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?

@SaladBap excellent that you’ve had this insight, use it as positively as possible. My parents are critical of everybody, friends, family no one escapes. It’s miserable.

Not a "small way". I was obese by the age of 6. I'd just eat what parents gave me - basically processed crap and chips with everything. You have no control over your eating as such an early age. I have photos of me being hugely fat at aged 3 or 4. School reported me/parents to social services and I was put on a strict diet and made to think it was my fault (despite me not being the one buying the crap food at home!). Basically, constantly given salad for every meal, whilst my parents and brothers were having their takeaway fish & chips. Inevitably, it caused me to start to binge eat behind closed doors. I'd steal my mum's milk money to buy crisps and chocolate bars at school to kick back at them. Really messed me up and I still binge today in my mid 50s.

My dad was an angry man - lots of banging his fist on the table, shouting with a bright red face, losing his temper instantly with no warning. He was never physical, but I was terrified of his outbursts and I would tip toe around him. I would go out of my way to be the good girl, whereas my older sister was the opposite and would argue with him, resulting in huge awful angry explosions. I believe it's turned me into a wet blanket - I hate confrontation and avoid it at all costs, often to the detriment of my own happiness. I am a massive people pleaser and even though I've tried working on this it's an almost impossible habit to break. I also believe it's the reason I stayed with my abusive ex for so long. Instead of calling him out on his behaviour I went out of my way to make him happy, and the more I did this the more controlling and abusive he became.

• No interest or affection. No hugs or anything, I wasn't allowed to hug my DM goodbye at the school gate in primary school like everyone else as she found it embarrassing/cringey. No interest in who I was as a person, no asking how school was on the way home.
• Not allowed to be anything but good, helpful and well-behaved. I had separation anxiety when I was little and would cry on the way to nursery and I remember being told at the age of 3 or 4 that I needed to stop crying as I wasn't being fair on my parents, they had so many things to worry about as it was they couldn't cope with me crying. This echoed through my entire childhood and even now I can't ever speak to them about any problems I am having.
• Always comparing me unfavourably to my friends or their friends' daughters. When my best friend was in the grips of anorexia when we were 16 my parents told me (a size 10) that I was fat and bigger than her and I should do whatever she was doing. My DM would compliment my friends endlessly saying how pretty they were, clever, slim, lovely, etc. I have never, ever been complimented by her.

They were constantly negative and defeatist. If you weren't angry all the time you were an idiot. Enthusiasm was stupid. People with education were stupid. Nothing was ever meant to work out for us, so why try?

Alcoholism and constant tension, walking on eggshells puctuated by violent outbursts and then acting as though nothing had happened. If you were traumatized and terrified by a terrible experience you were stupid. That's all that was ever said about it.

Family and everyone else existed to be slagged off.

It's taken me decades to figure out how to act relatively normally, have any faith in myself and see the good in other people.

Meanwhile they were church elders. When my mother talks about the past as though we were this smiley happy family it makes me want to barf.

outwest great post

Oh yeah, basically taught me that marriage meant conflict and misery. So I married an emotionally and financially abusive man who treated me like a servant who wasn't allowed to have opinions and it took me too long to figure out it could be better.

Same sort of thing as OP...
In my case hippy parents who infected me with their distain for every thing mainstream, led me to believe that "alternative" equals morally superior and made me feel that fitting was a form of family disloyalty.
Thanks for that.

my parents threw money at everything thinking it made them better than everyone else

except in the process we learnt no skills i never had to do chores cook or made to do anything so basically im lazy-freely admit it but its like its ingrained in me now

i just wished id a tleast was taught one skill from my parents-if i bring it up now my df just says but look at all the money i spent on you

yeah thanks

I remember telling friends at school that my younger sister was the favourite child because she was planned and I was an accident. I laughed as I said it because I wasn't bothered at all.

Many, many years down the line having been shouted at yesterday because I made a mildly negative comment about my sister in front of my mother, I realise that the self assurance, confidence and ability to talk to anyone, that I have long envied in my sister were probably a result of the fact that she was the favoured child and not the reason for it.

All my life I have struggled with shyness and a feeling of not being good enough which has resulted in me missing out on promotions that I should have got and in fact being bullied at work more than once. My sister by contrast has got roles she wasn't remotely qualified or experienced for and been successful in them. She earns about four times mine and my husbands combined income.

I'm very proud of her but in contrast she plays down any achievements of mine by saying she could have done that as well if she had the time.

Ravenclaw your parents have sowed this division between you for their own purposes, have you looked at the Stately Homes threads?

It sounds like she is the golden child (which brings its own challenges) and you are the scapegoat. You don’t have to accept their treatment of you now you are an adult.

Is anyone else reading this looking for their own failings as a parent?

My mum has a huge detrimental effect on my self esteem - I think I’m getting over it somewhat now I’m in my 40s, so it’s the one thing I want for my own children - to feel confident in themselves. I’m not sure I’m managing.

I think the worse thing was zero affection so I grew up and associated sex = physical attention = affection 🙄

Told me I couldn't go on holiday unless I lost ten pounds. I did lose it but have had life long eating disorders ever since.

Learned that relationships were "passionate" and full of jealousy and took Hard Work! to maintain. So I always ended up staying in abusive relationships way longer than I should as I just thought this was the "Hard Work" part of the relationship.

Every time I spoke of a job I would like to I was scoffed at and laughed at "as if you have the sense to do that!" I left school at 16 and worked in low level office McJobs, then joined the army, left and went back into boring office jobs from then on until I had children.

Fanthorpe Thank you I'll look there.

Oh and "first is first, second is nowhere!"

I think my parents mostly got it right; they were full of words of affirmation, encouraged my independence, and they certainly made an effort to bring me and my brother up well, apart from two things:

Smacking me for things I didn't know were wrong, or for genuine mistakes. This made me terrified to do things spontaneously: I had to seek validation for everything I was thinking of doing. I think this really held me back as a young adult, and stifled my creativity.

I received so many mixed messages on what do about being teased, especially when it came from my younger brother, who was far more confident with people than I was. Sometimes I was told to ignore it, sometimes I was told to tell them, sometimes when I did just that I was "telling tales" or "being sensitive", if I ignored it I was "letting him bully me". If I ever teased him back, he'd run crying to them, and I would be in real trouble. I didn't learn to stand up for myself until well into adulthood, and even now I sometimes weakly agree to something to "keep the peace".

My parents never, ever apologised for anything and arguments always immediately descended into screaming and shouting, which is something I'm trying to unlearn now as it has really messed up past relationships. Whenever we argued, my parents would call me awful, nasty names that are still permanently lodged in my mind. I used to think that no one knows you better than your mother, so it must be true and I hated myself for it. In some ways she was an incredible mum who tried her hardest but I think she was a bit screwed up from her own parents too.

We were praised a lot for being 'intellectually superior' to most people which made us terrible snobs. My parents also had separate living rooms that they would go to after we had all gone to bed so I didn't really have a healthy model for relationships growing up – I can come across as very cold and awkward but I really do try. I have a lovely friend who always ends phone calls with 'love you' and I feel so shy when I say it back but it is really nice to hear.

The sneering attitude about the things "other people" chose to do, I sometimes have these ugly thoughts and consciously banish them. Something might sound hellish to me but I don't sneer at it or suck all the joy out of someone's experience or anecdote.
My father still manages to sneer at seemingly unsneerable things with comments like: we don't need to try and prove something by eating at fancy places like that or we didn't need to take you to a theme park they're for people who don't know how to entertain themselves.

@feelingsomewhatlost That’s so nice, have you told your friend how much you appreciate what she says and how it makes you feel? It’s hard to find words about emotions when you were brought up to minimise them, but you might find even more connection with your lovely friend if you can.

ThreeSixNine - I hear you. This sounds just like my mother. I have self-esteem issues as a result of mine but then she never had any expectations of me anyway.

@Fanthorpe it hadn't actually occurred to me to do that! I think she would be surprised if I told her how much it meant to me, so I think I will :) cue me blushing like a tomato..

@feelingsomewhatlost 🙂

My parents didn't read to me, and I don't remember them tucking me up. They didn't tell me they loved me and they didn't tell me anything about sex. I got the garbled version in the playground.

They made the ultimate sacrifice for me (as they would see it) and bought me my education. The school was academic but didn't teach music. I bought myself a recorder and tried to teach myself.

It's actually quite cruel to send a child who is not academic into a highly academic environment. They weren't interested in me having friends or a partner when I was a teenager. I couldn't complain, they would have got angry and said 'But you're privileged! Don't you realize how lucky you are! You should count your blessings!'

The thing to do was to become a professional and have a bigger house and car than other people. Then you would 'have done well for yourself'. My parents were snobs but they had nothing to be snobbish about: they had no cultural interests at all. I have problems with words like privilege and inspirational.

This is a really interesting thread.

As a pp said, my parents did their best and I know they loved me. They got it right most of the time, and I wonder whether the "wrong" bits are generational - it was how you raised children at the time and the accepted wisdom. One interesting point though is that it was primarily my mum...possibly because as a teacher she saw the whole child behaviour thing as her area of expertise; possibly because she was just more rigid and controlling than my dad.

Anyway, I was a recipient of the "I love you, but I don't always like you" statement. Yes she loves me and would stick by me no matter what, but it made me feel for quite a while that I was actually unlikeable; I remember being surprised when I realised that I had friends and could be quite popular.

It was important to "better yourself" (usually through education) but not to the extent that you got above your station. It wasn't clear exactly where the fine line between these two was and I often got it wrong, which led to accusations of being "Lady Muck" or similar, or being "common" if I went too far the other way.

Children had to be well-behaved, especially in public. This meant quiet, polite, sitting still, not giggling, and essentially behaving like adults. I became obsessed for a while with checking whether I was being a "good girl". It's surprising how often the answer was "yes - BUT..." followed by a description of how I had "spoiled myself" (those exact words) by, say, being too boisterous or dropping a biscuit. There was an awful emphasis on doing what you were told and, importantly, NOT answering back.

Mum was obsessed with staying "pure" until the wedding night. This is quite funny looking back on it but did cause lots of guilt (and lying, to be honest) in my younger days. I'm sure this was a hangover from a fear of unmarried pregnancies but the accusation of "making yourself cheap" brings a lot of baggage.