To hate the term "Toxic parents"?

[morningpaper]

I really think it's horrible.

You know that there will be a time when your children will mutter this about you?

How does it HELP? If you have issues about your parents, seek professional counselling. Don't just give them a "wicked" label to shift the blame onto them. How does it help you to resolve your problems?

Some people are good at parenting, and some are shit at it, and some are downright abusive. We all fall somewhere on that spectrum.

Simplifying the problem like this is a hindrance to accepting the past and resolving issues IMO. I think this is a very unhelpful term which fosters a "victim" mentality. The only way to resolve these sort of issues is to have professional help - not to spend hours autopsying the past with strangers on the internet.

AIBU?

i agree. i hate this lable and said so on another thread recently.

i also agree re: victim and i think it gives carte blanche to moan and whinge and by assigning a lable to it, it gives everyone the 6right6 to say they had a toxic parent - when infact their mum didn't do their ironing or something equally facile.

i think it negates the people with the really rubbish parents and allows people to whinge.

It makes me laugh becuase, one day my dears, that will be you. i say this as i have a 19 yo son and haven't been perfect or anywhere near - and if he came out with this phrase i would tell him to shut him gob whinging.

it wont be long before your children are using this phrase, and i think it doesn't matter how well you want to parent - kids remember the ribbish stuff more than the good stuff and its all gonna bite you on the arse

I agree Custardo

I don't mean to dismiss the suffering that many parents have caused

But I think that just because there was a successful book with this title does not mean we should unquestioningly adopt it as a way of seeing the world

I read a quote once - scarily spot on - that the worst truth of life is that you will damage your children just by being who you are.
The only way round it that i can see is to beome robtic and devoid of any strain of indiviuality.
That's sure to produce happy, healthy children, right?

i think we should be more unerstanding of where our parents came from with their style of parenting - that is not to be accepting, but to understand the factors which meant they parented in the way they did.

i completely understand why my mum was a fruitcake

I'm with you MP. To say 'I have problems with this, because my toxic parents did this' doesn't IMO get you anywhere with resolving the problems you're having. Plus I also think that alot of people nowadays forget that parents in a different generation didn't have mumsnet / parenting manuals / toddler groups to help them. They just muddled along best they could and didn't have hundreds of posters to say 'Yes, you're doing well' or 'Noooo - thats a terrible mistake'. My gran for example regularly tells me pretty awful examples of her parenting style (e.g ignore, smacking with a bobbin, sending them packing at 16 etc). I don't immediately think 'Toxic parent'. She had to parent pretty much alone (she had 3 boys and my GD went to war) and she made lots of mistakes. Fact. It's done.

I agree OP.

It helps some people, it doesn't help others/ Most will find that they get to a certain point and they don't need the help anymore but will hang around to help others who are further behind but having the same issues. If it doesn't do anything for you, leave it and don't take part.

It's the same as any other internet forum issue in my eyes.

Toxic parents. Attachment parents. Yummy Mummies. Unconditional parenting. Even the phrase 'parenting'. It's all so American and barf-some.

Not a nice phrase no, but toxic parenting is not just a different way of parenting due to a different background/upbringing/age etc, it is abusive.

Maybe saying you have abusive parents is more honest but at the same time, to my mind that immediately slaps the label 'victim' on you and I wouldn't want to be a victim of anything.

???? YABU - and over sensitive. It's a label just like all other labels.

Agree. Fostering a sense of victimhood never does any good - just digs you deeper into your own misery, in fact. We are all human and therefore fallible. All we can do is try to understand where our parents were coming from, forgive them their mistakes, appreciate that they probably tried their best and try to do our best for our children and hope that they in turn will forgive us our mistakes.

I'm just back from a counselling session, BTW

I personally had wonderful parents, but I would never dream of criticizing people who did not and they have every right to label their parents "toxic" if this is how they feel. They probably don't mean that their mum forgot their packed lunch 20 years ago, it could be abuse or violence for example.

I feel I have every right to label (in my mind )my MIL a toxic IL, because even though she might be lovely in other relationships she has had a toxic effect on my life. If I behave the same way to future DILs then they can label me what they like.

NotBigJustBolshy good for you. Forgiveness is a much under-rated concept these days.

I know it is hard when the issues are on-going, but people CAN move on and labelling is not always the right thing to do.

It's a label just like all other labels.

No, it isn't. Because it is writing off THE PEOPLE as inherently 'wicked'. Which is rarely true. Most labels refer to parenting style or behaviour. But this is about individuals: the lable in itself offers an explanation for the way we are = because of our toxic parents! Which I think is not a very mature way of seeing things, if I am honest.

Like I say, I don't want to dismiss the very real abuse that people suffer. But every time I see this phrase I cringe.

Custardo does knowing why your parents did what they did really help you that much?

It seems like you have a problem with people using the term toxic parents to band together and talk about things more than the actual label in itself.

With all respect, I know exactly why my mother is a twat, she was abused horribly and used it as an excuse to repeat some (but not all) of the parenting she received on her own kids. It doesn't make her any easier to deal with. Or help me to not repeating the pattern.

Talking about it and having people who understand and I can talk to whenever my mother does something utterly nuts and help me deal with it does. I'm not really sure where any of that is about me being a victim. It's about me getting on with my life.

I agree I don't really like the phrase toxic parents though, as it does come across as a bit 'all bad' when I don't think she really understands/realise what she is doing a lot of the time. That just also doesn't mean I should let her get away with it.

I have a very complicated relationship with both of my parents and I am afraid that for me the only way to deal with it is to apply labels to them of one sort or another. The label for my father is "alcoholic" and the label for my mother is "mentally unstable". I do not hate them, quite the opposite in fact (therein lies their ability to damage their children) and I can, as best as anyone is able to, try to put myselves in their shoes and sympathise with why things turned out the way that they did for each of them. Still, if I am honest about it, it is very hard to forgive them. If the word toxic applies to my parents (which I suppose it might) I would not use it lightly. I KNOW that my parents did not want to be bad parents, I also know that without the drinking, without the dependance on anti depressants and the psychiatric units, they would still not have been perfect, but for me "imperfect" and "toxic" are not synonymous terms. I guess the problem is that that truly damaged and damaging parents leave emotional scars that are hard to shake off. I certainly do not attribute all of my character flaws to poor parenting, but I also know, without a shadow of doubt that some of my problems such as my significant lack of self-esteem are a direct result of feeling worthless and helpless for years as a teenager at home.

I do not know if the word "toxic" is adequate to describe their flaws which inevitably had a very damaging impact on both my sister and me. The thing is my relationship with them is so complicated, it swings from anger, to pity, to sorrow and back again. Maybe counselling would help me, but I worry that in fact it would not resolve anything but would simply cost me a great deal of money.

I think, like most labels, whe you first use it it's incredibly relevant and useful but with over-use it stops meaning anything.

Slapping a 'toxic' label on your parents sometimes feels like almost negating your right to talk about specifics of your childhood - good things as well as bad - because the whole thing is defined by its 'toxicity'.

Bluebutterfly, counselling or therapy with the right person can do amazing, amazing things. I feel so sorry for and frustrated for people who have ongoing issues which affect them every day that they wake up, when a commitment to counselling/therapy can have such transformative powers.

Yes it does cost money but so do lots of things in life - personally I'd rather wake up happy when I'm 65 than wake up owning my own house when I'm 65.

I suppose my basic feeling is that if anyone is at the stage where they are labelling their parents as 'toxic' then they need professional help to overcome their sadness and problems.

toxic makes it sound like the parents never ever did anything good. I know that happens but its much rarer than an imperfect parent.

I think a lot of the people that use the term on MN are also in counselling (or looking for the right psych for them) and talk online in those in between moments where you are having a wobble.

Personally don't feel like I need counselling, but am not usually particularly active talking about online either. Have ways to deal just need to be consistent and get on with it basically.

Imperfect hardly covers abuse though does it? The scale is all wrong. I have problems because my parents weren't perfect well no - of course they weren't! nobodys are. Whereas I think with toxic people are seeking a label that sits somewhere between imperfect and domestic abuse and puts the blame with the parent and not with them.

Bluebutterfly, I see a psychologist/counsellor through my local GP practice - it's on the NHS.

It sounds like you have had a positive experience from counselling mp. I am not really against it from a financial perspective UNLESS the whole thing is a waste of time and I come out of it without having resolved anything.

Actually in RL, I tend to get by without every really dwelling on my past, I try to focus on my own family and trying to be a strong mother, although I know that I will inevitably fall short, hopefully I will not inflict long-term damage. I am lucky that I have a really supportive and understanding dh and the reality for me is that whilst I am unhappy about my past, I am very happy with my present, and hopeful about my future, so I don't think that I actually dwell on it, even though there are situations where I know it affects me (like when my Mum was hospitalised in the spring) or when my Dad got drunk at my house during an infrequent visit, and told me what an inadequate mother I was to my son (which I know is not true and that he was totally pissed, but is not really the sort of thing that you want your Dad to say to you)

Anyway, you are probably right that the term toxic is fairly meaningless, because as Tolstoy famously put it, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".

It is an interesting point - I sort of agree with the OP while thinking that at some stage of coming to terms with difficult family situations it might actually be useful.

My own parents would probably be described as "toxic" by anyone who ever learned how seriously abusive they had been to their DC. For some reason they were less violent to my youngest sister and she tries to maintain a relationship with them, which tears her apart. I actually believe that our parents are incapable of empathy. I truly wish that my sister could just understand that they are "toxic parents", there is nothing that can be done about it and they will never behave in a predictable or reasonable fashion. I think it would help her move on with her life.

I don't think of them as "toxic" myself, I just feel sorry for them as they seem incapable of forming genuine bonds and of actually being happy. My sister thinks she can help them but they just suck her dry and randomly attack her.