Ok - maybe some might see the title as confusing for the situation I’m about to outline, but I had to choose a title, and it’s difficult to choose the most appropriate one.
Basically it seems that we all want to ensure our children are ‘safe,’ understandably- but then why on earth do some parents get abusive when kids say no to things they dislike?
I think that a HUGE amount of threads on MN involve issues surrounding people pleasing, in one way or another.
I have to ask, if all the ‘people pleasing’ threads suddenly disappeared from MN - what would be left of MN? And to be fair, I suffer from people pleasing myself so like reading these threads for tips on how to respond - so absolutely NO judgement - I’ve got people pleasing woven in to me !!!
Anyway, this is the scenario -
When I was 14 my mum had booked a holiday or was considering booking a holiday for me and her to go to America for a fortnight. I didn’t want to go and showed as much to her. She got angry and screamed at the top of her lungs -
“YOU UNGRATEFUL CAT!!!!!!”
I think my mum used the word ‘cat’ as didn’t want to obviously swear.
The reason I didn’t want to go is on the previous holiday we went on. my mum had harshly coerced me to “‘make friends” and severely scolded me for being “selfish” and liking my own company too much. This affected me so much I didnt want to be put in the same situation again.
I then immediately rolled over, and said I’d go on the holiday ‘cos I didn’t want to face my mum’s disapproval.
The holiday was shit, I had to do a lot of the Disneyworld rides on my own - I wish I hadn’t gone.
AIBU that I feel it’s important that we encourage children to say no when they don’t like something - even if it’s to us parents - otherwise how are they meant to be firm with possible predators etc in future -- in later childhood and adulthood also?