Anonymous wrote:Aren't all people different? Fact they are your kids doesn't change that everyone's nature differs. There's no raising the kid with gratitude and caring after you when you're old or uber responsible one. Sorry but you can't teach kindness. Not the kind that's sincere. Being grateful you can teach but not same as kindness.

I have a DS 16 who I was born sweet. There is no person who disagrees with that whether he's friends with them or not. He has zero enemies even if he's not the popular kid. Adults and teachers love him, animals fricking love him. The only person in our family our cats love most. He is just that person who will literally not kill a bug! He will take a gross huge as spider outside v killing it! We did not teach him this. He is the first to help us unload dishes, the first to volunteer for service at school. Really - you think we taught him any of this?

His sister is sharp as a whip and funny. More popular and a straight A student. 2 kids same home. This girl would be the first to save herself! No amount of teaching her or whatever her experience of being our kid or whatever made her this way. She was born this way and I really feel she needs to go into business cause she's ruthless and edgy and will hunt to kill anything she wants! But no, I have zero expectation of her taking care of us more than she really needs to as it's not in her nature.

Of course she may help us and she loves us but it's not the same kind of love my son has. He will be there for family in a way she never will. I do not love her less but I accept that it's her nature. She's very much like my parents really. She can't help who she is. She'll be wildly successful and make all the right practical decisions but shes not perfect.

You have to manage expectations that nobody is perfect and really, we all need to be advised to find the means to take care of ourselves or at least accept that nobody is responsible for us. In my culture, you're raised with the burden to care for your elders and that's really what it would be - a BURDEN unless it comes from the heart - and that's a luck thing with who your family are.

Anonymous wrote:From what I see, birth order affects this somehow. Oldest daughters stereotypically seem grateful to the point they take on the role of parents when the time comes that parents need help. I see this is so many families I know. Younger sons don’t seem to have the gratefulness or the loyalty. Not always, but enough that this trope exists.

Anonymous wrote:Just depends on how they are raised - by both parents.

Functional, intact, loving, thoughtful, fair families that value and prioritize virtuous things will raise similar kids.

Anonymous wrote:From what I see, birth order affects this somehow. Oldest daughters stereotypically seem grateful to the point they take on the role of parents when the time comes that parents need help. I see this is so many families I know. Younger sons don’t seem to have the gratefulness or the loyalty. Not always, but enough that this trope exists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents were awesome. They were upstanding people who sent my sisters and me to decent schools in a decent community and paid our college tuition. My mother was a SAHM and devoted her life to us. I am so grateful.

However, it is devastating to me that they had really loose boundaries with my sisters and me. They thought it was appropriate to watch porn and graphic, R-rated movies with me starting around age 11. Discussions focused on sex at least a few times a month under the guise of sex education. Conversations included sexual jokes and innuendo, comments about women's bodies, how often my parents were having sex, the details of the adults-only hotel with kinky rooms where they celebrated my father's birthday, stacks of porn magazines in the basement. My mother coaxed me into giving my father a copy of Madonna's "Justify My Love" as a Christmas gift when I was 15. My father thought taking me to see Basic Instinct with him when I was 16 was appropriate.

Fast forward to mid-life and the impact of their behavior on all of us shows. I am estranged from my mother (my father is dead) because she is so harmful to me and is not open to feedback or repair.

Have you ever thought that you might be the one who might be in the wrong here?

Anonymous wrote:My parents were awesome. They were upstanding people who sent my sisters and me to decent schools in a decent community and paid our college tuition. My mother was a SAHM and devoted her life to us. I am so grateful.

However, it is devastating to me that they had really loose boundaries with my sisters and me. They thought it was appropriate to watch porn and graphic, R-rated movies with me starting around age 11. Discussions focused on sex at least a few times a month under the guise of sex education. Conversations included sexual jokes and innuendo, comments about women's bodies, how often my parents were having sex, the details of the adults-only hotel with kinky rooms where they celebrated my father's birthday, stacks of porn magazines in the basement. My mother coaxed me into giving my father a copy of Madonna's "Justify My Love" as a Christmas gift when I was 15. My father thought taking me to see Basic Instinct with him when I was 16 was appropriate.

Fast forward to mid-life and the impact of their behavior on all of us shows. I am estranged from my mother (my father is dead) because she is so harmful to me and is not open to feedback or repair.