I didn’t really think about their parenting until my own marriage was ending. That forced me to do a lot of reflection. I realized they had been in a bad marriage probably since l was born. My dad has something going on - l don’t know what it is and he will never get a diagnosis. He’s extremely self centered and has no empathy. My mom enabled it all and didn’t leave him, though l wish she would have. I was angry with both of them when l realized this about them. I’m not angry any more, l understand it is what it is and l understand myself now and how l myself got into a bad marriage. I broke the cycle. I’m not self centered, and l got out of my bad marriage, and l’m a much better parent than either of them were.

Anonymous wrote:I think this thread shows clearly that for most people you understand minor things more clearly and understand your parent/forgive your parent when you become a parent, but things like abuse and neglect become almost retraumatizing because you are seeing your own child and imagining that happen to them.

Yup. And also one takeaway is just that abuse and neglect stick with you forever. It's not something you get over. You can learn to deal with the impacts of it and you can develop healthy coping mechanisms. And then something can happen, like becoming a parent, and you have to do that again because you've discovered new impacts and need additional ways to deal with it.

I have no doubt that I will deal with this again when my kids are grown and move away, as well as when my own parents die. I've already dealt with several rounds of revisiting my childhood trauma when my siblings have gone through things that brought it all up (drug and alcohol addiction, divorce).

Childhood abuse and neglect: the gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving, and giving...

Anonymous wrote:I think this thread shows clearly that for most people you understand minor things more clearly and understand your parent/forgive your parent when you become a parent, but things like abuse and neglect become almost retraumatizing because you are seeing your own child and imagining that happen to them.

I think you’re right about that.

I am not angry at them because I know anger is just self destructing. My dad was high functional alcoholic who worked and traveled a lot and my mom(who also worked full time) raised me and my sibling the best she could. While I am not particular close to them, we still see each other for most holidays twice a year (we live in different countries now). I forgive them because I know that they did not know any better based on their own upbringing, but I know they loved us to the best of their abilities. I am trying to focus on learning and not repeating their parenting mistakes, but we having our own challenges in raising our kids. No one is perfect, my parent were no perfect, I am not perfect as mother and as wife, but I am love my children and doing my best raising them to be happy and healthy. OP, I hope you find your pease one day and forgive your parents.

Anonymous wrote:I appreciate my parents’ human failings more as a parent now. I think they did a great job and loved us. My sibling thinks my dad was angry with a bad temper. Psychology tells us that all of your life experiences get reinterpreted as you mature. Some of them get more accurate (you have a larger distance from them and can judge more objectively) and some get really, really inaccurate due to current traumas. There was a study that showed women with angry husbands tend to remember their own fathers as *more* abusive than women whose husbands are kind and gentle. Apparently the mind protects your current choices at the expense of the accuracy of historical fact so that you can live with them.

What typical bullshite that was created to, yet again, ignore what women experienced and know. We all know women can't be counted on to remember things accurately. We all just love drama.

Anonymous wrote:I appreciate my parents’ human failings more as a parent now. I think they did a great job and loved us. My sibling thinks my dad was angry with a bad temper. Psychology tells us that all of your life experiences get reinterpreted as you mature. Some of them get more accurate (you have a larger distance from them and can judge more objectively) and some get really, really inaccurate due to current traumas. There was a study that showed women with angry husbands tend to remember their own fathers as *more* abusive than women whose husbands are kind and gentle. Apparently the mind protects your current choices at the expense of the accuracy of historical fact so that you can live with them.

Perhaps, but I'll also note that you and your sister might have had different experiences and, in a way, even parented by different people. You can't really know how your sibling experienced her childhood because you were born at a different time in your parent's lives, with a different family arrangement, than she was. It is not uncommon for siblings to have drastically different memories or perceptions of their childhoods, and it doesn't mean any of them are wrong. You are convinced that your perception is correct and that your sister has convinced herself of something false due to other factors. But the same could be true of you and you wouldn't be aware of it, right? If the brain protects you from unpleasant ideas, your brain could be protecting you too.

Which is why it is fruitless to try and come up with the ultimate "truth" of your family. What you believe about your family is what makes sense to you. What your sister believes is what makes sense to her. Neither of you can be wrong because you are looking at your individual experiences, not some collective and agreed upon truth, which cannot exist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just the opposite.

I now have so much more compassion and understanding of what they were dealing with from the other side. Also I'm more forgiving of things that used to bother me now that I've experienced the challenges of being a parent.

In go in waves, “wow they didn’t have Amazon”, how did they do it?! To “Damn, they didn’t even enroll me in any activities that I liked”.

My mom hit me once when she got really mad at me when I was a kid. I got scary angry at my kid once and could have come close to hitting out of anger. I understood in that moment, I was not really that different from my mom in some ways. My dad spanked us and it's funny now but when we were growing up, I still remember the punishment and the vacant look in his eyes as he was padding us. He believed in keeping a little fear in his children and not sparing the "rod" so to speak. I don't spank my kids but have argued with them more and raised my voice a lot more because they aren't scared of me like I was with my parents. I honestly don't know what is "better". Either way you suffer, as a kid and parent!

Don't know if you need it but *hugs*

I relate.

Definitely.

I forgive some parts but others are just hard to accept.

Anonymous wrote:I think parenting makes us all feel more vulnerable and exposed because of all the intense feelings involved in becoming someone’s mom or dad. The saying that your heart is now walking around outside of your body is a wise one. And alongside that vulnerability is the idea that you can see yourself as a kid in the child you are raising. It seems to me like you are feeling sad for the child that you once were, and comparing it to what your own children are blessed enough to receive, and that is an emotional thing for sure. Try to focus on the person you became despite everything, your resilience and strength.

No OP but I love this. Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just the opposite.

I now have so much more compassion and understanding of what they were dealing with from the other side. Also I'm more forgiving of things that used to bother me now that I've experienced the challenges of being a parent.

In go in waves, “wow they didn’t have Amazon”, how did they do it?! To “Damn, they didn’t even enroll me in any activities that I liked”.

My mom hit me once when she got really mad at me when I was a kid. I got scary angry at my kid once and could have come close to hitting out of anger. I understood in that moment, I was not really that different from my mom in some ways. My dad spanked us and it's funny now but when we were growing up, I still remember the punishment and the vacant look in his eyes as he was padding us. He believed in keeping a little fear in his children and not sparing the "rod" so to speak. I don't spank my kids but have argued with them more and raised my voice a lot more because they aren't scared of me like I was with my parents. I honestly don't know what is "better". Either way you suffer, as a kid and parent!

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Growing up - parents fighting, screaming at each other, breaking things, punching holes in walls, alcoholism, father vocal about dissatisfaction of sex life with mother in front of us, creepy father around my friends. Mother to this day denies all.

I wonder how they could have done this to their own family. They destroyed the family they created.

I don’t let my father spend time with my kids without either my husband or me present.

So sorry PP. My household was much less dysfunctional than you describe but I deifnitely picked up on the bolded from my own dad, even when it was very subtly expressed. it left scars

Yes, OP. And they are self-absorbed, uninvolved grandparents, so the annoyance is double.

I think this thread shows clearly that for most people you understand minor things more clearly and understand your parent/forgive your parent when you become a parent, but things like abuse and neglect become almost retraumatizing because you are seeing your own child and imagining that happen to them.

Anonymous wrote:Just the opposite.

I now have so much more compassion and understanding of what they were dealing with from the other side. Also I'm more forgiving of things that used to bother me now that I've experienced the challenges of being a parent.

In go in waves, “wow they didn’t have Amazon”, how did they do it?! To “Damn, they didn’t even enroll me in any activities that I liked”.

I appreciate my parents’ human failings more as a parent now. I think they did a great job and loved us. My sibling thinks my dad was angry with a bad temper. Psychology tells us that all of your life experiences get reinterpreted as you mature. Some of them get more accurate (you have a larger distance from them and can judge more objectively) and some get really, really inaccurate due to current traumas. There was a study that showed women with angry husbands tend to remember their own fathers as *more* abusive than women whose husbands are kind and gentle. Apparently the mind protects your current choices at the expense of the accuracy of historical fact so that you can live with them.