Small ways in which your parents fucked you up

[SaladBap]

Over the last few days, I've come to the uncomfortable realisation that what I thought was clever, edgy humour is actually unpleasant, mean and arrogant.

I was raised to think that our family was a bit of a cut above other people in terms of humour/intelligence - edgy jokes that cut very close to the bone, self deprecating humour, but also snobbery regarding other people's hobbies and interests (anything pop culture)

Other people were humourless, dull and couldn't take a joke

I've realised that this isn't a sign of how quirky and funny I am, nor of my moral superiority, but actually makes me seem an arrogant snob. It's also caused a kneejerk habit of thinking negatively about people

It explains why I've struggled to make friends, I think, and why my self esteem is quite low at times - I apply that really sarcastic voice to everyone including myself

I'm looking at my parents through totally new eyes. Things like their sneering at "catalogue families" who brought rounders sets to the beach or park - we could easily have done so too, my parents didn't want to, but us children would probably have quite liked it instead of being forced to just sit there while they read the newspaper!

It's a small thing, but I actually feel quite cross about it.

Can anyone relate?

Mine were utter snobs who looked down on every other child I encountered, so I never made friends, either.
They had a strange idea that I ought to be an ambitious feminist but my mother was the polar opposite, so they had no idea how to raise one. The result was a child who was denied anything vaguely feminine, told not to wear jeans though, as they were unladylike, got bought chemistry sets but wasn’t allowed to do anything messy or smelly with them, and still told to be quiet and submissive. It was miserable, but comical looking back.
Then there was food. Apparently I was too pretty to be as fat as I was! I ended up doing a lot of secret eating as soon as I had any money of my own.

My mum and SD were very funny about food, controlling and weird.

We were not allowed treat foods, nor were we allowed to eat outside of mealtimes. We were also not allowed a drink with meals, even if it was dry or spicy. They would weigh all the food to ensure no-one was stealing any. They were terrible cooks too so the food they did produce was sometimes inedible. Even if food was burnt we were still made to sit and eat it til we had finished. Mealtimes were fraught. They had secfet snacks and would eat fancy biscuits, cheese and crackers once we were in bed.

It has left me with food anxiety around giving people enough, and i am probably a bit too chilled about what my kids eat. I am also so worried about people having something they want to way I often cook three different dinners.

Mine were so awful that I was actually happy when my mum died when I was ten. I was over the moon. So much so that
I got labelled as someone who “couldn’t show their real feelings” because obviously, no one believed that a young child could be happy/ambivalent about their mother dying. But they had no idea what she was like behind closed doors - she wasn’t the saint she portrayed.

My dad is still hanging on 30 years later, continually beating cancers in his late 80s. I’ll only be free when he’s gone too.

My mum grew up with a very miserable and negative mother where nothing was ever right. So she grew up determined not to be like that. As a result, there was no space for any negativity from us. “How are you?” Had to be met with “good thanks!”. If my mum asked how was your day, and I said oh it was awful, she’d roll her eyes and sigh, say oh dear and walk away.

I learned no coping methods for sadness. I was to allowed to voice it so I just had to hide it. I got more miserable which drove my mother mad. My teen angst years were DRAMATIC.

Even now my mum says things like “oh you’ve always been a misery”.

I love my mum and we are close, I get why she is like it but it’s a bit rubbish. I have had to make light of it and now I deliberately wind my mum up with my negative take on life and she teases me for being a pessimist.

It’s an interesting cycle - I often wonder whether I’m just miserable like my grandma, and if my kids will end up like my mum being overly falsely positive cos I’m so negative.

SaladBap

I literally could have written this post. In fact I'm freaked out by how close this is to my family.

I was raised by an ambitious dad and a mum who had a chip on her shoulder about not being as successful as her husband.

They were loving and had our best interests at heart. But snobbery and the push to self-advancement was the underpinning of my childhood. Very little else mattered except academic excellence and the veneer of being upper middle class (when in fact, it later turned out, this came at huge financial cost to our family as my dad was terrible with money).

They drilled into me that the only things that really matter in life were doing well professionally, having the right network and reading the right books. My emotional life was not taken into account at all and was treated at best as an afterthought. For example my mother never bothered talking to me about the facts of life or puberty and neither of my parents have ever acknowledged a single boyfriend I have had. When I married someone who was blatantly unsuitable no one ever suggested that I might want to reconsider or asked me if I was doing the right thing.

I'm not going to deny that there were some advantages to this. I benefited from the work ethic that my parents instilled into me. I probably did better at school as a result of their obsession with schooling. I am fairly well-read and can handle myself in the parts of society where these things matter.

But emotionally it was a complete disaster zone and I'm still carrying a lot of the wounds of having parents for whom the only measure of my value was my professional success.

I'm still also rewiring my brain to deal with a lot of the neuroses that they triggered in me. Such as some of the low-level snobbery you describe (catalogue families is exactly the kind of thing my parents would have smirked about). Judging people purely by the books they have read and the way they pronounce foreign words etc. Sneering at people who worry about money.

I accept in my rational mind that they were probably doing what they thought was best for our advancement. But I'm still furious about their lack of emotional care and attention to us.

Growing up my father always told me I couldn’t sing. It gave me such a complex that I believed it for years and would always apologize to everyone for how dreadful my singing was. I now realize it was him that was utterly tone deaf and not me!

I now run my own choir wirh 50+ members

Yes, my parents, in particular my mum had this thing about how we appeared to others (it being vitally important) and not being rude. So, I'd get told off if I didnt greet people with enough enthusiasm or if I wanted space alone I got told off for being "rude". Its the typical thing that women arent allowed to appear rude and GOD FORBID we ever stand up for our rights or what we deserve because thats well....rude.

I think this is why I have such a hatred of the karen meme. Ive spent most of my life being told not to make a fuss- even about things that SHOULD be made a fuss about that I despise any attempts now to keep me quiet. I just wont have it any more.

My Dads lot were self absorbed so called intellectual snobs but he wasn't, my paternal grandparents during the 1960's went on holiday to South Africa, USA and many a world cruise, which was very unusual at that time.

Business owners and big catholic's they looked down on everyone, I being the eldest grandchild failed the eleven plus, lead balloon time.

Thankfully these horrible traits haven't been passed on.

What you have said resonates very strongly and I'm trying hard to break this cycle for my DDs. I just remember how astonished I was to go to friends houses and hear their parents cheering their achievements, and seeing how they enjoyed those things that were supposedly so terrible....

OP my parents were/are very similar to yours. One of the things that 'fucked me up' was meal times. Parents insisted we sat together at the dinner table each night yet we (mum, sister and I) were not allowed to speak. Dad would want to watch the tv. If we said anything he would bellow 'quiet!!' and we would sit in silence. It was a revelation going friends' houses for tea after school and everyone talking about their day and children actually being asked to contribute and allowed to voice an opinion. My mum used to make snide remarks about women on the tv: commentators, news readers, weather 'girls'. All this left me terribly unconfident growing up; afraid of my own voice - not only the things I was saying but the 'irritating shrillness' of it. Still affects me now and I'm 49!

I know for a fact that my parents do not know the title of my first degree

Yes, SaladBap My father was like this. I thought I should be like him.

My mum used to tell me constantly how stressful driving was and that parking was difficult. It seeped into my subconscious - now while I don’t find either of those things difficult my first thought is always ‘oh no, how will I park?!”.

Mine fucked me up massively. Nothing small about it.

Interesting thread OP. Thanks for starting it.

My parents effed up my life but it wasn't their fault. Mum had MH problems and Dad buried himself in work to ignore it. I became very resilient and resourceful as a result but I struggle to deal with people in effective ways. I am introverted and would live on a desert island given half a chance.

My Ddad especially had been raised to "know your station" in life (whatever that meant)
It seemed to mean there were certain things you couldnt or shouldn't do because you weren't good enough/posh enough and other things you couldnt or shouldn't do because you weren't the lowest class. (Regardless if it was something you wanted to do, and there were no financial or other reason why you couldnt!)
My parents were ambitious for me and my siblings but only really academically. If you showed an aptitude for anything arty, creative or sporty, you didnt get any encouragement to pursue that. I think they thought we'd have "made it" if we became a dr, accountant, lawyer or teacher. None of us have.

Keeping to small things I wish mine had talked about money. Not how much they had but about saving for what you need, planning for a pension etc. I talk fairly openly in front of mine in the hope that it will be part of their everyday language.

I was the product of an alcoholic father and a manic depressive mother. Made me grow up into a very strong and very independent woman. Which you would think would be a good thing.

sometimes I don't want to be the Beyond that everyone turns to, but showing weakness lets people in.

My DH was raised by a very happy family, but they have this habit of remarking on looks - "look at the nose on her", "he holds his mouth really weirdly" - I've noticed my teens do it too, and are always looking in the mirror to make themselves look "perfect" before we go to their house - and I find it horrible.

I'm a shouty and inpatient mum. My mother was the same, and my grandmother before her.

I'm also trying my hardest to stop smoking, having been raised in a house watching my mother smoke at least 10 cigarettes a day I began to copy her in my teens and have struggled to kick the habit.

I sound like a wonderful person don't I

Although it's counter productive for me to continue to attribute my shortcomings to my upbringing, I'm well aware that these are learned behaviours.

@Bettercallgall

I was a chubby kid and my mum used to buy me clothes that were a bit too small in my teens and tell me I'd shrink into them. I still have issues with food (obese at the moment) and feel awful as I feel my yo yo dieting may have rubbed off on my dd who has been diagnosed with anorexia.

That’s awful @Bettercallgall - meant you were uncomfortable physically as well as psychologically . What a mean thing to do and pointless .

My mum is a great mum and we have a brilliant relationship overall but she's always been a drinker and I remember a number of times when she was drunk when I was a child. She still drinks heavily now and for some reason I find it really hard to see. It causes a lot of rows and animosity. I struggle to even speak to her on the phone if I can tell she's had a drink. I'm not sure if it's because of my childhood or if she's just a really argumentative annoying drunk. But either way I wish she'd cut down.

My dad left us when I was about 10 and I haven't seen him since. I'm sure he had his reasons but I feel like it's given me a few abandonment issues and probably effected my relationships as I've gotten older.

@VictoriaBun

Your title reminded me of a poem by Phillip Larkin. I think it's called something like - This be the day. The first line goes something like - They fuck you up , your mum and dad. If you look it up, it's basically says they didn't mean to but we're fucked up by their own parents so know no better and it passes down the generations . See if you can find it .

Except it can also be a choice thing.

My mother didn't have the greatest childhood but she as her mum in her life and idolised her dad who could be cruel.

She then made my childhood shit and I didn't live with her past two years of age.

I have three children and I am told I am a brilliant mum. I love them more than anything, I will do anything for them and I am always there for them.

With my childhood you would expect a lot of negative destructive behaviour but my kids have a great life. I struggle a lot. I miss my therapy appointments more than anything else during this time but they are fine and that is all that matters to me.

Just because you have a shitty upbringing doesn't mean you have to be a crap parent yourself.

I wrote this when I was trying to figure out what caused my anxiety, I've copied and pasted it from my notes but edited out names that could be outing. I don't recognise the person who wrote this as it's so far away from who I've been able to become since changing the voice inside.

Today was the most important day of my life.
The day I woke up and realised everything, the day everything made sense.

Mum always looked down on other people.
At school I lived with ADHD, mum was in total denial and so ashamed, I asked mum what this meant and she explained that it wasn’t real, it was just a name given to naughty children who couldn’t behave.
The teachers discussed the possibility of me going to a special needs school, mum used this as a threat that if I didn’t pay more attention at school I would be known as the dunce.

I felt much sympathy for mum as she cried saying she always thought a daughter of hers would be clever and I could see how ashamed she was. XXXXXXX was a reputable school where I drowned because I couldn’t keep up but it was a good school to have said I’d been to.

Growing up was difficult, I became quiet and withdrawn and tried to act normal, people didn’t tend to notice anything was wrong with me if I stayed quiet, for years to come I stayed quiet until I became too afraid to talk to anyone in case they noticed something was wrong with me, I became agoraphobic and for many years I stopped going out in public and social anxiety took over.

I didn’t realise my internal voice was becoming my mother!
I found Myself thinking the things she would say without questioning anything.

Mum always liked to think we were better than everyone else but these were her words not mine!
I so desperately wanted to be the person she wanted me to be I tried everything I could to please her and be like her.

As I grew up she would judge people for how they look, not associating with anybody beneath her, belittling people for having tattoos or swearing which meant they were not very nice people but why?
Maybe they are nice people these are not my words.
Why is someone in a council house not very nice?
Why couldn’t I talk to them?
I was forbidden to go near anyone like that.

Who is this person I have become?
Not speaking to people because they’re not very nice, and how do we know they’re not very nice? Because they’ve got a tattoo or they swear or have dirty trousers so they’re just not very nice people.
Who is this judgemental person I have become?

I have become my mothers critical voice, it’s become my internal voice but it’s not my destiny I will be me and I will be free!

I have a personality inside, but it’s not the intelligent one my mum wanted but pretending to be someone I’m not is exhausting, I need to be free, I need to be my self.

I need to get my mums critical voice out of my head, I need to replace it with my own voice.

Just because my mum didn’t accept me for who I am doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be who I am and I am proud of it.

She is the judgemental one and I have based too much of my life on what she’ll say, think,criticise.
I don’t need to be anyone else, I am someone else, I’m not her voice I am XXXXXXX

It’s taken a while to figure out what caused all this but now it all makes sense.
People talk about finding the root of the cause.
This is the root of Social Anxiety and today I dug out that root.

Mine are very anxious and negative about things. If something small goes wrong (e.g.furniture delivery scratched) it becomes proof of the family curse!

My mother in particular can be scathing and judgemental and I've noticed how much it has rubbed off on me. Little comments would be made about appearances, situations. Never to someones face but back at home. But then I remember my grandmother being like this so,like the poem, I imagine it has been passed down through learned behaviour.

I was reminded of a self help book -when they author wrote -about taking responsbility and not saying when you were 90 "Well I'm unhappy because my parents did ....."

I had many positives as a child -excellent school, holidays abroad, board games etc and some negatives
yes the sneering at others. But I recently went for a walk with my father (80s) and his "best" friend died 10 years ago and he said of his "-with no disrepect he was common, uninspiring, thick, out of his depth work wise and ....." and it was so so negative. He doesn't have any friends and there is a reason. That was his one friend.

However, my father does get on well with the grandchildren, he supports us and can show his humour. Putting his life in context, his father beat him and was an thug & a alcoholic. He won a place at grammar school. He worked hard. He got a degree and a post grad and became an academic. He created something most people on here and in the population will have used (medical -I can't say what -but 50% of the people on here will have used his life changing medical invention ) -he refused to accept any money or patent it -as it was "for the good of humankind". He was offered a knighthood and turned it down. He was offered various prizes and we are talking like Noble prize type things...... and said no to all of them. He liked his medicine and didn't do it for glory. His mother and father divorced when he was a young teenager (shocking at the time) and she died in a horrific tragic accident. I didn't like him as a kid. I now see him as a broken individual trying to be liked and with huge walls and boundaries. He doesn't have fences to protect his emotions but a castle. My mother is is only friend.

Maybe we need to accept we are all broken and not perfect.