to think we should let go of the anger and the hatred

[yunito]

Have namechanged as this post contains some personal stuff and I suspect there are at least 2 people I know in real life on here and sorry in advance for the length of this OP.

My brother is 22 and he has not spoken to our parents for four years. As a family both my mum and dad were addicted to sailing, basically every weekend from March to November were spent pursuing this hobby (away from home either on the south coast or in north wales) and in the intervening months we would go on a holiday to warmer climates to go sailing. Mine his and out other sisters opinions on this were forcefully ignored and we were always told to be bloody grateful we weren?t starving like other children in the world. We all and my brother in particular were very shy and lacking in confidence and we never stood up to them until the age of 16 (I appreciate as eldest I should of perhaps said something on behalf of the other two as I was an adult long before they were). Although I thoroughly disagree with them for doing this and there is no way I would do it to my children I still have a reasonable relationship with them.

My brother however absolutely hates them and says that they robbed him of his childhood for their own ends and that he will never forgive them for doing this to him (my sister also holds his views but she has a cordial if infrequent relationship with them). My mum has been very ill in the last 3 months or so and has had to have a couple of operations, the second was an emergency one without which she would have died. I went to see her the day of this operation and before she went in she told me that if she didn?t make it all she wanted me to do was tell my brother that she was sorry for everything.

I?ve been thinking about this for a while and I really want him to reconcile with them, they both acknowledge their mistakes and would go back and change the past if they could. They do sporadically try to write/email him but they never receive any response. I just feel that the past cannot be changed and that the current situation is doing no good to anyone, for example he spends Christmas alone as I go round to theirs and my sister goes to her boyfriends. DP however thinks that I?m overstepping the mark even for a sibling and that his feelings are his feelings and he?s entitled to hold them no matter what anyone else thinks.

DB should let go of the anger for his benefit, his health etc, but it is his anger and therefore only he can let go of it. No one can make him, or should try to. It may take him many years to let go, or it may happen almost spontainiuosly, either way it's up to him.

Are you blaming them for this, cory?

The OP has said they were all shy and lacked confidence as a result of their parents' behaviour. Very shy children who lack confidence often don't have many friends.

cory- It was difficult because we couldn't attend anything that happened on the weekend and because it really affected out confidence (and my brothers in particular)

OK, I see that the sailing is more about the narcissism of the parents rather than the activity itself. It's hard for me to empathize with because some of my DH's happiest memories are of his father taking him sailing. We still went on a few sailing holidays with him after we got married. So for me sailing = fun, quality family time.

I did resent being dragged along to endless religious stuff as a child as that was INSANELY boring and really not fun at all for a child but I understand from my parents' perspective that this stuff was salvation / damnation for them so they thought it was doing us good.

Maybe your parents hoped that your brother's social skills would improve through sailing? To be honest, many people I know who grew up sailing did make friends at the marina and in sailing clubs. It is a very social sport although being forced into it would not help.

I really think your brother is indeed BU to cut off contact just because his parents were selfish about their favorite hobby but there's not a lot you can do to change his mind if he's determined to never speak to his parents again. You'll just have to try and keep the lines of communication open and see what happens as he gets older.

I agree that you shouldn't interfere too much, it's sad to think of your brother isolating himself though but you really can't do much but continue to have a relationship with both I suppose. Maybe time will mellow his feelings a bit.

What do they have to be grateful for? The fact that they had a childhood which to many people would be an unbelievably privileged lucky one, with parents who wanted to spend time with them, who include them in their interests, who gave them opportunity to take part in sports and activities, opportunities to travel and see different places, to explore the world, parents who wanted to share their time and interests with their children.

A childhood an awful lot of people would kill for.

I do think there is a certain amount of ungratefulness going on here.

You're right about letting bitterness go but it is so much harder than just deciding to do it. Probably the best you can do is to carry on as you are, keeping communication open with both of them and trying to set an example to your brother of tolerance and forgiveness.

If he doesn't feel ready to let go then it can't be forced.

I wonder if it's not so much that this lifestyle affected the confidence of you and your siblings as that you were by nature not confident and outgoing so not suited to that lifestyle. Other kids might well have considered it a great adventure and opportunity.

Its not about the sailing, its about the fact that the parents pursued their own hobby every single weekend thus not allowing the children to have an opportunity to do what they liked doing some weekends. It could have been any hobby. Hugely selfish of them. But I would mention to db what she has said and leave it at that.

Sofia, do you think Prince Charles had a privileged upbringing? Do you think his childhood was one to envy?

OP, I'm not sure why you're being given such a hard time here.

I don't see why you or your siblings should be in any way grateful, when you basically had no choice whatsoever over how to spend your weekends. If I had to spend each weekend doing the same thing, I'd get sick of it very quickly even if it was something I loved. If it was something I didn't even enjoy, it'd be bloody miserable. I'm not at all surprised that you all feel so strongly, it shows a complete lack of respect for your opinions and feelings.

Just out of interest, when you say every weekend, was it really every weekend in the warmer months? What about holidays like half term? At what age were you allowed to stay at home on your own rather than going with your parents?

As for your original question, I do think that you need to allow your brother to make his own decisions. Your parents didn't allow him to make his own choices, don't make the same mistake.

Cory it's not always as easy as just doing your own thing on weekdays. I grew up depressed with a depressed mother and violent father. I never went anywhere or did anything on weekdays or weekends until I was 16 and dropped out of family life, and school, because there was no family life in my family. None of us did anything until we left home. My OH had similar family problems and only started doing things at age 16 when his headmaster decided to put him forward for a training programme. He has never told his parents that he broke hs rib because he knew they would stop him participating. Just two examples of families were the parents didn't allow any kind of freedom, hobbies, normal social interaction etc.

A lucky, privileged childhood, to me, is one where you feel heard, where you are wanted, where your thoughts and dreams are listened to and supported, where your parents acknowledge you are different from them, where your need for friendships are supported willingly.

I can't see any way in which the OP and her siblings had a privileged upbringing.

There's more than one way of starving a child.

Of course this is about more than sailing. You can substitute sailing for alcoholism/gambling/drug taking if it is more palatable. I suspect this is about the brother's needs being ignored in favour of the parents'.

I didn't have the happiest of childhood's OP and in my early 20s I was still filled with bitterness and hurt about it. I'm over it and get on fine with my parents now, but no-one could have made me move on back then.

Your brother has to deal with it in his own way, you can't control it. Focus on what you can do i.e. being a great sister. It's a shame he spends Christmas on his own - could you spend the day with him sometimes?

Sofia - it's not a privilege if you hate it though , is it?

If the parents were genuinely interested in their children's welfare and wanted to spend time with them and show them how wonderful the world was and expand their children's horizons - then sailing could be a wonderful way to do this, providing the children liked it and the parents took notice of what their children wanted. It seems that the parents took no notice of their children's desires at all. Since they hated it, it clearly didn't provide them with a privileged life, did it? It meant that their childhood was shoehorned in to fit in with the parents' all-consuming hobby.

Doesn't sound like great parenting to me.

Replace the all-consuming hobby with something that has less of a whiff of privilege about it and then think about whether a child's preferences never being given precedence still sounds like privilege.

Napacab, you've sort of hit on the head what I was trying to say when you're talking about your husband's memories.

I guess the parents would have imagined that they would have many happy times sailing as a family and enjoying themselves together like your husband and his father did.

I can't help feeling that it must have been really hurtful to them when they tried to share that with their children and their children just weren't interested. I can understand the 'be grateful' comment because they were spending time and money trying to include their kids in what they thought would be a nice hobby, which a lot of people aren't privileged enough to do, plus taking them away on holidays. And it seems like they had this thrown back in their face a bit.

It would be hurtful, if you'd dreamed of going on idyllic sailing holidays with your kids and sharing and interest and they a) Don't want to know b) Don't realize how lucky they are to have the opportunity to do it.

I imagine it was pretty clear the children weren't enjoying it though.

Sofia - we can all see that, but clearly the OPs brother hasn't got that perspective yet.
22yo men aren't generally famed for their emotional maturity, and what he is remembering is 16/18 years straight of "No you can't do that, we're sailing". No wonder he felt rejected, 2nd class, introverted and bitter.
Sailing is only fun if you want to do it, otherwise it's just a day spent in silence on water. Whoo hoo.

OP hasn't said what their life was like generally, it could've been like mine - middle of nowhere with no transport (and no willing chauffeur), so most definitely not able to see friends or do activities after school.
Incidentally my mother also saw us as a mild inconvenience and just carried on doing what she wanted regardless.

As he gets older and understands what hellish lives some children live, he will hopefully realise it wasn't quite as bad as he thought, but lets not minimise their emotianal neglect just because it has a middle background.

OP - all you can really do is keep him informed about their health, other than that it's his angst and he will deal with it in his own time.

I think people are really overstretching the sailing thing - you cannot compare it to addictions like alcoholism/drug taking etc

No of course it isn't.

with parents who wanted to spend time with them

That's exactly what they didn't have, and that's exactly what the problem is. Parent s who want to spend time with their children tend to do so in a way that it mutually interesting and pleasurable. (Else what's the point?)

Instead, they had parents who wanted to spend all their time entirely pleasing themselves and forced their children along with them to stand and watch whilst they enjoyed themselves.

Exactly how are you imagining this to be quality family time? Purely because it cost a lot of money.......?

First world problem.

But Sofia, why should children enjoy something just because their parents do? Isn't it a parent's job to find out what their children's strengths and interests are and encourage those?

I can understand hoping that your children share your interest - but once you realise they don't, you would think that they might be able to be a bit less selfish about their own hobby - if pursuing it all the time meant that their children couldn't develop their own.

They are the adults. "Being hurt" because your children don't share your own interests sounds pretty childish - and selfish.

Nice, Wuldric.

Sorry Sofia, I took too long to type! My reply was to your previous post.
Tho still, they weren't being 'given an opportunity', there was no choice involved, and it was every weekend, not even one weekend off a month.

Also, I meant middle class, sailing isn't necessarily the preserve of the very rich.

It doesn't sound like they wanted to 'share' their hobby to me, more like sailing was their life and they'd be damned if having kids was going to slow them down. Not nice.