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.

Wuldric

You are talking double here. You cannot comment on damaged children who have damaged parents and say that it is perhaps the parent's before them who were at fault. Or are you saying that anyone damaged just needs to look at them self, not at what has happened to them/ how they learnt to develop relationships?

Well, I think we'd need more from the OP before any of us can decide whether his is a reasonable reaction or not.

The total lack of empathy and inverse snobbery of some people never ceases to amaze me. OP sorry your getting such a hardtime about the sailing, it's a pity that your parents didn't have a more working class hobby on which to waste all of your and their time on.

FWIW I think your DP is right, your DB needs to work through this on his own. All you can do is perhaps help keep channels open if there ever comes a time when he decides he does want to get back in touch.

I was moved around constantly as a child due to my Dad's work, and whilst on some level I am grateful that I had parents with a good work ethic who did their best to support the family, on another I just wish I could have had a more stable childhood as I do think it's had a massive knock on effect regarding an inability to form close friendships and basic issues with confidence and lack of selfworth.

It really does suck to feel hopeless about the problems that you face in adult life because you feel like you missed your chance to become a 'better' version of yourself due to your childhood.

OP, we really need to know if there is any other background here. Talking about your parents in terms of anger and hatred is extremely strong over an all-encompassing hobby! I am sure many people would feel a degree of resentment but this seems out of all proportion.

I agree with your DP. Has everyone talking about how "lucky" the brother was missed that as well as not actually enjoying sailing, he was sea-sick? So the parents weren't sharing their favourite activity with their children, they were dragging the children along on an activity that the parents wanted to do when it was obvious that the children didn't want to do it.

Your brother missed out on 18 years of being able to have friends and pursue any sport or activity he might have wanted to do in favour of spending every holiday and weekend vomiting over the side of a boat or feeling truly dreadful and sick, with no sympathy or consideration from his parents. What a fun family activity for him.

To me it's like taking your child who is allergic to dogs to a dog show every day of every weekend or holiday so he can spend his time coughing and with streaming eyes so you can have fun watching the dogs. He must bless every minute he can spend on dry land now. He probably still turns around every now and again with the thought " it's Saturday, I'm in a sunny park/playing football/whatever he likes to do and I'm not incarcerated on a boat vomiting while my bloody parents have a super time " He's HAPPY.

I understand your DB. My DF is a passionate (but kamikaze and terrible sailor) and our holiday destinations were determined by his hobby. Since he could not sail his boat alone, one of us children always had to come and spend a miserable day out on sea while everyone else was having fun. I was given my first Optimist when I was six and DF insisted to visit a boat fair while DM was giving birth to my DSis. We were fed up with it as it was and it was not anywhere near as bad as your experience, as DF was not sailing all the time. I still hate it, won't go anywhere near a sailing boat if I can help it. It is not very nice to be bossed about on a boat all day long - I got so fed up that I swam ashore on one occasion. It is a lot of work too, quite hard work actually to look after all the equipment, clean it up, tidy away etc.
Give your DB more time to get over his anger.

You can't decide that "we should let go of the anger and the hatred". You can decide that you will, but your brother will work through it in his own time and decide on his own whether or not to have a relationship with his parents (yes, they are the same as your parents, but its not your relationships).

In the meantime, you need to butt out. You can listen if he wants to talk things through, and maybe if your DM/DF are terminally ill you should inform your DB in case he wants to make his peace, but that would still be his call.

lisi has it spot on.
I'd be pretty resentful of anyone who made me have morning sickness (same as sea sickness for me) every weekend for nearly two decades, and would feel damn sure they didn't love me or care about my well being.
The type of hobby is irrelevant (and what, we're only allowed to complain if our unhappy childhood was cash-poor?), it's their complete disregard of him that he's reacting to.

Not being him or knowing the full situation, I can't guess at whether he's really overreacting or not, but I did consider cutting contact with my mother when I was 20/21, everything felt very black and white then.

PS they've had four whole years to consider the situation and try to fix it, how much effort have they really made? A few letters and emails? Not really good enough IMO.

He seems to have a fixed idea of the childhood that he's missed out on, and that might be more of a problem, they can never fix that. No such thing as normal, only average, maybe he needs to ask around, I'm sure plenty of his friends have parent issues of their own, and didn't have the things he thinks he was robbed of either.

Your brother's actions are entirely understandable. I expect I'd feel the same if I were him.

You reap what you sow. Your mother may be sorry now but it doesn't alter the fact that she failed to put her children first throughout their childhood.

Parents who don't meet the emotional needs of their children should never be surprised when their adult children want little or nothing to do with them in my view.

Posters saying they would have loved it and he should be grateful are missing the point.

He obviously feels so strongly about it that he's cut contact with his parents for four years.

That's not a tantrum, that's not wanting to spend time with people you can't stand/distress you.

All the hours parents spend trailing round legoland/peppapigland/disneyland aren't there for the sights, they do it because you have to tailor some of your time to your children.

Whatever the proportion of time the brother was spending sailing, something they know made him ill (!), he feels it was a significant amount, enough for him to feel this strongly about it.

Minimizing it because it wasn't violent or some other hideous abuse, isn't a whole lot of use to the person scarred by it.

( and to Atavistic, fucking open mouthed at what you had to deal with>

I just knew everybody would fixate on the sailing!! OP has said her DB suffers from seasickness. Have you ever had it? I love sailing, but have been seasick a few times and it is hell. Imagine being a kid, told he can't go to Scouts, unable to join the football or cricket, never allowed to go to parties or film club or skating or sleepovers or anything like that ... because he's being forced to vomit up his guts in the cold and wet.

Yeah, what a privilege.

OP, I can completely empathise with your situation. When parents are so "into" each other, so taken up with their own wants and needs it reinforces the message to children very early on that they are way down the priority list. it doesn 't matter if its sailing, golf, church, going down the pub or dragging your children to dog shows! Children do need a sense of balance, they need to feel they matter, then they have confidence to grow up with positive childhood memories of seasides, activities with children of their own age, and parents looking on with pride as their children grow. Sadly this wasnt the case for your family, OP I can imagine that being on that boat must have felt like being trapped in a prison, nowhere to run to, just stuck out there with no choice.

Perception is everything, if children feel like they are a spare part, and "in the way" then it's probably because they were. I dont have any additional advice that hasnt already been mentioned, but I hope that whatever the outcome, that your brother finds resolution. He has made a decision that is right for him, to distance himself. He probably feels your parents' attempts to reconcile with him are too little too late, they should have been less wrapped up in their own world and more involved in their children. I would tend to agree. Child neglect can involve emotional starvation which is a first world problem.

Philip Larkin's poem springs to mind - a bit bitter and twisted but he has a point!

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another?s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don?t have any kids yourself.

To the posters asking whether there is anything else to it, its not just the sailing its the feeling that they were never interested in him.

Sofia - what Verlaine said. Describing children's having their own views and thoughts on the parents' hobbies as being 'hurtful' to the parents assumes the parents are the centre and their needs and feelings the most important - more important and more valid than those of the children. But as a parent, it's my job to hear, accept and validate my children's feelings.

Going off sailing on some weekends, once a month perhaps, plus a holiday a year, would have been nice for the children, I presume. Being dragged off every weekend, probably with early starts, never a chance to mooch around the house for a morning after a tiring week at school, exclusion from birthday parties and weekend activities - doesn't sound like much fun to me, and very imbalanced. And then imagine feeling sick a lot of the time as a direct result of these activities

Most people, when they have children, realise they can't continue pursuing their child-free lifestyle to the exclusion of all else. These parents don't seem to have done that. That's the point people are making with the comparisons to drinking and drugs, not that sailing is the same thing as those

its not just the sailing its the feeling that they were never interested in him.

Well I think that was quite obvious.
My parents did something similar. All weekends and hols have always been chosen by them, according to what they thought was nice to do and I have never had a say about it. Actually it also involved sailing!
But I have never felt it was an issue, because I have always felt they were interested in me.
I know some adults who have some major issues with their parents because they wanted to live in the countryside (in the middle of nowhere) so it stopped them going out with friends etc... They deeply ressented it. And then others in similar situation who had no issue with the 'isolation', took it in their stride. Some of them now live in the countryside, others in town.

I think the issue is much bigger/wider than just the weekends and hols. And because of that, your DB will have to work through it himself.
I really like the idea of your mum and dad writing a letter to him and explaining how deeply they regret their choices (Not just the sailing). But be careful not to be too involved because you might damaged your own relationship with your DB.

Wow, can't believe that anyone would be upset because their parents took them sailing as children.

Oh...I'll get my coat....now read more.

Your brother is entitled to do what he wants with his life and if that means shunning his parents then so be it.
My dh has toxic parents and his sister is forever digging her nose in trying to get my dc to see them etc when there are lots of reasons why we don't want to see them.

Please leave your brother with his own decisions, people don't change because they are ill i'm afraid and i suspect your brother knows this.

As shitty childhoods go, being taken sailing every weekend (even if you didn't want to go) doesn't even make the top 1000.

I think posters who are focusing on the fact that is is 'just' sailing are missing the point entirely. My dad was 'just' an alchoholic but it affected my life. He didn't lock me in a cellar and beat me either and would have (and frequently did) happily take me along to the pub for the ride. It doesn't mean it didn't have a profound affect on my life. There is something that he would have (and did) put before us despite a detrimental effect on his family.

I have made my peace with my past and love my dad. But my inlaws are another story. They have treated us shockingly. If they were to say sorry on their deathbed, I would not be interested. I don't see why I should be wheeled out to appease their guilt and as these experiences happened to me and no one else, I genuinely don't think anyone has the right to tell me I should have to. They can die with the decisions they chose to live with.

I don't think it is up to anyone else to tell your db what to do.

It's so funny that those on this thread saying 'oh boo boo they took you sailing, some kids are hiding in a cellar while their parents spend all day shooting up' are probably the same posters who state (quite rightly) that middle class families are just as capable of neglect/producing unhappy children etc as poor families. The double standards on mumsnet astonishes me sometimes!

Op, please dobt listen to those who have totally dismissed your unhappiness about the sailing. I can imagine that the reality of always being dragged to your parents hobby and never being able to find or pursue your own interests would have been really shit. However, as others have said I think you need to let your brother sort it out himself.

If there are no other issues and just sailing as OP says I would think her DB has been unreasonable in blaming his parents for every problem in his life. And this unreasonableness would keep him away from accepting his parents' apologies. Not seeing his mother in a life and death situation because you were taken sailing all the time is quite disproportionate. In this case I would get involved because he will have a lifetime of regret over it when they die. He sounds very immature though so I would proceed with caution.

Flipping heck - agree with the poster who said the inverse snobbery in this thread is astonishing. I suspect the OPs brother would have received a lot more sympathy if their parents had made them go down the pub every weekend.

Sailing would be my idea of absolute hell - like the OP's brother, I would get incredibly sea sick and I hate with a passion being cold and wet.

I chose to stay behind at school in year six when the school organised a weeks sailing trip because the thought of being stuck on a boat filled me with absolute dread - I think I was one of about 4 and the other three wanted to go but couldn't for various reasons.

Just because sailing is seen as a privileged hobby doesn't mean that the brother should be grateful if it was something he had no interest in, hated and made him feel ill.

It's like going on to the Stately Homes thread and telling people they are really ungrateful because they go to do lots of nice things so they should suck up the abuse

However, saying that OP I think the suggestion that was made about getting your mom to write a letter and delivering it to your brother - but without any pressure to read or take action is a good one. And definitely try and spend Christmas with him if you can.