I understand you OP. I find it upsetting too. Now I have 2 small children. Every day I see their trust and vulnerability, their need to be loved and appreciated and I cannot fathom some of my parent’s treatment of me. Yes, they were 21 when they had me, but both very intelligent and successful people despite this.I really feel a lot of their behaviour was inexcusable.
My mother was incredibly cold towards me once I was about 4. She likes babies, not children. My father had a vicious temper, whenever anything went wrong for him, big or small, he would create an atmosphere where we were almost afraid to breathe too loudly, on threat of violence, verbal and physical.
Knowing of my father’s temper my mother decided I should go overseas with him alone when I was five. The trip was terrifying in parts because of my father’s brutal temper. I would never desire to send my 5 year old daughter away from me for even a week, let alone six months, and to the other side of the world. I would miss her so much.
Again when I was 9 my parents put myself and my 5 year old brother on an aeroplane by ourselves and sent us from Australia to Wales where we were to live my (barely known) grandmother for 6 months. My parents were not poor, or unable to care for us, they just put themselves and their careers first every time.
When my mother arrived in Wales to pick us up and bring us back to Australia she did not hug, kiss or touch me, despite not seeing me for 6 months. I was not a bad child. She did this again after a long separation at 16, did not touch me at all when she saw her again, although she knew I’d had a difficult time settling into yet a new town/ school/ country. Her rejection of me sent a very clear message, while my young brain was still forming.
As an adult I still feel like I am not a real person, not worthy of love, I have had many failures, and achieved very little outside my daughters, whom I love and admire. I am so incredibly anxious and afraid most of the time. This all comes directly from the behaviour of my parents.
The sick twist is my mother and father now obsessively idolise my eldest daughter (They are not fussed about my younger daughter) and do their best to make me feel like a substandard parent. Sometimes I am actually afraid my mother is somehow going to try and take my child from me.
I check myself every day to make sure I am not acting the way they did (my younger brother was spared a lot of this. My mother did everything to let me know he was the favourite. I love my brother and don’t hold this against him, or envy him at all)
My heart would be completely broken if my own children ever felt these feelings about me, as their parent. Pardon the epic, feel very sad putting that all down here.