Time to get over blaming parents

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

OTHER than actual abuse of course. That is a totally and completely understandably different category.

Most of us on here are parents. With all the best will in the world, our children will grow up and vehemently disagree with aspects of our child rearing. We know we love our kids. And getting our errors thrown back at us in later life will be excoriating. But it's bound to happen.

So why, oh why, do we continue as adults to pore over the past and blame any number of aspects of how we were brought up? Our parents were fallible. Just like us. I read thread after thread on here about it. Most by people making their own mistakes with their children.

Before I have it thrown at me, I had a bit of a horrific upbringing. Almost ended up in care. But given that 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.'

Our generation are no better than the previous one. Thinking we are is arrogant.

It's fine to recognise the ways your parents shaped you including the negative. The problem is getting stuck and focusing on that. I have friends in their fifties who will reference childhood events as reasons for why they feel unfulfilled now. That's not helpful if there's no attempt at healing and resolution. The attempt may be lifelong and ultimately incomplete but it's important to at least start.

Given that parenting is about raising a child, quite clearly the parenting has been extremely poor if when the child grows up to become an adult they judge it to be neglectful or abusive. People who have had even adequate parenting as children - who have grown up in families which are not toxic or dysfunctional and have loving parents who treated them kindly as children - aren’t randomly accusing their parents of abuse/ neglect en masse. Occam’s Razor clearly applies here.

I’m also a bit fed up of people calling parents who used to smack their kids “abusive” and that hitting only raises humans who use violence. I was hit as a child and I’m not a violent person and never have been.
Things were very different 30 plus years ago. My parents were not abusive bullies, they were just using a form of discipline that was considered more normal in those days.

I am not saying people should still be hitting children, not at all, but many of us were hit and we haven’t grown up to be violent thugs.

I was adopted as a baby in the late 60s, and it’s only in middle age that I’ve begun to understand the significant impact that’s had on my life. I do tell myself that my adoptive parents did what they thought was best, but it’s very hard to read about the circumstances of my adoption and not feel some anger (on behalf of my birth mother too)

And a form of discipline that has always been used until recently and is still used routinely in large parts of the world, are all those people abusive and violent?

I feel like I have really lucked out in having Asian parents who didn't hit me 40 years ago! Apart from a couple of gentle taps on bum by mum. Dad yelled a bit, but I don't hold that against him.

I think there's a lot of arrogance about today's way being the definitively 'right' way and the line has been drawn.
I have said this many times on MN and am usually told that 'research shows x, y, z is the best way' and 'we know better now'.
Of course, none of us know better. FWIW, I think baby-led early days/years, when the mother is basically a slave to her baby, will be discredited as it's (obviously to me anyway) detrimental to maternal mental health.
That thread of upf was completely ridiculous tbh. But I find on here that it's much easier to blame your parents than confront your own shortcomings.

I had a pretty difficult childhood and blamed my parents for a long time. But as I matured, I started to see things through their eyes, their experiences and lives. They had it pretty tough but did their best. They both worked so hard in every way.

My father passed away a long time ago and now I’m broken hearted about how ‘family life’ must have been for him - because when I look at it through adult eyes I can see how very unhappy he was. Probably lonely and unsupported too.

I’m now on the other side. I’ve done my best for my children, and have been loving, accepting and caring - but they’re appear to be unforgiving against any perceived slight.

I agree with you, but actually think its detrimental to children as well

This programme caused quite a lot of discussion at the time (1974) it was a shock to see how families really were…

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/april/the-family

Well I don't think as a generation that we are better than our parents I've been involved in enough horrific child protection cases to know that simply isn't true.. But I'm confident that I'm a better parent. I don't blame my parents for their inadequacies, I understand why they might have been the way they were but it's important to acknowledge the impact they had on me and my siblings. The impacts are on us to understand and manage/shift but pretending things were ok and had no impact can keep people in a perpetual state of thinking that they themselves are inadequate, bad, failures when in fact they're having a fairly normal reaction to things that they have experienced.
I would add it's a mistake to think that only big T trauma is impactful for child development. Small T trauma (things like being absent, emotionally cold, overly critical, overly controlling and not allowing age appropriate autonomy) can really impact social, cognitive and emotional development. The problem is that shit is so incredibly common we tend to normalise it (well didn't everyone's parents shout at them/tell them they were lazy/not speak to them for days etc). It might be common, but it's not normal desirable parenting behaviour. Acknowledging this is hard because we have an inbuilt desire to maintain an attachment to our parents and it is quite the existential threat to let go of the that bond/need even when it's pretty damaging....
Getting stuck in blaming van be unhelpful, but if we don't understand and acknowledge the impact negative parenting can have them we turn it in on ourselves and that is really not helpful.

Yes, anybody hitting a child is abusive and violent. What a bizarre question.

Katypp · Today 08:51
I think there's a lot of arrogance about today's way being the definitively 'right' way and the line has been drawn

I agree and in 50 years time there will a different idea as to what is the right way to raise a child.

Also, it’s a lot easier to be an easy going, tolerant parent to easy going, cooperative children.
I have a friend with three daughters. The two eldest were very easy children and teenagers and my friend boasted that it was all down to her & husband’s tolerant parenting.
Then a third daughter was born who was extremely challenging in many ways. My friend did her best but she’s human too and she lost her temper a few times having been driven to distraction.

Agree with this above^^

Things have changed so much! In my day we were made to feel ashamed for “showing off” and “making a spectacle of ourselves” whereas nowadays children are encouraged to come out of their shells.

Also, let’s not forget generational trauma. My parents were teens and young adults during the Second World War. One of them had been evacuated and lived away from their family for long stretches of time. The other faced great financial hardship. Even after war ended, food rationing continued until the early 50s. Life wasn’t easy for them.

That’s bound to affect the next generation.

Can so relate to this.
my daughter was very much like me (and my father) so we often clashed.
Where as the boys , were like dh, rarely any trouble.

So every single parent who has lived who smacked their kids as discipline (Im not talking about beating) and every single parent who is alive now who uses smacking all over the world, they are violent and abusers are they?

Of course they are. But today's parents - in their capacity as The Best Parents Ever - know this, which is why they lecture the parents who went before them who sadly were not as good as they are

At the very least, many of them were incapable of managing their own feelings to the extent that they managed to slap their own child in a temper. If they were doing it in a more calculated way, I’d say that’s even worse.

the tragic thing in my case is I had two abusive parents. I managed ot build the most wonderful life and fulfilling many of my dreams. I had fairly good relationships with both of them. id forgiven them and didnt feel I held any bad effects from my childhood. then at 44 I had a psychotic breakdwon and lost absolutely everything - even my own sense of self. I dont even feel a connection with the perosn I was before my breakdwon. im absolutely so so so angry now to learn that this breakdown was rooted in the fear and terror I felt as a child. I lost everything I loved and am now a very very very unwell woman who ahd been in an elite profession that she loved and happily married.