Does anyone actually like their parents, as people?

[Slowdownyouredoingfine]

If your parent wasn’t your parent, would they be your friend? I find it really difficult to be around both my mum and dad (separated.) They annoy me. I can’t work out if this is universal amongst adult children or if some people genuinely like their parents.

My history with my parents is complicated so I won’t go into it, but I do worry one day my kids won’t like me too. Or is this just characteristic of a complicated childhood? Do you like your parents?!

YABU - I like who my parent/s are as people (whilst maybe finding them annoying sometimes)

YANBU - I do not like who my parents are as people and wouldn’t choose them as a friend.

My dad is the most amazing person I know and if we weren't related I would love to have him as a best friend. Everyone who meets my dad loves him. He's amazing company, extremely intelligent and well-read, great fun and a really really good person.

My Mum is my favourite person. Shes absolutely amazing. Shes exactly the type of person id want to spend time with if she wasnt my Mum

My friends all love her too & enjoy spending time with her

No but I do feel love for them and would defend them in pretty much any way. They aren't bad people but they couldn't be the parents that I needed to feel safe and thrive

My parents are both dead. My dad was brilliant, hugely charismatic and highly intelligent, a natural raconteur but also a bit of a narcissist; incredibly selfish and had a drink problem. I would have loved to spend an evening in a pub with him but I would find him very draining.

My mum, no. She was very kind and loving but too much of a drink of water for me and sacrificed too much of her life to being my dad's wife. Not enough oomph or backbone and after a while I lost respect for her.

Both very much products of their generation and upbringing and I loved them both but no I don't think they would have been "friends".

My dad is amazing. Quiet, understated and thoughtful, but so wise, pragmatic and supportive. He has always been there for me and is just lovely.

My mum.js a toxic narcissist and very, very difficult. She has always been very mean to me and seems incapable of love or empathy.

I liked my dad very much. We had very similar personalities and many interests in common. As a teenager we didn't get on at all and I thought he didn't like me - I think now it was just genuine unfamiliarity with having to deal with the ups and downs of a teenager. In adulthood we got along very well, time spent together felt natural and pleasant and I wish I'd had more of it.

I don't like my mum, more and more every year that goes by and honestly, even more so since dad died. I love her of course but prefer to spend time with her in small infrequent doses.

I don't even like my father as a parent, let alone as a parent.

I loved my mum very much, though we were very different. She was my best friend.

I can imagine being friends with my DM actually. She’s a very interesting person, nearly 86 and still going strong despite a bad back injury recently. She’s over invested in our lives and quite interfering at times, but that’s because she is my mother and it wouldn’t be an issue if we weren’t related.

I loved my dad. He was quick witted and funny.

My mum on the other hand is moany, all about herself and rude.

Yes I would be friends with both of them. I mean, possibly not considering they're in their 70s and I'm in my 30s so there's a considerable generation gap but as people I enjoy both of their company

Yes - my Mum is amazing. My Dad is a bit strange but ultimately they're both extremely kind

DH and I both really like his parents as people as well as parents/ILs and would absolutely be friends with them. Two of the loveliest people I've ever met.

Neither of us would be friends with my parents; they're not nice people and we are no contact.

I’m not sure we’d be friends as such, I think I’d just see them as that nice inoffensive elderly couple who I’d smile and say hello to in passing.

I’ve always had a tricky relationship with my parents, my mother died three years ago but my Dad is still around at the age of 92. They were older parents and we’ve never had much in common (apart from football, me and my dad will talk about football). I have an older sister, older by 12 years, and they were always much more in tune with her (same interests and hobbies) and actually put her on a pedestal. I’ve never felt like they understood me, I think a generational thing, and I’ve always felt like an outsider.

My Mum was my best friend I think, once I was an adult and not a stroppy teen. I loved hanging out with her, she was the first person I wanted to tell anything to. Sadly she died well over a decade ago.
My Dad - I love to bits but he's hard work. We do have similar interests but I doubt I would choose him as a friend as he's very frustrating!

No I wouldn’t be friends with them. And it’s not generational it’s about personality. We have very different views on everything.

I adore my mum, she’s one of a kind and if I can be half the mum she is to me I will be happy. As an adult she is my best friend . Im more like my Dad in temperament (more reserved l, some would say a bit grumpy!) but I have a lot of respect for him, he has strong morals and I know he always does his best to do the right thing and worries incessantly about my siblings and I. We also share a flair and passion for languages and travel and am grateful to him for taking us to as many places as budget would allow growing up. They will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year and have set the bar high for relationships. I feel very grateful to have them as my parents and will be absolutely lost without them when their time comes.

I love my dad to death. He's the kindest person I know, not a bad bone in his body. If we have ever argued, its short lived. We just don't hold grudges. He also sends me funny puns.

My mum on the other hand is bat shit crazy. She can be funny / endearing / interesting, when she isn't moaning about immigration, which is increasingly frequent these days. However I am trying to maintain equanimity - I always accepted she is this way.

I don’t have any boomer friends so I wouldn’t hang out with them, but if I met them at a wedding or worked with them I would like them, respect their values, enjoy talking to them and hearing their stories and stuff like that

Genuinely like spending time with my family and my husbands family.

Get on with my mother in law as well as I do my mum. They get on well together too.

A few years ago we went away for a short break with my parents and my mother in law. The only problem was that they were all letting each other decide what to do. In the end I had to make a decision for us all.

Wow, this has really blown up! I do get sad when I see adult friends having great, loving relationships with their parents…

I to still feel a sense of loyalty and I do love them. I know there was a time as a child I idolised them both but some where along the way I realised they were not only not great parents, but just not great people… But I can also see how this was a product of their upbringing’s. All I can do now is put my energy into having that sort of relationship with my own children… 🙏

Also seems lots of posters prefer their dad to their mum here. I wonder why that is, and if being the same sex makes it more difficult or if our expectations of our mothers are higher?

Yes, they're both great people. My mum is lovely, fun, great company and everyone's friend, so kind, hilarious and just brilliant. My dad is extremely witty and the most generous, calm, kind person who does anything for my mum and me and my brother and our families. Both intelligent, well read, into music/film/theatre and generally enjoying life. They're great and I've often thought I'd like to be their age and part of their friendship group as they have such a laugh! All of this is how they've been for most of my life and how I still think of them anyway - in reality my mum now has Parkinsons and various other health conditions and she's not the gregarious person she was at all - I really miss her, her friends tell me they miss her, and know my dad must too. He's basically now her full time carer.

I wanted to clarify that I did like my parents, just giving a reason why some may not!

I liked mine but I don’t think they liked me.

I like my parents as people. They're intelligent, passionate and interesting.

I think I'd like them a lot more if they weren't my parents though.😬

No, I wouldn’t be friends with either of them. They are both odd and boring in different ways.

I am LC with my DF as he was just a rubbish parent tbh, not abusive in any way, just didn’t pay me any attention even though I had to visit him every Sunday (DPs were divorced by the time I was 7). Just mostly ignored me.

I look forward to my DM coming to visit (we live 2 hrs apart) but after a couple of days I look forward to her going again!

More recently I have felt quite sad about my relationships with my parents. Neither were fun and we just don’t have anything in common. They are both so negative.
My DM talks forever but monologues all the time. I find it tedious.

My DH’s parents are so different. I really like them.