually it means that their elderly parents are in decline and exhibiting behaviors that did not exist previously, at least to such a severe extent; or it means they suddenly decided to share with you something they've long known about. If they're just now truly "discovering" something, then whatever it is must not be very bad. They're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

My close friends and I knew from our teenage years that some family dynamics were off. This is the typical age to realize such things, OP. It's not that you can do much about it until you're financially independent from your parents... but you KNOW something is wrong. I spent my 20s getting all irritated with her, then I confronted my mother about her verbal and psychological abuse in my late 20s, early 30s, and went no contact for a while.

Now I'm in my 40s. Most of my life, I've always accepted that she is the way she is and that we cannot have a trusting relationship. My close friends did the same for their problem parent, or problem sibling.

It’s actually very, very common. You have your own kids and think back to your childhood. You’re able to see that yes, it was insane behavior.

As a child and teenager, I didn’t have the maturity or knowledge to identify what was wrong. I knew I was unhappy and felt angry, but didn’t really understand why.

Here’s an example. My mom had me change schools (difficult in itself) and wouldn’t let me cut my hair. I had unfashionable very long hair that my mom was obsessed with. She didn’t care I was made fun of. I cried and begged. She refused to let me cut my hair. I absolutely hated it. As a child, I didn’t have the ability to explain it’s my body and you’re hurting me. I just knew I felt bad about it.

Now I have a young daughter and she came to me and asked to have her hair cut. I said yes. We went to the hair salon and I explained she couldn’t do anything crazy, but explain to the stylist what you want. Watching her take a look after the haircut was special. She was very proud of her new appearance and loved it. It made me happy. I was then able to fully realize that how my mom approached my body and hair was strange. I can’t imagine forcing my daughter to be embarrassed about her appearance.

You were insecure and your bullies picked up on it. It wasn’t your hair. If she’d let you cut your hair, it would be wrong face (the “right” haircut is not for a face like yours, hahaha), or the way you smile, or the way your mom walks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

I’m sure I’m doing all sorts of stuff wrong, but I can assure you I respect my children and love them. This wasn’t demonstrated by my parents.

Your kids may see it differently. Everyone views their upbringing subjectively.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sure these 40-year-olds won't be making any mistakes with their children and hearing about in 20 years.

I’m sure I’m doing all sorts of stuff wrong, but I can assure you I respect my children and love them. This wasn’t demonstrated by my parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't really believe that middle aged people suddenly "discover" something they didn't know before about their families. Usually it means that their elderly parents are in decline and exhibiting behaviors that did not exist previously, at least to such a severe extent; or it means they suddenly decided to share with you something they've long known about. If they're just now truly "discovering" something, then whatever it is must not be very bad. They're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

My close friends and I knew from our teenage years that some family dynamics were off. This is the typical age to realize such things, OP. It's not that you can do much about it until you're financially independent from your parents... but you KNOW something is wrong. I spent my 20s getting all irritated with her, then I confronted my mother about her verbal and psychological abuse in my late 20s, early 30s, and went no contact for a while.

Now I'm in my 40s. Most of my life, I've always accepted that she is the way she is and that we cannot have a trusting relationship. My close friends did the same for their problem parent, or problem sibling.

It’s actually very, very common. You have your own kids and think back to your childhood. You’re able to see that yes, it was insane behavior.

As a child and teenager, I didn’t have the maturity or knowledge to identify what was wrong. I knew I was unhappy and felt angry, but didn’t really understand why.

Here’s an example. My mom had me change schools (difficult in itself) and wouldn’t let me cut my hair. I had unfashionable very long hair that my mom was obsessed with. She didn’t care I was made fun of. I cried and begged. She refused to let me cut my hair. I absolutely hated it. As a child, I didn’t have the ability to explain it’s my body and you’re hurting me. I just knew I felt bad about it.

Now I have a young daughter and she came to me and asked to have her hair cut. I said yes. We went to the hair salon and I explained she couldn’t do anything crazy, but explain to the stylist what you want. Watching her take a look after the haircut was special. She was very proud of her new appearance and loved it. It made me happy. I was then able to fully realize that how my mom approached my body and hair was strange. I can’t imagine forcing my daughter to be embarrassed about her appearance.