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.

I can definitely relate. I had a horrible, horrible childhood. It was emotionally draining- wasn't neglect or anything. But I grew up hating them and feeling jealous of other kids whose parents took them out and did activities with them, and were chill with their kids.

My parents all they did was demand, demand and demand. They used to guilt trip me by saying "I put roof on your head and food on the table and you have clothes- stop being so ungrateful". They barely bought us clothes and whenever I needed something they just pulled a face. They never did anything with us as kids and it's still depressing when I go round. They weren't broke or anything, we were comfortable. But they were lazy parents in terms of creating experiences, nice memories and actually doing stuff with your kids without guilt tripping.

Hoping to break the cycle with my little ones.

Oh yes, op, I know exactly what you are talking about.
My memories of words they said and things that happened are as clear as a bell. I feel like they are branded on my memory because some things hurt so much at the time.
No point talking about it though because when I've tried to in the past I've been called over sensitive, ridiculous, attention seeking etc. It got to the point where I did question my recollections but my Dh of over 30 years has witnessed behaviour from my parents and believes and supports me.

Looking at it from another direction ...... my AC do not remember the 2 occasions when I lost it with them, events that haunt me to this day.

I think a case ‘I can’t remember what I/was said/did, but I do remember what I thought/felt’ and this makes the memory valid, whether from the point of view of the stressed parent or child.

Wtf

My mum and I once had a very cathartic conversation when I aired my top few "grievances " from childhood (as in "the time you...") and she apologised for several things she felt she'd got utterly wrong. The strange thing was, apart from one thing, neither of us could remember the others incidents at all.

i wouldnt mention it to them,
you all have different recollections and points of view.

Gas lighting yes. Stepdad refuses to admit he snacked both me and DB on numerous occasions and my DM either didn’t know or turned a blind eye to it.

My DM has said to me second hand that stepdad felt he probably shouldn’t have taken on a woman with 2 kids in his early 20s.

Yep, pretty much the same, OP. I don't have kids, but my siblings do, and parents' selective memories really kicked in when commenting on my siblings being 'too strict'. Really?

My stepdad when I was a child in front of my DM and us would really lose his temper, screaming and shouting and jumping up and down on the spot. Me and DB would sometimes go into a bedroom alone and cling to each other. I also had nightmares about him climbing in through a toilet window in the lean to. I have no idea why my DM put up with this but she’d been divorced twice by then and had a very unwell child (DB). And little support from her parents who thought my stepdad was a “brick” for taking us on. We didn’t hear swear words until he came along.

Yep. My parents did this as well although I was 15.

It was only when I got older and had my own children I realised my childhood hadn't been the idyll that my mother thought. I was little cinderella doing all the chores while my mother was out socialising. I'm 65 now and should have got over it!
We never spoke about it until she died. I just resented it but carried on pretending all was well.
The main thing I did was to be a totally different parent to my own DC.

Not my parents , as they weren’t like this, but my Aunt and Uncle used to scream at their kids and run after them with a garden cane or a wooden spoon and give them a right beating!

I used to hate staying there.

A couple of years ago my Aunt witness a child getting hit by their Dad in a car park and she was ready to call the Police. I reminded her if what went down in her house and she got angry with me and said nothing of the sort happened. I guess I just made it up then… 😂. I even remember where the cane was kept!

I do agree with PPs that there's little to be gained in raking over old ground with parents. However, when I brought up this particular incident I didn't expect them to be so horrified, especially as it was fairly minor in the scheme of things. My dad has always been a believer in strict parenting (if we walk past a misbehaving kid he'll say things like "wouldn't have happened in my house"). That's why it was so confusing to hear their flat denials.

I was talking about this with a friend recently. We thought the major difference now is that we both acknowledge we sometimes get it wrong and apologise to our kids. And try not to do it again/put stuff in place so we don't. My parents would never have dreamt of admitting they'd done something wrong, let alone apologise to a child!

I had a "stately homes" childhood. Plenty of material stuff but a lot of it was for appearances and the way we were treated at home compared to in front of other people was so different! Lots of shouting and screaming. Smacking. Guilt trips. I remember Christmas being so miserable because there was so much pressure to behave impeccably in front of others. Christmas for me always ended up crying silently because making a scene was beyond the pale!

The never being able to talk about feelings or express emotion caused a lot of anxiety and later on depression, culminating in a breakdown. I did a lot of counselling then, which has helped. As has my wonderful DH. And consciously parenting differently and making sure parents can't behave like that to my own child.

I think many of us have this , I have a pretty good relationship with them now. However, my parents cherry pick parts of my childhood or present their own view point which verges on the bizarre sometimes .There are very significant mental health issues in my family.

They are much better grandparents than parents( my kids are adults now) I wouldn't tolerate their weird bullshit around my kids .

Now I'm pretty calm about it so if something comes up eg who was were best friend in school ? I say neutrally ,I didn't have one as you moved me so often ,10 schools !!!!

I protect myself from the worst of it by anticipating more difficult situations eg it was my dads birthday recently and my mum made an album ,celebrating him . He was a difficult emotionally barren threatening bully , he's so much nicer now .

I'm pretty at peace with this dynamic now and have found a way through it and have raised my kids in a much healthier emotional environment .

This. We are in a culture now where it is considered appropriate to acknowledge problems, talk about them and expect an apology. This was certainly not the case 30+ years ago. Dare I say it, but 'trauma' and 'toxic parenting' are taken too far at times, like we are encouraged to look for it/blame issues we have on this. A decade ago you might not have got on great with your parent, but now it is called toxicity. I cringe when I read on here posters saying they are a much better parent than their own parents were, our kids are going to be recalling their traumas, toxic parents and be in therapy for years. It's the culture now.

Abusers don’t reflect with compassion or regret or have insight. If they did then they wouldn’t be abusers. Living in fear crying for 3 hours about breaking a lamp sounds like a child living in an abusive household.

My childhood went through various stages based on how bothered my father could be ,he was a terrible father , my mum suffered so much with him until he left us pennyless and buggered off to bring up someone else's child ( the irony ). I also had other abuses that I don't want to go into .I have had lasting MH issues that affected my own parenting but both of my kids have different recollections of our life . One thinks everything was great and one thinks everything was shit . I just try to address everyone in the way they need I don't deny anything that has happened or how they feel about their childhood but I also don't allow them to dismiss or minimise that I had an extremely traumatic and abusive childhood. Everyone is healing from something I have met very few people who actually think there wasn't something wrong in their childhood.

Yes, my parents don't recall ignoring my 16th birthday and leaving me crying in bed all day alone thinking no one cared.

100%.

It’s gaslighting.

Because the abuse we faced was predominately emotional abuse, it’s easy to explain away as a ‘misunderstanding’ or us misremembering. But we’re not stupid, and the therapy each one of us has had to have in adulthood is proof it’s not all in our collective imagination.

Not quite the same thing but we had a cat growing up that lived for 20 years and neither of my parents can remember the cat!

Yes, my step mother was abusive, very and they both hit us a lot. They split up eventually when I was late teens. When I had my child I felt horrified when he held her and just thought, what if he hurts her. I simply couldn’t fathom how anyone could hurt their own child.

so I asked him why he did it, and why he allowed it . He cried, then denied it, and then said I can’t believe you are asking me this.

so I ended the relationship and went no contact. If he’d owned it and apologised, I’d have accepted it. But the crying, denying and making out I wasn’t allowed to ask, was pathetic and as an adult it disgusted me.

But because it is gaslighting; you’ll find they are very reluctant to agree with you that only awful people would do that.

OP, my advice is to take control a bit, and let them know you reject their framing. Tackle it head on- you were there too, you can see they won’t take any responsibility but the truth is you and your brother had childhoods dominated by them and the fear they chose for you to live with.
That’s the baseline, but you need to be able to keep a cool head whilst having the discussion where it ALL goes back into their plate.

I have been reflecting on this and namely the fact that from the age of seven my mother went abroad probably 4 times a year with her friend and dad my brother and I had no holidays at all, oh there was always vague talk about ‘day trips’ ( that old chestnut) none of any note, the occasional trip to longleat or buckfast abbey. I mean she’d never be able to get away with it now! When I was grown if I said I wanted to go to X place abroad she’s say “ oh for God’s sake don’t be so bloody ridiculous!”… why??? Was she the only one who could go abroad???? Mum never told us she loved us and yes we were really smacked by both parents. My parents are dead now but I feel so aggrieved about this.