Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Anonymous wrote:
Love is different from care and nurture. Maybe you can have the former, but due to circumstances that lead to absence of the latter, it's a misplaced love that ends up not benefiting the child.

But if you can't identify any signs of nurture beyond food and shelter, is love really there?

I have often wondered about this - where is the line? It's clear my grandparents had way more kids than they should have had. My mother was the 7th and last, had a neglected and abused childhood, and her mother told her she was not wanted, and they did the legal minimum in terms of education. They might not have loved her.

However, my husband was raised by war-scarred and emotionally-unavailable parents - he is also emotionally unavailable to his children, particularly his son, as if he believes fathers and sons need to have a authoritarian relationship without hugs or verbal expressions of affection. Yet my husband has tutored our son for hundreds of hours in math, he's willingly spent tens of thousands in schools, activities and therapies for him, and he is ready to pay for any college of his choosing next year. I think that's imbalanced parenting, not necessarily unloving parenting.

Parents are victims of their upbringing and their own, possibly antiquated or limited knowledge and social beliefs. If they hurt their children while thinking they are raising them to be strong and resilient, do they still love them? Is the effort they make the sign they care? Or is total neglect the definition of unloving?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

I am sorry, unfortunately I recognize myself in your mom. My kid DID take a while to decide, then would change his mind, etc. I wasn’t yelling but I did reproach him for this. Honestly, for the free thing you make your pick quickly and stick to it. Sorry it’s probably not what you wanted to hear.

Anonymous wrote:Pretty early on...it's not the worst thing that was done to me, but it was the moment I knew. I was 4 or 5.

My mom used to take me to the grocery store most days, and kids would get to pick a cookie from the dessert case without charge. My mom would take me to the bakery and the woman working would ask me what I wanted, and then get it from the case and hand it to me in wax paper to eat in the store.

And as soon as we left the store, my mom would yell at me about how I always had to pick the cookie that was hardest to reach for that poor bakery lady. How I wasted her time by taking too long to decide. How I told which one I wanted and then inconvenienced her by changing my mind.

I always wondered why she cared more about that bakery woman than me.....

Anonymous wrote:I will add, he could only act for about and hour or two, then would disappear from the social event or just sit and watch or listen. He loved to say hey as to go work, then leave or be alone.

Anonymous wrote:When I was an adult. The signs were there all along, but it was so normal, I didn’t realize it was abuse and neglect. It was just mom and dad being mom and dad. I remember incidents from childhood that I recognize now as uncaring, but they always had an excuse, a way to blame me, and/or minimized my feelings if I were brave enough to express them.

My dog had puppies and they all died (including my dog-the mom) within days of the birth. I’ve never asked what happened as an adult because I’m afraid to know, but at best it was a neglect issue where they should’ve at least called the vet (at worst, they didn’t want to deal with finding puppies homes and there are a lot of bad people in my family). They mocked me so much for crying that my dog and all the puppies died and told me I shouldn’t be sad because I wouldn’t have been able to keep the puppies anyway. I was probably 4 when this happened. It was definitely before I started kindergarten.

It wasn’t that traumatic every day during my childhood, but there were enough things on that level that there was always anxiety. I didn’t share my feelings often because if they’ll make fun of a little girl for crying over animals dying, they’ll definitely make fun of a kid for not liking soup or having a sore throat.

I also remember my mom apologizing to other people for my existence all the time as though I embarrassed her. Not for misbehaving, but if I mispronounced a word or if my clothes got dirty at school and we didn’t have time to change before going somewhere. Of course I’d be berated for it when we were alone.

That’s just the emotional abuse. It was tougher than the physical stuff, but I think they legitimately thought (at least at the moment) that they were being good parents by disciplining us. That was mostly forgivable, because it was misguided and they did improve over time. But the emotional stuff got worse as we got older and became independent and they wanted to keep control. That stuff isn’t always forgivable.