People blaming their upbringing on poor life choices

[Train007]

I have friends from many backgrounds and a few of us met up today.
Normal problems with adult children and the difference between generations.
what I cannot understand is why young people nowadays think that their problems are caused by their parents!!
Absolutely no parents have made mistakes and I just find it all a big yawn that kids spend their time justifying their own adult mistakes on their parents! …luckily I have not been pounced on by my own children….yet !!

I agree with this with caveats. Cases of severe neglect or abuse can have lifelong impacts and parents of course are responsible for that. The definition of abuse is now though is often taken to be so broad that any behaviour which causes upset is defined as abuse. I think that is wrong. My parents had their strengths and some significant weaknesses. One was absent and one had severe mental illness which meant that parts of my childhood were traumatic. I never blamed them for any poor choices in adulthood. In most families outcomes depend on MANY factors and it is too simplistic to attribute something to any one aspect of poor parenting. Maybe there is a time in late teens and early twenties where you are still embedded in your family and its acceptable to attribute many things to them. But in most cases if people are still doing this 20+ years later I think that for some reason they have not taken full responsibility for themselves and their adult lives.

Really? I suspect you know exactly what you’re doing here.

Neglect can take many many forms. I grew up in a home where I was fed, kept warm and allowed to continue my schooling, but generally neglected. Both my parents resented that I was born and treated me as a burden their whole lives. My siblings experience was very different.
I’ve struggled with relationships my whole life. It IS due to how I’ve been raised, but it is my responsibility to sort it out.

I cannot stand people who were raised with love who then judge people who were not. It’s like building a house without a foundation.

Perhaps grow some kindness op

@mmalinky

That is not true. Social determinants exist and create major gaps. Look at the socio economic and ACEs of people who are incarcerated. They do not represent the population. Many of them came from poverty, from homes with parents who had addiction, mental illness, incarceration themselves, from home and neighborhoods with violence, many left school very early on, had little adults support, had experienced abuse, neglect, and traumas, etc.

Poverty is a major factor in life outcomes. Those that overcome it typically had many environmental things that others didn't (a strong attachment to an adult, support / encouragement from somewhere to stay in school, not getting in trouble, higher intelligence, less home and family responsibilities etc)

No, it means that our genetic blueprint will either work well within a particular cultural context or they will work against you.

Obviously socioeconomic factors set the scene in which you play out your life. In times when there is low social mobility then you might be chopped off at the legs to make inroads in improving your life but you could live a more comfortable life living with the same circumstances with more suitable genes. I suppose.

I've been in therapy for almost a year due to my childhood. Every kind of neglect and abuse happened to me. I didn't get a good education, left home pregnant at 16. Straight into an abusive relationship. It's safe to say I bare the emotional scars to this day.

But I do think I understand where your coming from. A few times at friends meet ups I've sat and listened to them describe their parents faults. Things like one was pissed off that she wasn't bought a car for her 17th and that was why she doesn't drive now. One used to have to pick her siblings up from school and bring them home with her on her way home from college. And shock horror look after them for an hour till single mom got home. Or the one who was embarrassed that her dad could only pay for half her wedding. I just sat there a bit stunned tbh.

Then there's my own adult dc. There's absolutely no thing as a perfect parent. I've made mistakes. I'll hold my hands up to that. Two think they had a pretty good upbringing, one thinks they were treated bad, reason being I wasn't affectionate enough. I have effected them as an adult for sure. I certainly did my best but I could of done better.

I think most people can look back and find something from their childhood that upset them in some way. Even people with what I'd consider having amazing parents/upbringing.

I was raised in what was essentially a trap house. Witnessed extreme violence, police raids, sexual assault, etc. I lost my mum very young and had an abusive step mother.

It absolutely had an effect on my life! I made poor choices for a very long time. However, I do believe as we grow older that we eventually have to start taking responsibility for our own lives. I didn't get my shit together until late 30s after dc came along. I do feel like I'm so far behind other people my age. I don't have a good job, education, mortgage, pension, investments or any of the things that other people generally have at this stage of life. I'm now having to retrain at nearly 40 for a decent job while raising 2 dc alone. It's bloody hard work but nothing compared to what I've been through in the past. It's also made me incredibly grateful for what I do have.

I read something that said "We are not responsible for the trauma that happened to us as children, but healing from it is absolutely our responsibility". That has always resonated with me and I make an effort not to pass on my trauma to my dc.

@FourTeaFallOut but the uK does have low social mobility doesn't it?

I never blamed my poor life choices on my mother but when I asked her to stop doing something in the present she flung herself up on the cross and refused to communicate. In her eyes, I have NO right to have my own perspective of my childhood, that wounds her and her pain is real while mine is a grudge. She does sit around talking about her awful daughter with her friends! She is perfect. She is the winner. She's lost her daughter but I don't think she's noticed that.

My late DM and I were very close in latter years, and I knew she loved me, but in my teen years she said some awful things to me, and I suspect she didn't really want a child. However, this has had zero effect on my life as an adult. As I said in my earlier post, unless your parents were absolutely awful it is just a cop out to blame them for the choices you made (not you personally, but in general). There are also many people who have terrible starts in life who still manage to turn their lives around. Adults need to take responsibilty for their own choices.

@Happysalley i feel like that too, I feel like I'm behind other people my age in terms of resilience/reactivity/goal-setting and accomplishments. My self-talk is totally different now though.
Single parent to two teens and in my early 50s. I am grateful for what I have, I appreciate it, but it's not like I'm objectively successful.

Yes. Of course. That is the point I'm making. Your gene will determine the bulk of behaviour but how that plays out it culturally specific.

Anyway, I'm not the actual geneticist, and I'm not sure I'm doing his observations justice. But I think he made a good argument.

Yes. I think OP meant People blaming their upbringing FOR poor life choices. It's also clear that she wasn't thinking of the very sad cases where parents were outright abusive to their children.

I foudn the experience of becoming a parent myself made me a lot less critical of my own parents. They weren't perfect, and shock horror, neither were my hsuband and I, even though we faced fewer challenges than they had. Made me re-assess a few things, which I think was good for me.

I am an adult who is definitely shaped by the environment I was brought up in - in good ways and bad. As a parent I can also say I have done better by one child than the other - I find them easier and don't push my buttons in the same way. Not all siblings are brought up the same.

I do take responsibility for my choices but my parents parenting of me left an impact on me. That's a fact. I'm the one who went to therapy, not them. But taking responsibility for your own life and healing doesn't make the 'wound' go away. It's not a magic wand!!!!
You're not fixed the moment you take responsibility.

OP sounds lacking in emotional intelligence, so I hope she really does see and hear her children.

The impact of your upbringing is huge, that's just fact.

It will be why you're so well adjusted and know it all too.

I have a good life with healthy relationships amd a good career. I am well aware that's mostly down to the stable upbringing and good example my parents gave me.

There's not a lot point "blaming" people when it wasn't so good, but it is something to be overcome.

The things you got wrong yes it does impact if there has been abuse and trauma. As I was once a child with an abusive drug addict of a father who ruined me as a child. I am now anxiety ridden and been in an abusive relationship myself so im More accepting of it. Plus I’ve had a child with someone just like my dad. Great life choices maybe just maybe if I had a good dad I’d of given my child a better dad.

@magicthree
I’m not sure why you quoted my post as you clearly didn’t read it.
I’ve said I AM responsible for healing my life.
Your situation is different because you were loved and presumably cared for. I wasn’t.

I have a keen interest in the work of Bruce Perry and childhood trauma. It a a neurobiological approach. When a baby is born, they start making connections in the brain. The first connections are the strongest and of these are repeated, it makes it stronger. If they are not repeated, they eventually become less important. Taking it from a basic attachment perspective, if baby cries and food is given, the baby is satisfied and they learn people are good and meet their needs. If a baby cries and they are ignored or hurt, they learn people are bad and cannot meet their needs. Growing up, if the brain develops internal working model which says people are good, people meet me needs they are more likely to develop positive relationships with others. If people grow up with an internal working model of people are bad and hurt me or do not meet my needs, they will look for people to fail them and may struggle to develop positive relationships.

i use the word may. The brain is malleable and constantly making connections. It grows and changes depending on experiences. If the child who has an internal working model of people are bad and then meets a caring, loving caregiver (teacher, adult friend) who over a long time, through the context of a relationship (I do not refer to a partner type relationship) will rebuild the pathways to people are good, people are safe. If this is repeated enough, it can overcome the earlier pathways.

it’s just one theory in child development and one I find incredibly interesting. Children don’t develop only in a vacuum in the family home and influenced by so many different people and experiences. Adverse childhood experiences (which I utterly hate) has an opposite positive childhood experiences and I hope research becomes as wide known about these in years to come.

Here:

What you are saying is too simplistic.

Parents are not perfect, nobody is.

But there is big difference between regular parents who don't get everything right and abusive/neglectful parents.

Of course people who grow up with parents who are alcoholics, drug users, mental health conditions or within an household where abuse and/or neglect take place are going to be negatively affected.

This the time where your brain and identity is formed and if you grow up with parents that don't give you support and a heathy environment you are going to develop things like poor self-esteem, body image and a distorted view of what healthy relationships are.

A lot of that stuff used to be swept under the carpet (you only have to look at historical instances of child abuse) by parents and the authorities in previous decades. Now people feel they can speak more openly about it and it is taken more seriously.

I grew up in an household where I was physically and mentally abused and it has affected my entire life. My parents also badly neglected my physical health as well and issues that could have been addressed and corrected in childhood were not and left me with lifelong disabilities. So of course I am going to put the blame on them for making my life harder and sadder than it needed to be. It also affected my ability to have healthy relationships in adulthood and took a lot of therapy work.

Abusive parents should never be excused with ''oh well they tried their best...''

When you are a kid your parents have all the power, you cannot just move out and ''divorce'' them like you would if you were in an adult relationship.

It's nuanced, OP. I think most parents do the best they know how to do. Some, however, are really bad at it, and their DC are adversely affected.

However, there do seem to be a lot of people on MN who are very quick to blame their parents for things, sometimes quite unfairly. For example, there are countless threads where overweight posters blame their parents for them being fat in adulthood - if the parents tried to restrict their caloric intake, that's what caused them to eat too much. If the parents didn't try to restrict their diet, that's what caused it. There is literally no way for the poor parents to win!

OP that kind of statement is typical of someone whose emotional intelligence is poor.

The same goes for an unwillingness to look inward, a lack of perception on the affect one has other on people, and insensitivity.

It might help you to red around the subject.

For me, I feel that there is a difference between using ‘my upbringing’ as a reason or an excuse.

It’s obvious we’ve all been influenced by our upbringing, in good and in bad ways. It’s obvious that trauma leaves very lasting effects on people.
So yes your upbringing is likely to be at the root of issues. That’s a very good reason.

I have more issue with using it as an excuse for the simple reason that it removes any agency from the person. It’s saying ‘I’m struggling with X and Y but I can’t help it because it’s my upbringing’. It feels helpless.
OR it’s used as away to blame someone ‘dear parent, I’m struggling with X and Y and it’s your fault’. Now it might be right but again it doesn’t give any power to the person. It allows for releasing feelings/anger/making you feel a bit better. But I’m nit sure anything positive is coming out if.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4644113-i-was-raised-in-a-home-entrenched-with-dv

^ tell that poster.

Posters here have given good examples. All this woe-is-me is tiresome.

Bloodless : overweight posters blame their parents for them being fat in adulthood.

Clock: one was pissed off that she wasn't bought a car for her 17th and that was why she doesn't drive now. One used to have to pick her siblings up from school and bring them home with her on her way home from college. And shock horror look after them for an hour till single mom got home. Or the one who was embarrassed that her dad could only pay for half her wedding.

I'd be , where's your taking responsibility for your own adult decisions.