To ask if your parents also do this...

[seenisambol]

I grew up in a zero tolerance home environment. If my brother or I broke the rules (e.g. the living room was messy, we'd forgotten to empty the dishwasher) we'd be met with shouting and aggression and we'd end up in our bedrooms in tears. I remember when my brother was 11 he broke a lamp and cried for 3 hours before my dad got home as he was so worried about what he'd do.

I've had a good relationship with my parents ever since I left home 20 years ago. They're also now retired and far less stressed, which I think was a big part of the problem.

However one thing I really struggle with is their selective memory of my childhood. There's been times when I or my brother have referred to a minor incident (we would never talk about the really bad ones) and they say things like "What?! Don't be ridiculous!" or "I'd never say something like that! If I did then that's awful".

Has anyone else experienced this? Have they really blanked out everything that happened? Or are they too embarrassed to talk about it? This wasn't just one or two incidents, this was the backdrop of my childhood so I find it so hard to understand how they could have no memory of it.

Oh yes.

My mum had a really bad temper and would scream and shout if the house wasn’t tidy, we had to do all the housework, washing and ironing from what I now see was far too young an age. My parents now claim we were lazy and did nothing round the house.

I remember one specific day when my dad yelled at me for ironing his work shirts wrong and making me start over on them all - I was ten.

my dad recently joked about how lazy I was as a child. It’s hard to listen to.

A mild version of this with my parents. Our house growing up was really stressful and they were angry, divisive and uninvolved in our lives. But now have mellowed and made a big effort to play a positive part in our kids lives. But what really drives me nuts is when they advise on parenting or building a positive home environment. It's so odd that they don't remember what our house was like growing up (my sisters and I had moved out before we were 18 just to get away)

I don’t know if it is a generation thing to have selective memory. My family are generally ok, but emotionally constipated. However my lovely gran died in March, I watched her go in agony and it was the worst thing ever.
I became the family emotional punch bag. All their stress and frustration was taken out on me to the point I couldn’t be in the room with some of them. I passed out at the funeral due to the built up tension. Yet now I am often told ‘that didn’t happen/it’s in your head/it was a stressful time’.
I am struggling to get over that as much as gran’s death.

Thanks everyone for all of the responses. I feel better knowing how common this is.

I never want to hold a grudge and they were brilliant in many other ways. I put it down to them being stressed and exhausted, also my dad grew up with a very abusive father which I think skewed his ideas of what's normal in a family.

Knowing that there might be an element of shame or regret in there makes me feel better. I can forgive them for that.

It almost feel like they are gaslighting you isn't it?
I have a bit of a weird family, unusual (loads of mix and match) and my auntie use to beat my older half sister and half brother with the frying pan, I am 42 and I am still shocked (and I wasn't the one beaten) understandably my half sibling are traumatised and one refuse any contact with any of us and the other one is a bit erratic.
I have tried to breach the subject many time with her and she just laugh, tell me she never did that and change the subject .
I think at this stage you need to go see someone to heal yourself, they will not change and arranged the past to make themselves feel better, what matter now is your self and your brother.

My mother was exactly the same. She was a very strict, angry mother. She used corporal punishment all the time and used a garden cane on my brother for any misdemeanours. We were so scared of her. My father was kind and never hit us but he too was fearful of her rages.
My aunt was incredibly strict with food with her children. They were never allowed food treats and food was rationed ( no money problems).
What amazes me is how my siblings and cousins allowed our abusive mothers to do childcare for their grandchildren.
I saw a BBC documentary about it years ago and the cycle of abuse, particularly sexual abuse is very common.
It was upsetting watching a woman who had been sexually abused by her grandfather allowing him to 'look after' her daughter, his granddaughter. The grand daughter had to be taken into care eventually.
That is an extreme example but lots of people/ women ignore their own abusive childhoods and encourage their parents to look after their grandchildren. Many women go with what they know with regards to childcare. It is a very common phenomena.

Me too - I grew up between two houses where us DC walked on eggshells due to the explosive tempers of (mainly) my two step-parents. They were both absolutely horrendous. If you spilled something, got something on your clothes, broke something - OMG they went ballistic screaming and shouting and 'Go to your room!'. It was awful.

They are now well past retirement age and in recent years my siblings and I have addressed the verbal abuse with them and told them how it affected us. To be fair, while they were both somewhat defensive, I think they were a bit shocked at how it affected us. They were both brought up in severe homes themselves in the 40s/50s and to them that kind of treatment of DC was normal and I think it was in many, many homes until very recently.

Yes, in a sort of same-but-different way. Not the shouting/fear that you describe, but a very neglectful childhood. One parent commuted 4+ hours a day, the other lived in the pub. Walked ourselves to and from primary school from the age of 6/7, regularly had to feed ourselves, walked between pubs on our own to locate parents. It continued in various guises until we were adults. One parent is now dead, the other doesn't deny the reality of our upbringing, but massively defends their actions as having had no choice. We get on well now, but it's definitely given my siblings and I a determination when it comes to raising our own children. It really is mind blowing sometimes, though.

Oh, god that’s awful! Cruel and unusual to say the least. I hope you were ok. 🌺

I'm finding this interesting about what parents remember. I think all parents see themselves through Rose tinted glasses but I don't think it's deliberate gaslighting. I'm sure I do it too.

My dad was great but he had a terrible temper (I feel I have to be fair on him). When he lost his temper he was really scary and his bad mood could last for days. His memory of our childhood was that "we always had fun didn't we". He passed away a few years ago and my sister has carried on the legacy of selective memory. Apparently "he was the best dad ever".

What I find interesting is the dynamic between her and her children is the same as my dad with us - all fun and games until it's not. I've noticed their behaviour is similar to mine growing up. Neither of them are confident in themselves, incredibly quiet and almost worried to speak up. Not acknowledging the fact he was flawed has really affected her.

I’m a parent of young adult children. I divorced their father (he had an affair and is still with OW) when they were 10/11. I look back at my behaviour over those years and feel guilt. I was sad, stressed and tired. In hindsight peri menopausal too. I did shout at them at times. I did threaten to drop them off at their dads if they couldn’t be nice to me up etc etc. It’s hard being a parent and we all make mistakes. What I do know though is that even with divorced parents my kids had a safer better childhood than I did. I would hope each generation is better. I adore my kids but at times it wasn’t the life I thought I would have. I think if my kids raised an issue now I would feel sad, but explain to them that we did our best. and my best was a lot better than what some kids have to go through.

We never talk about childhood incidents, and there were many. In fairness if it happened today my mum would have received a lot more help for her very poor mental health. Back then mental health wasn’t something you talked about. That’s how I deal with it, almost it ‘was of its time’, and I can’t judge it against todays standards. It was pretty grim though. I think my mum certainly does remember, but I’d never raise it as I am sure she has many regrets

this interesting about what parents remember. I think all parents see themselves through Rose tinted glasses but I don't think it's deliberate gaslighting

I think that is a sweeping and quite patronising comment. All parents are different - some are ‘just don’t their best’ some are neglectful and some are abusive.

if you have grown up in an abusive home and your parents tell you are are making it all up then that can’t be dismissed either a little patronising chuckle and all parents do their best and they just don’t see it that way.

my mother will never admit she stripped away our self confidence and sense of self. She will tell us she was only joking when she told us she hated us or that we were a disappointment. She will deny the explosive rages if we didn’t have her dinner on the table every night at 5:30pm.

she is gaslighting us - trying to make us think we are insane and that her lovely happy version of our childhood is the truth.

I have had lots of therapy. It’s not bloody rose tinted glasses from a lovely mum. Isra gaslighting from a narcissistic woman who caused me psychological damage.

please don’t dismiss people’s lives experience in such a patronising manner.

I know MN posters appear to think they are the best parents ever but the cycle of abuse is a real thing, as is ' go with what you know' when it comes to childcare. So many mothers on here will give their parents endless second chances when it comes to their grandchildren.
I have a friend with a scary mother and she allowed her lots of opportunities to look after her own children because it was what she knew/ was used to in her own childhood. Even though her children/the grandchildren were scared of their grandmother. It is only now that her mother is very elderly and has dementia that she admits how terrified of her mother she has been her whole life and how she has to put her first with everything.

Yes my mum believes that she successfully hid the fact that her marriage was failing (and failing badly).

As you’ve said OP, their failing marriage was the backdrop to my teen years. Permeated every aspect of my life. I BEGGED her to get a divorce frequently and loudly.

She has done some insane mental gymnastics to believe she protected me from all that.

It’s infuriating.

Indeed.
My childhood was full of shouting and silences. It was all about just coping without any joy.
I left home at 18 and never looked back. My parents loved us I have no doubt and couldn't handle our thoughts on our childhood so little point in going over it.

I actually have the opposite situation
My parents weren't perfect but were always loving. We had a really happy childhood with lots of great memories. However, whenever we see them they talk about what terrible childhoods we had and how guilty they feel. I never understand.

Yep I think it’s a mix of selective memory and children focusing on different things than adults .
Your iate tá probably are focusing on the good memories and as we are growing up we tend to remember both good and bad . I have the same with my parents . But now I’m a parent I can see children might have different perspectives .
I’m normally a calm person and ok under stress but a couple of years ago everything went bad on one day , I mean car crash , health issues , came home to find home flooded no power , honestly it was just awful . In utter desperation I curled in a ball and started crying . My kids were in their bedrooms but my then 6 year old walked in and I saw her so just sad mum is a bit upset but I’m ok .
I was a bit surprised a few weeks ago she said “remember when you lost it and had a panic attack mum , please do not do it again , it was so so scary to me I though I was going to loose you “ .
I wouldn’t have given this as much an importance as she clearly did , but apparently it’s something that she will always remember and I feel very bad about it 😔.

If you ask my father, he never once hit me, never called me names, never accused me of stealing his things for drug money when in actuality he'd left them at his girlfriend's house but obviously couldn't say that to my mum who he was still married to at the time...

Interesting things, memories.

My mum does it but I think it’s more down to ‘recollections may vary’ than maliciousness. Children in particular will often remember things differently to adults. I know now as a parent that I remember events completely differently than my (now late teen) dc do. They’ll describe something and completely miss out huge chunks of what actually happened.

Yeah. My mum had like 4 girlfriends, one who lived with us for about 5 years yet she claims fervently that she was never a lesbian. It’s really bizarre 🙄 It’s also little things like claiming she bought me things like pads and tampons and made a bag up for school with the necessities. That literally never happened and I’d have to buy them out of my pocket money and hope that a pack of 12 would last me they never did.

It was a different time back then, when I left home I was glad to be away from the emotional day to day fear of doing something wrong. So although we didn’t often get in trouble we were always in fear of it. I vowed I’d have a completely different relationship with my kids and I did, but my grandkids are a handful for their parents.

I have a good relationship with my parents these days but there are some things that unfortunately will never be forgotten.

I had pre and post natal depression with my second that hung on for 5 ish years (I can see this now with hindsight) and I treated my eldest awfully.

I am now working every day to repair the damage I know I did and I will NEVER deny it and will spend my whole life making it up to him.

Jilly Cooper, the writer, used to describe her own mother in such positive terms. She was a jewel, a gem etc. It is only fairly recently that she has described her mother's depressive episodes and the responsibility she carried for making her mother happy.
She also wrote in one of her books on Christmas/ entertaining that although women may think that their mothers are wonderful and the best company ever, in reality they may well be boring and self-centred and that it is not fair to offload them onto others for long periods of time.
Many mothers, particularly on MN, have selective memories when it comes to their own childhoods and the way in which they have raised their own children.
I hate the threads which ask for suggestions about how to 'punish' their children. There are a lot of mothers on MN who aren't very nice to their children, perhaps because it was their own experience growing up.

I think a surprising proportion might be genuine forgetting. These things are traumatising to children and they make a huge impression so those memories get revisited over the years, and that keeps them in our heads. Whereas anyone's own typical behaviour tends to get dropped over time, it's just not revisited or thought about and therefore gets "overwritten". I don't have childhood memories of getting dressed, I don't know what cups I drank out of until I got my own very exciting special cup. I do remember events we have photos of, because I have looked at those photos and refreshed the memories. Combine that with some organic avoidance and you end up with people genuinely forgetting, even before you layer in any choices they are making in what they selectively remember. It's like bullied children remember the incidents because of the deep humiliation they felt, but bullies don't have the emotional scar so those same incidents don't stick in the same way. But those same bullies will probably also carry their own memories of being bullied themselves, even if they were much more minor incidents than they inflicted on others.

I just don't have these conversations with my parents. Their recollection differs from mine, I don't think their perspective is much use to me and rehashing with them isn't as helpful as I thought it would be (before I got therapy) . The only things that are real to me are my own memories and my own reaction to them.