To think whatever your social class, if you’ve got immature parents, the odds are stacked against you

[ThelmaKare]

Inspired by the thread that middle class children are more confident - I had a firmly muddle class upbringing - two university educated parents (Oxbridge) who both had top professional jobs.

However, if something wasn’t quite to her liking my mum couldn’t act like an adult. She had tantrums. meltdowns, also had a short stay in a psychiatric hospital.

As soon as she got home she headed straight for the drinks cabinet and was plastered through all my main school exams. My Dsd failed to confront her and just normalised her drunken antics - looked on indulgently and swept them under the carpet. My mum was at times violent towards me.

i had low self esteem - I was fat, miserable, aggressive svd violent in school and swore at the teachers. I was also severely bullied and humiliated. I got into sexual activity early. I massively underachieved at school and had no real friends.

After one of my mum’s violent episodes she’d often be remorseful next day and seek to explain her behaviour away using some lame reason.

My parents both very high achievers but terrible on a personal /emotional level.

Looking back also, my parents had no real, genuine friends.

So AIBU in thinking it’s not social class so but maturity of parents that’s important to a child’s confidence?

Yes I think so. My mum can act like an actual child STILL and I've had to teach myself everything about acting like an adult. I've done it now but my god, life would have been easier if this was modelled for me as a kid/teen.

Yes exactly! I was also scared of her reaction and was walking on eggshells

I’m sorry you experienced that.

I think being middle class encompasses values and behaviours as well as educational background and profession/income. So I wouldn’t necessarily say you had a middle class upbringing - middle class parents are generally very involved, if not over-involved in their children’s education and wellbeing.

Same! It's really impacted me because she could fly off the handle quickly. I am now the opposite and shy away from confrontation massively.

There are examples on MN of this on a daily basis, yes it would be hard to say 100% exactly this but it seems widespread

She sounds like she struggled with mental illness rather than being immature!

But yes - I can see that would be very disruptive and destructive for you.

I think a lot of British families suffer from generations of emotionally unavailable parents and the resulting trauma of that. Until very recently that kind of mentality was a source of national pride.

YABU. Your parents weren't "immature". Your mother had mental illness and was an abusive alcoholic. Your father was an inadequate parent and probably lacked social skills in general.

Growing up with violence, mental illness and substance abuse definitely stacks the odds against a child, regardless of class or finances. Immaturity has nothing to do with your situation .

I didn't vote because, while I agree with your argument, you lost me in the last sentence when you said 'it's not social class'. Both advantage/disadvantage and the temperament of your parents is massively important. Poverty, unstable housing, parents having to work shifts or under considerable stress- they all take a massive toll. The world feels stacked against you. But what you went through sounds awful and destabilising too.

My grandparents were both one of eleven, both poor. But one family was warm and loving, the other with bullying, alcoholic parents. Neither an easy life but no comparison between the two.

Edit: and I agree with the pp that you are wrong in labelling it 'immaturity'- but I'm guessing you're glossing over the more appropriate terms as a way of managing it for yourself.

Emotionally immature people are damaging for everyone around them.

Totally agree with the last sentence of your first paragraph but isn’t that the definition of immature ?

Definitely!

Yes I agree that economic disadvantage can cause stress

But I suppose I’m using my partner as an example of someone who was born to uneducated immigrant parents - raised on a rough council estate but had an extremely happy childhood and has always been mature emotionally - as have his siblings

This

It sounds like mental illness in the case of your mum not mental immaturity.

My mum still has tantrums she is in her 80s she had a late diagnosis of BPD, from trauma in her own childhood. My sister, nearly 60 had terrible tantrums. She has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Mental illness is terrible whatever the social class or education level.

Shit parents are shit parents. It's definitely a disadvantage.

I’m so sorry, yes, I think having abusive parents definitely stacks all the odds against you regardless of class. I guess there might be a point where if you were trust fund rich you would be in a better position to pay for your own therapy/rehab but aside from that I think it’s inherently damaging. I’m so sorry you went through that.

Thank you - yes I’m trying to find ways of dealing with my feelings of anger about it - good role models etc

Look up Adverse Childhood Experiences (aces). The more of these you experience the more likely you are to have poor outcomes as an adult. Middle class children are statistically less likely to experience several of these but they are in no way immune.

Hi OP, I can really identify with what you’ve said about your upbringing. My parents were very similar - volatile mum who was and is probably very mentally unwell, and enabler dad who told us that’s just how she is, we’re too sensitive, she doesn’t do feelings, etc.

I agree that it really set me back as a child and particularly as a teen. I was deeply insecure in myself and reproduced some of the patterns of behaviour I’d seen at home growing up. I’m 30 now and have done a tonne of counselling over the years and finally feel like I’m getting somewhere in terms of emotional intelligence. But it’s a really long, time consuming (and expensive) road that people who had emotionally available/stable parents might not have to go down, in order to turn out healthier and happier themselves.

Edit because I missed the class aspect! My parents were 100% working class and wanted ‘better’ for us in terms of education etc. But actually their behaviour and inability to regulate their own emotions or attune to ours as children meant that we were actually set far back behind more emotionally healthy peers.

Thank you I’ll look these up !

I think it's not being subject to abuse that is the predictor of good outcomes

Your mum wasn't just immature she was abusive and neglectful and that damaged you.

I work in mental health and if I could do away with child abuse I'd be out of a job. It is not necessarily a respecter of social class either but resources and outside help like boarding school or Nannies can mitigate it

They say that the new generational wealth is having healthy well-adjusted parents. The Philippa Perry book, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, is ostensibly a parenting guide but I actually think it’s great for anyone unpacking the shit from their own childhood. It really helped me let go of a lot of stuff and be more concious. I had a very middle-class to upper middle-class childhood (not that we had any cash flow but we had assets and private education etc) but my parents were and are utterly fucked up. The stuff that happened to me would surely have involved social services if we hadn’t had that middle-class facade to hide behind. I mean, bad things don’t happen in ‘nice’ families where the parents are educated, no?

This. I taught in a lovely village school. One of the parents had had a hugely privileged upbringing ( parents minor aristocracy, private school , brought up in a huge house etc). She had decided to cast all that aside and adopt an alternative lifestyle. Part of that was not washing 'because the body needs its natural oils'. She stank of BO. When she was chatting and lifted her arm to run her fingers through her greasy hair the waft of sweat was overwhelming. She had 2 boys. They stank, their hair was dirty, their clothes were grubby. She may well have been suffering from things that had happened to her as a child, and no amount of privilege covers for that , but it had a massive effect on the children; particularly the older one who was heading into puberty. He knew he stank. He knew other children didn't want to sit by him. She thought it was cool, bohemian and worthy. She had the extreme confidence of her upbringing to carry it off. Her children were hunched and embarrassed and lacked any confidence whatsoever .

For what its worth, I think your use of the word immature is warranted. Not all mental illness coincides with immature behaviour, but it is a feature of many conditions. You're describing a mother who could not regulate her emotions and used alcohol to attempt this. True maturity towards others is largely the ability to regulate our emotions around them in a reasonably healthy way.

Best of luck with your recovery.

Whole heartedly agree op. My friend is a single mum who has 3 girls, first of which she had at 15. Her family fostered kids anyway and she was very maternal and extremely mature but they really often had about a tenner a week for her and her five siblings to eat from. It would often be a bag of chips from the chip shop between them and an egg each for dinner but the emotional support was there. Her family were lovely. She really has her shit together, thriving business of her own now, volunteers as a special constable in the police, hosts foreign exchange students for extra income, owns a beautiful house. Her third daughter has just started an engineering apprenticeship, one is a teacher and the other has expanded and works extremely hard in their business. She has taken it online really with tik tok etc and has put her marketing degree to good use. When they were younger, she was in social housing, had absolutely not a penny and her relationship broke down but her girls are three of the most kind, considerate and well rounded women you will ever meet genuinely. They have been bought up with respect and family values and in turn show them to other people. I remember when it snowed awfully years and years ago and nobody could get to the schools to collect their children and her middle girl walked my year 7 cousin home, out of her way to check he was safe before walking back herself. Just a lovely family.