Are there toxic parents on mumsnet?

[kavalkada]

It is something that always troubles me on mumsnet.

I had very abusive parents, both in different ways. My father was a gambler who made our lives a living hell, and I know my mother had a terrible life with him. She was only 20 when she married him, he was 30. She was pregnant with me. I don't know if she would've married him if she wasn't pregnant with me. Mabye yes, mabye no.

I have younger brother. Unlike me, my mother adored him from the moment he came to this world. He was the apple of her eye and there were always cuddles, kisses, hugs for him. You can see it on our family photographs.

As long as I remember, my mother (and father) never kissed me, never hugged me, never cuddled with me. I remember my father holding my hand once during winter olympics, and that was it.

But there was always a belt and a cane in the kitchen if I get naughty. And I did. I haven't eaten lunch - cane over my hands and back, something fell from my hand and broke, belt, I said something I shouldn't (I was four when it started), cane. You get the picture.
Nobody ever shouted and hit my brother.

I was a house maild, ever since I was 6, washing and cleaning like a proper adult. I was 8 when I started ironing saturdays, for hours, because my parents had uniforms and there were lot of them. My brother never made his bed.

Until I met my husband 10 years ago, I didn't know how happy a family life can be. I have two children now, a boy and a girl, and looking at them for the life of me I can not see why my parents made such a difference between me and my brother.

My father was a crap father in every way, but ne never beat me (well, it happened once).

I now live in the other party of my country. I am not NC from them, but I said to myself that I will never ever in my life be alone with them, only if my husband was there. This happened two years ago after spending a week alone with my mother and my children, and she started abusing me again, not with cane, but every other way.

But this is my question. If my mother had a mumsnet in her day, she would come here and write about her hard life. And it was hard. Very poor, no clothes in the winter, alcoholic father, gambler husband, nobody to help her with two little children. She was in hell most of the time. The only thing she had was her job she loved and without it we would be hungry.

She would write all that, probably skipping the part about daily beating her older child, and everybody would jump to tell her not to be so hard on herself, and that she is doing best for her children and that her children love her no matter what.

I see posters coming and asking if they're a terrible parent all the time. Sometimes, they're really not, just too hard on themselves, you want to hug them and tell them, but sometimes, they're not. You can see that even from the things they write, and they probably do not write the whole story. And they're always said they're good parents, doing their best.

So my question is, why on mumsnet it is not allowed to say mother is sometines awful mother? I'm saying mother, because we have threads about crap fathers on daily base and nobody is defending them.

That sounds horrendous. Can’t imagine how hard that was. Could you bring yourself to go no contact?
I agree there are people on here that are terrible, neglectful and/or abusive. They’ll ge patents on the Christmas threads happily chatting about what they’ve bought but are not actually that interested in their children.
I’m a teacher and the low level disinterest, snappiness and disregard for their children is shocking at times. No idea why some people have children.

OP, I’m so sorry for the abuse you suffered.

We can never really trust the things we read on here. They’re told from one person’s point of view and there is no fact checker so undoubtedly people either completely outright lie (picked up quite frequently by MNHQ and deleted) or they embellish/leave out important bits when posting. There is rarely any way of knowing.

My solution to this is to try not to get too invested in someone else’s story.

I'm so sorry OP. I was abused too, by my mother. I'm pretty good at recognising the patterns. There was a woman on here who had all the hallmarks of an abusive parent and everyone was telling her not to be too hard on herself, whilst I told her she sounded just like my mother and to be careful and make changes now before her child would end up hating her. I was piled on by others and mumsnet deleted my post. I reckon the exact same would have happened if my mother posted back in the day about how hard her life was and how difficult her children were. It's a touchy subject and people don't like to look it in the eye. These things almost always get discussed in hindsight. When the damage is done :(

Of course there will be. Abusers rarely acknowledge the fact they did anything wrong. Even the most neglectful parents think they are good ones (I see this in my line of work). The courts/SS has a lot of respect for those that can say they haven't done a good enough job, because it really doesn't happen a lot.

@FinallyDecided

I'm so sorry OP. I was abused too, by my mother. I'm pretty good at recognising the patterns. There was a woman on here who had all the hallmarks of an abusive parent and everyone was telling her not to be too hard on herself, whilst I told her she sounded just like my mother and to be careful and make changes now before her child would end up hating her. I was piled on by others and mumsnet deleted my post. I reckon the exact same would have happened if my mother posted back in the day about how hard her life was and how difficult her children were. It's a touchy subject and people don't like to look it in the eye. These things almost always get discussed in hindsight. When the damage is done :(

After two decades of abuse, I'm really good at recognizing the patterns, too. So I understand what you mean. And when I read them, while everybody else keeps repeating "oh, you poor darling, don't be too hard on youself, you're doing your best", I think "those poor, poor children, there is nobody in the world to defend them".

Can you give any examples of such patterns?

So sorry about what you went through. My dad's mum always favoured her oldest son over my dad to the point of once advising him to kill himself after he had had a falling out with his brother. He eventually went NC with her much later in life, but the rejection by his own mother always stayed with him.

Firstly, just wanted to say I'm so sorry for what you suffered as a child.

You are right in what you say. I think for some of us, we take the Ops word and trust what they are saying is true.

For me, and this is no excuse, I had a happy childhood and my parents were not abusive. So, it can be hard for me to spot any red flags when it comes to parents.
Interestingly, I've had toxic/abusive relationships with men, so I can spot red flags from a mile off in those threads/posts.

However, I have seen threads where mumsnet posters have called out the mother/poster for terrible and abusive parenting.
For example, there is a thread from a poster complaining her husband, father of her children, is being incredibly abusive to their child. The whole post lists all the terrible things her husband does to thier child and is asking for advice.
Naturally, a lot of posts are "LTB" Etc. However, a lot of the posters have called the Op out, and told the Ops she is also culpable and just as bad as her husband. The fact that for years she is seeing her husband be incredibly abusive to her child and has done nothing about it and not protecting her child.

I think there is a tendency for people to think PND, depression and things like that and are more inclined to support rather than push people closer to the edge. Mostly it's women posting on here about men rather than man posting themselves so that's why there's no one defending them; this is mumsent and in these cases it's women supporting women and believing them.

For what it's worth I agree with you. Abusive, neglectful parents haven't disappeared.

Sometimes there'll be a I don't love my baby thread and my heart just wrenches for that poor child but in a lot of cases it will be PND and we don't want to stop people from seeking help.

Maybe not the same thing but I remember reading some threads about people complaining their adult children had gone NC and how unfair it was. Probably being a judgemental person but at least some of them have got to be abusive parents in denial.

I’m so sorry for what you experienced OP

I often wonder what goes through the head of abusers and what causes them to behave the way they do. Entitlement? Lack of empathy? Either way, they aren’t traits that would compel someone to admit they are abusive. Very few people do.

Every parent swears they haven't got a favourite child, or if they have, they hide it perfectly and nobody would ever know.

But plenty of kids say there was a clear favourite.

I'm pretty sure there's a fair amount of misalignment.

I think its just the nature of people and Internet forums.

There are toxic parents on here. I personally have seen posts from them.

And yes they get sympathy. But I also get why. Firstly they are telling their sides of the story, so it's never going to be the whole story.

But also, people tend to judge people by their own character. Lots of us have had times where we feel we haven't been the best parents and are overly hard on ourselves.

My oldest is an adult, so I can look on my parenting. I know I made mistakes, we all do. But I also know that mistakes I made aren't the end of the world, like I thought they were at the time. So I think posters tend to assume that other mothers who are posting how terrible they have been, are just being hard on themselves. Or have pnd or something similar. Especially, if they suffered depression themselves.

I also think people like to think that women abuse children less often than they do.

In my 10 years here, I have only seen one long term poster claim women never abuse their children. Despite posters sharing their stories of that exact situation, the poster just kept insisting it doesn't happen. Essentially calling other posters liars. But I think that pov is rare.

I do also think that alot of posters here, by giving support, often enable abuse. But their brain hasn't made the connection, because they haven't experienced it. It's outside their frame of reference, so it doesn't enter their heads .

@Tryagainplease

I’m so sorry for what you experienced OP

I often wonder what goes through the head of abusers and what causes them to behave the way they do. Entitlement? Lack of empathy? Either way, they aren’t traits that would compel someone to admit they are abusive. Very few people do.

I had a talk with my mother the other day. She asked me to come and visit her with children on my days off. I had to tell her that I can't, because I'm afraid of what she'll do to me.

She still doesn't understand why.

We talked last few years about the abuse and one time I asked her why she did it, she answered me that she was miserable, and I was the only person who was not going to turn against her, no matter what she did.

I'm better now, my new family helped me a lot. I'll never be healthy like I should have been, but I'm better.

Your last paragraph, in particular, is spot on @Nyxly

We talked last few years about the abuse and one time I asked her why she did it, she answered me that she was miserable, and I was the only person who was not going to turn against her, no matter what she did

How did that make you feel? Did you believe her?
There are no excuses for abusive behaviour, IMO.
A friend of mine recently tried to defend the abusive husband I was leaving by saying he was just acting on his insecurities…

Now I tend to think very few people are genuinely sociopathic enough to abuse for sport. So there will always be an excuse or a reason… but as I pointed out to my friend - I have insecurities too. Many of them so won’t don’t I treat people that way? There has to be another layer there - and I genuinely think it is pure entitlement. The abuser doesn’t deal with his/her insecurities in a healthy way - they feel entitled to punish others for how they feel.

I have only recently left abusive relationship so am still trying to process a lot of it. But no way would STBX admit that his behaviour was unfair. He just comes up with excuse after excuse. I used to believe his excuses… I don’t anymore.

So my question is, why on mumsnet it is not allowed to say mother is sometines awful mother? I'm saying mother, because we have threads about crap fathers on daily base and nobody is defending them

Your mother was an awful mother.

The sheer volume of people on here means there are probably some abusers amongst the posters but the vast majority are people who love their kids and want to do what is best for them.

It sounds like you have done brilliantly creating your own family unit and I hope you can continue to protect yourself from your mother.

I think there's a mixture of not wanting to upset a mother who is potentially just having a bad time and believing totally that what the op wrote is totally true from all sides.

I've seen many times where people post something contradictory and anyone who points this out is slammed by other posters for not being supportive.

I've also seen where a poster has posted something and people have responded with cheerleading remarks when there actually is no evidence.
And the other way.
It often seems to follow the tone of the first replies.

But I also think that we tend to empathise with bad moments. I know over the last 20 years there's parenting moments I'm not proud of. But most of the time hasn't been like that.
But if someone posts a "having a tough time" you mentally see it, like you, a single incident. What you're not allowing for is that this isn't a bad moment, it's always like that.
That is very different.

@Tryagainplease

We talked last few years about the abuse and one time I asked her why she did it, she answered me that she was miserable, and I was the only person who was not going to turn against her, no matter what she did

How did that make you feel? Did you believe her?
There are no excuses for abusive behaviour, IMO.
A friend of mine recently tried to defend the abusive husband I was leaving by saying he was just acting on his insecurities…

Now I tend to think very few people are genuinely sociopathic enough to abuse for sport. So there will always be an excuse or a reason… but as I pointed out to my friend - I have insecurities too. Many of them so won’t don’t I treat people that way? There has to be another layer there - and I genuinely think it is pure entitlement. The abuser doesn’t deal with his/her insecurities in a healthy way - they feel entitled to punish others for how they feel.

I have only recently left abusive relationship so am still trying to process a lot of it. But no way would STBX admit that his behaviour was unfair. He just comes up with excuse after excuse. I used to believe his excuses… I don’t anymore.

I guess I always knew that, and I didn't feel anything. I was numb, you know, when you finally hear something you knew all your life.

That summer, two years ago. My husband returned home to work, and I stayed for a week, alone with her. And it has been ten years since I was alone with my parents, and I forgot.

And then it all came back, in a flash.

I was feeding my little girl, she is hard to feed in the best of days. But she is calmer when I sing to her. And I started to sing.

And then my mother came, who always complains that I can't take care of my children, and screamed. "Shut up, shut up, I can't hear you singing, you disguist me".

And whole week of that.

And her screaming that she has to take medicines to calm her, because I'm ruining her.

I spent week in my room shaking and holding my chidren next to me, afraid to say a word, afraid to move. It all came back.

I forgot. My home, home I have now is so different.

She doesn't like my husband, and she hates when I say that with him I have found out what love is, what means to love and not to be afraid.

Sorry, it is hard to write this and I have started to cry. I'll be better. I will not let them hurt me again.

This is an anonymous net rent forum. People only have what an OP says to go on. Of course there are dreadful parents on here.

@Gingerkittykat

So my question is, why on mumsnet it is not allowed to say mother is sometines awful mother? I'm saying mother, because we have threads about crap fathers on daily base and nobody is defending them

Your mother was an awful mother.

The sheer volume of people on here means there are probably some abusers amongst the posters but the vast majority are people who love their kids and want to do what is best for them.

It sounds like you have done brilliantly creating your own family unit and I hope you can continue to protect yourself from your mother.

I agree with you, I think most parents do their best and try to be good parents.

But I'm sad that when that is not the case, nobody speaks for children.

Ah OP, you poor thing. That is heartbreaking to read. I hope you know you don’t deserve to be treated that way and I hope you know she is completely wrong in everything she has said and done. You are so remarkably brave for dealing with all of that.

You should have had a safe space to just be a child when you were little. Your parents did not provide that. They failed you

@kavalkada Firstly I’m so sorry for what you went through .

I think Nyxly is making a good point. Many of us view what we are reading through a kind of filter based on our own personal experiences. We can project our own experiences onto others. Especially when our experiences have been significant or traumatic in some way.

I am well aware of my own projections, so I try to give the benefit of the doubt. Especially, because I don’t have enough information to really, actually know.

Many parents make mistakes, or become overwhelmed by stress or burnt out but are not abusive parents. They are doing their best, love their children and want to do better and need support. With the right support, they turn things around and do better.

It is amazing how the right kind of support and how building someone up can turn things around and have a positive ripple affect on the parent and then the kids.

Judgment and criticism can have a negative ripple affect on the parent and then the kids.

I don’t want abusers enabled but I also don’t want a parent trying to do their best being torn down and trampled either. That’s not healthy for them or their kids.

So, unless I know with absolute certainty based on enough evidence and facts that a parent is an abuser, I am going to try to be supportive and helpful.

Also, abusers can’t be reasoned with, will not take on board any constructive criticism, or acknowledge their wrong doing or seek to actually change for the better. They simply don’t care. Posting a comment to try to hold them accountable will probably achieve nothing.

I’ve wondered the same OP. It’s an incredibly complex subject.

On Mumsnet we only ever get one side of the story, and because all we have to go on are the words on the page everything can seem very black and white. So 1. We can never entirely trust what is written (we are all capable of being unreliable narrators in our own stories) and 2. As your mums story tells us, it’s not black and white: abusers were often abused in their turn and it’s an incredibly difficult cycle to get out of. We learn how to be men / women / dad / mums / people from our parents (or whoever we were with in early life). Your mum could easily have come here with a tale of woe, and got all the sympathy and validation and reassurance she wanted - if she presented her story in a certain way.

So yes, there are undoubtedly “toxic” parents on MN just as there are everywhere.

Sympathies, OP. Keep away from them.

@kavalkada

It is something that always troubles me on mumsnet.

I had very abusive parents, both in different ways. My father was a gambler who made our lives a living hell, and I know my mother had a terrible life with him. She was only 20 when she married him, he was 30. She was pregnant with me. I don't know if she would've married him if she wasn't pregnant with me. Mabye yes, mabye no.

I have younger brother. Unlike me, my mother adored him from the moment he came to this world. He was the apple of her eye and there were always cuddles, kisses, hugs for him. You can see it on our family photographs.

As long as I remember, my mother (and father) never kissed me, never hugged me, never cuddled with me. I remember my father holding my hand once during winter olympics, and that was it.

But there was always a belt and a cane in the kitchen if I get naughty. And I did. I haven't eaten lunch - cane over my hands and back, something fell from my hand and broke, belt, I said something I shouldn't (I was four when it started), cane. You get the picture.
Nobody ever shouted and hit my brother.

I was a house maild, ever since I was 6, washing and cleaning like a proper adult. I was 8 when I started ironing saturdays, for hours, because my parents had uniforms and there were lot of them. My brother never made his bed.

Until I met my husband 10 years ago, I didn't know how happy a family life can be. I have two children now, a boy and a girl, and looking at them for the life of me I can not see why my parents made such a difference between me and my brother.

My father was a crap father in every way, but ne never beat me (well, it happened once).

I now live in the other party of my country. I am not NC from them, but I said to myself that I will never ever in my life be alone with them, only if my husband was there. This happened two years ago after spending a week alone with my mother and my children, and she started abusing me again, not with cane, but every other way.

But this is my question. If my mother had a mumsnet in her day, she would come here and write about her hard life. And it was hard. Very poor, no clothes in the winter, alcoholic father, gambler husband, nobody to help her with two little children. She was in hell most of the time. The only thing she had was her job she loved and without it we would be hungry.

She would write all that, probably skipping the part about daily beating her older child, and everybody would jump to tell her not to be so hard on herself, and that she is doing best for her children and that her children love her no matter what.

I see posters coming and asking if they're a terrible parent all the time. Sometimes, they're really not, just too hard on themselves, you want to hug them and tell them, but sometimes, they're not. You can see that even from the things they write, and they probably do not write the whole story. And they're always said they're good parents, doing their best.

So my question is, why on mumsnet it is not allowed to say mother is sometines awful mother? I'm saying mother, because we have threads about crap fathers on daily base and nobody is defending them.

Firstly OP, sorry for what you went through, that sounds really, really hard. In answer to your question, I think there are toxic mothers everywhere, so some will eventually find their way on here too, and I think also that some are (blissfully) unaware how toxic their behaviour is to their children (and others too). None of use are perfect parents, or would suggest that we are, but there is a difference between trying our hardest but sometimes messing up a little, and an actual abusive situation. Of course abuse comes in many forms too, all are harmful in the short and long term. Wishing you and your family well going forward.