To ask if you are age 45-55

[Iamtheoneandonly2018]

Did you go to your parents with your problems? Was talking about this to someone and we both can't work out if it's a generational thing. We were left to deal with stuff on our own/ told we were making a mountain out of a molehill etc. Parents still won't discuss stuff now - still ignored or brushed under the carpet.

I’m 47 and spoke to my mum on a daily basis on the phone when she was alive. Talked about all sorts. She was my absolute rock and I miss her every single day. Wonderful woman. I do talk to my dad regularly but never had this sort of relationship with him so we talk practical stuff / news / what we’ve been up to. I really miss having mum as a confidante and bottle up pretty much everything now.

Sorry @HamiltonCork. Got Far From The Madding Crowd on my mind...

My parents have always been supportive. I'm fairly close to my mum & she was great when my marriage broke down - both emotionally & practically.

My dad is more distant but I have no doubt he loves us - he was a great father when we were little - really engaged & enjoyed us.

They were much more child-centric than most of their generation.

But I still felt emotionally unprepared for the world; I guess they just didn't have the life experience to pass on.

Now they are elderly & their health is failing; my dad has dementia & my mum is his carer. It's taking it's toll. I wish I lived closer.

No never, I discuss nothing personal with them. Our relationship is entirely superficial.

My parents are both dead now but we never ever talked about feelings and once I hit 18 it was clear they had completed responsibility for my life and I was expected to sort myself out, which to be fair I did. I worked all through university and earned enough to run a car whilst I was a student then got a good job once I had my degree.

They were not bad parents and would step in practically if needed but neither of them ever said they loved me or hugged me or discussed how I felt about stuff. I just think that was not done then. I can identify with the PP who said that when she was trying to talk about feeling her mother started talking about the neighbour's double gazing; mine would have too!

It’s interesting and heartening to read that others parents are like mine.

I really do find it ironic (or maybe not really) that they expect so much support from me now when they’ve been incredibly self absorbed their whole lives. It makes me rage inside, but like most of us I help them and never say anything - there would be no point. I keep an emotional distance though.

I am 49, my mum was VERY demanding when I was a child, over involved, pushy, demanding, violent and devisive she told us she loved us all the time. Dad was distant and did not protect us from her. I left when I was 20 and have never asked for money, time or advice from them. If I ever tried to discuss anything with my mum it was always turned around into how shit her life was, so I never talked about anything. I had pnd after my son was born, she wasn't bothered that I had it but she was bothered that I hadn't talked to her about it.
They're my parents I love them, but it's distant and I resent having to sort out issues for them now they're old.
I have broken the circle with my son, we are very close and he talks to me about anything and everything.

Interesting thread! No, I definitely wouldn’t go to my parents with any issues. Never have and never will. Quite the opposite in fact. (I’m 47)

Mine aren't alive, but when they were, I would only go with practical problems. I had good relationships with them but didn't like to worry them.

Yorkshire - totally resonate. My mother especially very harsh on discipline and making out to the outside world everything rosey. Banged on all my childhood how lucky I was as her childhood was the war!! I can not make eye contact with her to this day as she’s emotionally hard as nails, but like others say, she’s still my mother so that’s just how it is. Dad just wasn’t about and left everything to her.

I am actually amazed by this thread... so many people haven't felt emotionally supported. Very sad... I am late forties and have pretty much always felt supported (other issues though...). My parents are unconventional though in many ways (although they don't appear to be!).

DP just fits into this age range (55) and also would have never talked to parents about anything emotional.
But when I think of both sets of grandparents, they had really hard lives. Men serving in the trenches, deaths, being bombed out of their houses, being evacuated as a child to total strangers for years. So I suspect both our sets of parents were brought up very much with a get on with it attitude. Life was too hard to do anything else really during their childhoods.
This is why I don't blame them. Both sets of mums were loving and showed it in practical ways.
I do think being able to express and talk about emotions is probably only really possible when life is better. Not when you are just constantly going through tough thing after tough thing.

No. As a teenager, my mother would definitely listen, and want to be helpful/supportive, but I would find her reactions smothering and intrusive. She has always had a tendency to worry and overthink things, and it has got much worse as she has got older, so I have not felt it possible to talk to her about things in a natural, open way. There is a lot of stuff that has never really been talked about (e.g. deaths of my husband and my sister).

My father does not really do emotional stuff at all, full stop (product of British boarding school...), he just fixates on mundane things to avoid the subject, e.g. at the time my sister was dying, his main concern was replacing the lawnmower. I am sure there was a lot of stuff going on in his head, but he was not willing/able to talk about it.

I am 49 and have never discussed anything with my DM. I could talk to my step dad however and we could talk for hours but sadly he died young. My DM would use anything I said as a piece of gossip to share as she lives her life like a soap opera. So she gets told nothing as she would have nothing to offer me in way of support or advice....

I have a great DM. She's far from perfect and wasn't the greatest most loving mum when I was growing up, but I have forgiven her for those failings 100%.

What made a huge difference to how I see her, was when I thought about and really let myself feel the absolutely horrible childhood and young adulthood she had. She has done brilliantly to be a kind and loving and supportive as she can be, to me, given her total lack of experience of those qualities herself growing up. I respect her hugely.

"We don't do emotions in this family."

They were jolly good at practical stuff - if I wanted to know about laundry, tax, gardening, plumbing, things like that, they were great. Not emotions. My father went to boarding school at 7, my mother was an alcoholic.

I'm 54...my dad was my rock and I miss him terribly. I don't remember him ever saying 'I love you' but his actions proved that he did. I could talk to him about anything and he was supportive and practical in his advice and help. He often said how proud he was and that meant the world to me. My mum, on the other hand, did tell us all constantly how much she loved us (A LOT!!) But was (is) shit at giving any kind of emotional support. She just doesn't 'get' it...isn't really that interested either if I'm honest.

When my dad died I felt bereft...still do! I lost my constant.

Abacucat agree

Neither of my parents were there for me. It was made very clear that their relationship came first & us kids were simply a temporary by product. All 3 of us kids were kicked out when we became too much for them during our early teens. DM died suddenly 8 years ago leaving lots of unanswered questions.

50 year old here. My parents were fairly self sufficient and taught me a lot of practical stuff. They weren’t materialistic at all.

However once I got into secondary school they left it up to the school to educate me. This was a selective school that had a good reputation but it was a coasting school with no pastoral support. My parents blamed me for my resulting bad grades and lack of confidence.

No hugs or ‘I love you’s but kisses on the cheek were clm

Your childhood shapes you but then you grow up and control how you behave.

Yes our parents generation had challenging events in their childhood, but bloody hell guys we grew up in the 70s!

Feral children, with pop and a packet of crisps.

I learnt from my upbringing and my children were brought up very, very differently. I have moved away significantly from the way my parents were. I just wonder why I could make changes but my parents couldn't.

common.

My parents realised in later years that it was helpful to talk about their difficult childhoods. We all got on a lot better after that.

I'm 50 but had a good relationship with both parents. Mum died at 54 quite suddenly and I still really miss her, even though it's over 20 years ago now. My relationship with Dad has morphed over the years. He was often very stressed with work when we were growing up but he has always had a great sense of humour and we have always been quite close. He's now in his mid-80s, tells the same stories over and over again but he's there for me. I used to go to him for advice, now he comes more to me. However, yesterday I managed to weld red cabbage onto the base of my pressure cooker and Dad was the patient one who got it all off for me. We enjoy doing cryptic crosswords together and laugh at the random things we know.

He's my daughters' only surviving grandparent and takes this role very seriously, spoiling them rotten whenever he can (driving lessons, car etc.) He paid for things when we were kids but laid on the "how many hours have I had to work to pay for X" so we didn't often ask. My daughters don't ask but he says it gives him enormous pleasure both to see them flourish and to spend it before the taxman gets it (when he dies). He's next door right now, planning the wines for tomorrow's lunch. I'll cook, DH will be in charge of the fire, carving the turkey and washing up.

What I find particularly irksome with my parents now are how they seem to be totally the opposite about attitudes towards the grandchildren.

Not in a way that means they actually have to do anything, and certainly not in a way that might suggest they would admit they were ever lacking, but they’re the first people to jump in with the platitudes regarding how things are done. They say Oh yes University is a great thing to aim for, oh yes of course they must have support in the things that are important to them etc all the stuff Dh and I gladly do.

In other words they talk the talk now, but back then when it was me my parents did not walk the walk in terms of support or interest. There was no support in the notion that I would go to college or uni or that I could use some help with anything as a teenager. Getting so much as a lift out of them was a rare event.

They just rewrite history and make out they did it all which makes me want to shout you were never like that, it didn’t happen!

Yes I speak to mum about pretty much everything