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.

@BeingATwatItsABingThing

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’.

I didn't see the original post but I think you're over-egging this somewhat. There were absolutely people on here who were "excessive" ie, wouldn't allow their children out to a park etc when that was open. Refused to let their children play outside with other children, even when those restrictions were lifted. etc etc.

I remember one in particular - we were out of core lockdown but she would only allow her children at the park (not playground), no playdates and wouldn't even allow them to accompany her into a shop. Her children's lives had become incredibly small.

I agree with previous posters, it's very hard to tell the real sentiments behind many parenting questions posted on MN. The poster is an unreliable narrator, we have to assume we're not getting the full story.
I agree with PP, the really telling stuff is in the responses. Posters are somehow more honest and less filtered in the advice and the examples they give from their own patenting. It's particularly noticeable in response to children's food / weight queries. But then again, food was one of my mother's weapons of choice, so that stands out a mile to me when I see it.
Having come from an abusive home and having been an unhappy unloved child, I try my best not to seek validation of my actions but to examine things from my daughter's perspective. Does she feel loved, safe and valued unconditionally by me? Is she happy? If I can genuinely feel that this is the case, then I'm not going to worry about small incidents where I may or may not have done the right thing in the heat of the moment. Nor would I be posting here looking for reassurance. I can't help but feel that there's much more going on when that happens but I don't know how much of my own background and experience is informing this opinion.

@Naughtynovembertree

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...

You clearly haven’t read gransnet. A lot of it centres around children using them for childcare and the difficult stuff but never involving them for the good bits. Eg one gran who provided overnight childcare every night (and had all the relationships with schoolfriends’ parents) during the week didn’t get invited to birthday parties. You need to take the stuff posted on MN with a bit of salt as many posts complaining about Mils come from Dils who want to vent and want ppl to sympathise & so they probably leave a lot of the details out.

I found it so useful- it really resonated with me, especially about being loved fiercely whilst being treated so badly. A sw once told me that love with inaction can be more emotionally damaging than what people imagine happens (abuse+hate) because it is so confusing (as adult and a child)

@ Yourstupidityexhaustsme

@alphaechokiwi

so that stands out a mile to me when I see it.

For me it’s praise and general academic “good girl / boy” smuggery. The hairs on the back of my neck go up. I don’t think parents realise how aware their children are of how conditional parental approval (and even love) can feel, when it’s pinned to academic / behavioural standards.

My mum was a terrible parent. She really was the sort of person who aught never to have had children. She was an immature and selfish alcoholic. She always used to say 'You can't do enough for a good mother.' And this was said without a hint of sarcasm or Irony. I don't ever recall my mum hitting me but the emotion abuse and mental torture was off the charts. She died unexpectedly when my niece was 4 months old. At her funeral I was speaking with some of her work colleagues and they were completely convinced that she was a kind and doting grandmother, but the reality was she had seen my niece once for about an hour when she was 2 weeks old. She showed absolutely no interest in her what so ever. It was like she knew all the right things to say to her friends but was living a lie. Before I had my daughter I was unhappy with how my mum treated me, but it wasn't until I was a mother myself that I truly realised the how appalling her treatment of me really was. I used to think I was a horrible person who deserved to be treated badly..when she died it was like a massive weight had been lifted off of me and I could finally breath.

It is very hard to be a parent, I do think there are awful, abuse parents out there but also many parents who are trying their best but often failing to be perfect. Nobody is perfect.

I think it is very difficult to tell from a poster whether they are a reliable narrator or not. I would also try to be supportive if I wasn’t fairly sure that the poster was in the wrong. We can all have pretty bad days and need support. I guess I am coming across as naive here ?

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. When (most of us, I hope) become parents ourselves we ask ourselves - how was this ok, how can our parents have done this 😢 For most of us, we’ll do anything to avoid our own dc even feeling a fraction of what we went through sometimes maybe going too much the other way. I don’t know op, I didn’t have anywhere near the experience you had (my heart broke reading it) but enough that makes me question why my own parents did certain things to me (and my sister). What I can see though is that you have emerged a strong person dedicated to your dc. To answer your question, as pp’s have suggested, anyone can masquerade as whoever they want to be online, sometimes they believe their own accounts of what’s happening, so with that in mind I’d say most certainly there are toxic parents on MN. I really hope you find some peace and closure, I know you already know but what happened to you was not your fault and please continue (as do I) to make sure my dc never feel the same way.