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.

@thepeopleversuswork

I’m sorry you had such a bad upbringing.

MN has a vast amount of users so inevitably there will be some abusive parents on here.

It’s a self selecting group and as it’s a support group for mums there’s bound to be a bias in favour of supporting the mum where there’s uncertainty.

I’m not sure what more you can do about this though really: it’s impossible to verify what people post and you have to either take it on trust or disengage. MNHQ is pretty active at removing suspected liars and the community is pretty good at letting people know when they have overstepped a line so in lots of ways I think it self regulates quite effectively.

I know there is nothing I or anybody else can do.

When I was a child I had dreams of somebody saving me. Everybody knew, nobody did anything.

There was an incident one summer when I was 9. When I was at the beach, I left my watch in my shoe. When I came back, there was no watch. When I returned home, I told that to my parents. My father took a belt and beat me for 10 minutes.

Five or six of our Neighbours were there. Nobody did anything.
That was the only time he did it, but I’ll remember it till the end of my life.

My mother always did it when I was alone with her.

It is hard for children to ask help and lot of time nobody is on their side.

What you went through was awful and you clearly didn't get the support you needed. But I would disagree with the suggestion that no one is on the child's side. I think what happens more often is that people don't realise how bad it is or don't have the tools to help. And to your point re toxic parents on MN - of course there are and the fact that often the rest of us can't see it because we're only seeing one side is crucial.

I'd also suggest that MN is, up to a point, self selecting. As a rule you don't come on here to get validation for being a bad parent. You come on here because you want to be better. Because your child is crying at 3 in the morning and has been for the last 7 hours and you don't know what to do. Or because you are finding it hard to navigate the realities of your own life and struggles while still ensuring you are the best parent you can be.

From what little I know of abusive people, they truly believe all the gumpf about it not being their fault etc etc, so they don't come on here because they don't need validation. They're 100% confident.

I'm so sorry what you went through. There absolutely are toxic parents on here. Most won't acknowledge it but one did out herself as an abusive piece of shit on a thread about children not eating their dinner once.

That's sickening, OP. I'm so sorry.

I'm pretty passionate about not hitting children under any circumstances. You would think the reasons would be obvious, especially on a parenting website, but apparently not. Some charmer once asked me why I wanted to impress my opinion so much. Because I think child abuse is a serious issue, darling, what's your excuse?

I think ‘everyday’ abusers do try to cover up- sometimes by using careful language to show that the incident is an ‘exception’, and that they are themselves worried about it.
They present the facts in a way which will get them reassurance, and then use that reassurance to bolster their view that it is an exception when they are abusive.
They will often do this directly to the victim- my mother was constantly asking me if she was a ‘bad mum’ growing up: the correct response was always ‘no’. Except of course, she was.

My mother is a narcissist. It takes a lot to admit that and often I don’t have the strength to acknowledge it and instead choose to enable the victim in her, however my sister and I rotate between the golden child and the scape goat.

I am ‘fortunate’ enough to be the golden child as a rule but this is mainly due to me enforcing my distance.

I see the narcissism on here a lot, particularly in relation to food. It was subconsciously my mother’s favourite weapon. She would overfeed us, give us our favourite food, never enforce healthy boundaries and allowed us to indulge to a point of nausea and then blame us for weight gain etc. I was maybe 6/7?

My father, who died when we were children, was a very hands off parent and worked away a lot. He had a very traumatic childhood and although loved us we didn’t fit him image.

He and my mother had a very tense relationship and would have screaming matches above us and when we intervened they turned their anger towards us. This is all now forgotten and our childhood is regarded with absolute reverence.

I find it extremely triggering when parents comment on their teenage daughter’s weight and eating habits whilst fondly enable their sons to binge eat everything in the home.

We were quite well off growing up and had a wealth of toys yet neither of us remember much investment. I had extremely curly hair - my mother never learnt how to care for it, she would shampoo it with L’Oréal kids and attempt to rag a brush through it as I screamed and cried. She then just left it and I spent my childhood with unkempt, messy hair. No one ever learnt to do a pony tail/plait etc and I always felt ugly and disgusting against my peers.

We never had nice clothes just jeans and t-shirts, no care ever went into our outfits yet we were clothed lovingly just without thought. We were never included in our clothing choices and I was very tall and plump I was in age 15-16 by year six. I remember for my 11th birthday going to town and being allowed to pick out my own clothes and for the first time not viewing myself as utterly disgusting and I find that really difficult to look back on because I was a beautiful little girl who just needed direction and encouragement.

I was suffering with undiagnosed adhd and ocd that my school tried to refer me for but my parents declined because they thought I was fine and that has really affected my relationship with them both. My mum still refuses to accept my diagnoses and thinks I’m ‘normal’.

Subsequent behaviours so the messiness, the obsessions, the meltdowns and tantrums, the routines, the forgetfulness, the lack of direction, the isolation and the hermitism has always been ridiculed and at 30-odd if I’m truthful I still HATE myself because this internal voice tells me I am still that unhappy, unliked child.

I had to enable my parents’ emotions, I had to be kind and dutiful and helpful and empathic and giving to everyone around me at the expense of myself and am still expected to.

School was terrible because we were expected to get a-stars, anything less was unacceptable. I had a Maths tutor who was awful, never had any support with homework and used to love being anywhere from home.

My mum became ill in my teens and I became a cater. This was never acknowledged nor has it ever been. My suffering and trauma has been swept under the rug.

I had no support network and as a result when I turned 18 and discovered alcohol it became a crutch as did binge shopping. I went on to develop and eating disorder and self harm and went from a size 12/14 to a size 4/6/8 in six months.

The worst part is that is the only time in my life I’ve ever liked myself. I continue to suffer with disordered eating, depression and chronically low self esteem and that’s because of my childhood.

‘Abuse and neglect’ is not linear there are so many aspects but it can be so traumatic regardless.

I was loved fiercely and so lucky but I don’t think any childhood comes without trauma of some degree. I always resonated so much with the Philip Larkin poem this be the verse and it’s so true.

Parenting is such a complex and often devastating journey both for the child and the adult. We are expected to care for these little creatures like we are without fault and it’s impossible, we will never get it right but we can try and we can learn from the mistakes our own parents made.

I try every day not to be my mother and to instil into my children what I never had into me. I fail constantly and I know I could be better but I think that’s what makes us good parents, we recognise our own misgivings and we try to better ourselves and that will always mean we aren’t abusive.

God that was a counselling session for a Wednesday morning 😂 apologies to all for my inner most thoughts

@AlleZusammen

I think sometimes people reveal themselves to be toxic on mumsnet when they are responding to someone struggling with an angry, unhappy child's behaviour. The op will detail trauma the child has experienced and someone will come on and say "I wouldn't put up with that behaviour in this house. They then go on to describe how they'd heap on severe, quite degrading punishments and tell everyone repeatedly what an awful child they'd been. Just a really shit approach to parenting that doesn't help and would just increase the child's anger.

I think this a lot. The most obviously toxic parents aren't necessarily the ones who start a thread about their issue but the drive-by comments where you think, whew, if you meant what you said then God help your children and partner.

I think you can also often see a lot of toxicity in the ones who are absolutely certain they are the best parents. I worry a bit about some of the people who think that attachment parenting means they'll raise perfectly confident and secure children that will never have an issue past toddlerhood. I've seen people talk about how they're 'front loading' their parenting - it's hard work now but it'll pay off when they're such perfectly adjusted teenagers... I think that there's a chance that the new 'but we took you to stately homes' will be 'but we coslept until you were six, how can you possibly have depression?'

Yes, agree with @AlleZusammen and @gannett - the ones who start threads are the parents who worry. They are much less likely to be the ones who are truly bad.

@Yourstupidityexhaustsme
Please don’t say sorry.
I had a very cold childhood. It’s completely fucked me up tbh
I too feel sorry for the little girls we all were. Very difficult to think about it. Please don’t say sorry.
Your life your pain is valuable.

@Hardbackwriter

I think you can also often see a lot of toxicity in the ones who are absolutely certain they are the best parents. I worry a bit about some of the people who think that attachment parenting means they'll raise perfectly confident and secure children that will never have an issue past toddlerhood. I've seen people talk about how they're 'front loading' their parenting - it's hard work now but it'll pay off when they're such perfectly adjusted teenagers... I think that there's a chance that the new 'but we took you to stately homes' will be 'but we coslept until you were six, how can you possibly have depression?'

I do wonder that myself sometimes. On attachment parenting specifically but also overall - I know I do the best I can for my children but of course there have been moments where I've done something or made a decision that I think is right but that the DC just won't/don't see the same way.

I had therapy in my 20s for a few months and it was so helpful because it allowed me to examine a lot of my childhood issues, the vast bulk of which were not because my parents were bad but because they made mistakes, as we all do.

Similarly, my relationship with my mother improved immensely once I had my own DC because while many of her behaviours were still irritating, I had a better understanding of where they came from. And it taught me to really think about that with my own DC in terms of where what I want/need might not be the right thing for them and can I be strong enough to put them first.

Abusive people can be just as manipulative online as they can be in real life. I could absolutely see my mother throwing herself a pity party online on a forum like this, just to prop up her narcissistic view of herself that no matter what she did, she was actually a brilliant mother, victimised by circumstance/her child/ a bad husband. Then she could point it it as validation for herself. The truth is she was an abusive monster, and she readily and happily enabled the abuse of my stepfather.

Very few abusers are open about being abusive, they’ve always got a ‘reason’ for their behaviour, and unfortunately there are always people that will buy into that. I have thought on previous threads that ‘don’t worry about it, you’re just having a bad day, you’re a good mother’ type sentiments are extremely misguided for this very reason.

@OryxAndCrake11 I don't think assuming most posters who come here worried that they're messing up parenting are toxic is the right way forward

Except that's not what OP does, and neither do I.

@ThePriceIsNotRight

Abusive people can be just as manipulative online as they can be in real life. I could absolutely see my mother throwing herself a pity party online on a forum like this, just to prop up her narcissistic view of herself that no matter what she did, she was actually a brilliant mother, victimised by circumstance/her child/ a bad husband. Then she could point it it as validation for herself. The truth is she was an abusive monster, and she readily and happily enabled the abuse of my stepfather.

Very few abusers are open about being abusive, they’ve always got a ‘reason’ for their behaviour, and unfortunately there are always people that will buy into that. I have thought on previous threads that ‘don’t worry about it, you’re just having a bad day, you’re a good mother’ type sentiments are extremely misguided for this very reason.

I've seen a few threads where I think this is happening, but it's often when a man is the OP. So I always have to wonder if I'm allowing personal bias in. There was one recently with lots of support for the OP but even just the way he lashed out when he was even lightly questioned made me wonder very much about how much he genuinely was the victim....

Some of the more extreme behaviours inflicted on children through Covid were verging into abusive, excessively denying children access beyond the home, isolating from young children, regularly performing unnecessary invasive tests, stripping children on the threshold of the house when coming home from school, and such behaviours were encouraged in 2020. Fortunately sense seems to have (mostly) returned in 2021. People being critical of the toll of these measures were shouted down and told that children are resilient.

Don’t be ridiculous. My DD was told to change from her school uniform straight after school. She was not ‘stripped at the threshold’! She took it as an opportunity to wear a different fancy dress costume every day.

She was only just 6 when the lockdowns started and completely understood why we weren’t going anywhere (in an age-appropriate way) and we made being at home fun instead. She didn’t get to see her grandparents as much but we did regular FaceTimes instead and she loves using the filters.

She’s had several PCR and LFT done now and, whilst she wouldn’t choose to have it done, she doesn’t mind that much as we always supply loads of chocolate after. It’s the same for going to the dentist and having her childhood vaccinations.

Were we abusive to her in any of these situations?!? I think it’s incredibly insulting to those who really have suffered abuse to suggest not being allowed to go to the cinema and doing a swab of the nose is ‘verging into abusive’.

Everyone is the hero of their own narrative. My BF's mother is emotionally abusive. But she'll tell anyone who'll listen that she doesn't understand why her DD won't speak to her.

She once told my DM that she tries so hard with her DD, but she inexplicably puts her foot in it because she over thinks things and tries so hard to get it right. But when "putting her foot in it" means calling your DD a "stuck up cunt" for mentioning a promotion, that excuse doesn't wash. (My friend had her on speaker phone for that one.) She seems to forget all the horrendous stuff she does and says, even as it's happening. I could easily believe she'd post on here, giving only a fraction of the story and not even realise she wasn't being accurate.

For goodness sake @BeingATwatItsABingThing she's not talking about getting changed when you get home, she's talking about kids being stripped on the door step in front of passers by. She's not talking about not going to the cinema - I know kids who literally didn't leave their house and very tiny back garden for over a year, with know visitors. These are very different scenarios.

There are toxic parents here sure - they don’t know they’re toxic or won’t admit it and it isn’t allowed to be pointed out. That is if they’re Mothers - if they’re Fathers there will always be a certain percentage of the posters who assume their toxic and are just out to prove it.

A female oriented website will be slanted towards women's issues. Having spent some time on male-dominated websites, I can absolutely assure you that they are not oases of egalitarianism and sex-based fairness either. And when they go bad, they're much, much worse.

@Triffid1

I don’t think you have to be truly bad to your core to be a bad parent. There are many mentally unstable Mothers who I could see starting threads out of genuine worry and then act totally differently later with their dc’s when their mood changed or they were tired and dc’s annoyed them etc. (or not tell the full truth in the first place).

On an even more disturbing note I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some really toxic people got off on that kind of thing - in the same way nutters used to right endless complaint letters to business or whatever, they come online and tell some warped story of their life. I could imagine that happening quite a bit on a women’s parenting and relationship forum of any kind. Spooky when you think about it.

I see plenty on here that make me uncomfortable.

People admitting to hitting their DC (only it's always 'smacking' or 'tapping' )
People who admit they've been 'too rough' on 'a couple of occasions'.
People who are controlling, inflexible or punitive over food.
People who insult or abuse someone else's child, usually for perceived ingratitude. It seems to be worse for girls - lost count of the number of times I've read 'spoilt little madam' on here, and teen girls are often 'bitches'.
People who think DC should be forced to do things they aren't comfortable with, for no good reason (usually to avoid offending another adult).
People who think that listening to their DC equates to pandering.
People who think you should always back up your DP's parenting, even if it's toxic or abusive.

Always thought the same, when women write about their terrible lives with their partners, I'll often think, but what's the situation surrounding this? Are you taking it out on your children? How much of this is your children witnessing?

But I always reply with a kind answer, always because I feel like if I and others reply with encouragement to be in a better position, then things might change, and if they change for them, then they change for their children too.

I had an awful mother, absolutely awful. But the thing is, in public she would always paint herself as a dedicated mother with children who had behaviour issues and no respect for her... my younger siblings were out of control, but the only parental figure they had in their life was me- a sibling not many years older than them. I was too scared to open my mouth to her, but i did get bulk of the beatings and knew that to say anything against her beliefs or wants would only be unacceptable to her, and my stepdad, who was my dad's brother would only wind things up further. My life was lived between being helpful, or fading into the background as much as I could.

Yet somehow; she extracted a lot of sympathy from her friends.

I'm sure there are toxic parents here. People recognising them as such is less likely.

I'm NC with mine. I went against all of the recommendations and tried to have family counselling. They convinced the therapist that they were good parents, only human, etc. That we all had a great bond, but that it'd been so difficult for them to know how to help a child who was depressed, and that the issue was I was stuck in the past. I have a written note of the session, written by the therapist, and the way she describes them makes me feel sick.

If a trained, qualified person can be hoodwinked, then anonymous posters on a forum are going to struggle. You have to be through it to see it, in a lot of cases.

I'm so sorry for what you went through, OP. So sorry.

Well yes, everyone will have something minor or large to deal with.
I think the most interesting perspective comes from mils and grans net ie cut out of their gc lives by awful dils, they buy Xmas presents and paid for this and that and even kitted out an entire nursery in their own home for goodness sake and no one thanked them they offered to take the new born off mum to give mum a break and aksed mum for bottle feed because mum was bf but mum said no and hurt mils feelings.
Then if course is the issue of dil dragging her beloved son down with her awfulness and sin doesn't want to talk to his mum now all due to dil and poor Mil can't see what she did wrong although she concedes that enthusiasm and sheer live for her gc got the better of her when she charged into the delivery room and grappled the new born out of mum and into her own arms...