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 think it's fine for people to have a way of describing their parents which means they don't have to go into all the gory details about their experiences. I certainly don't think it implies victimhood. It takes a lot of strength to see that your parents were abusive and name it as such. Takes even more to come to terms with this and accept it was not your fault.

I tried counselling and I don't think it helped me at all - the counsellor just kept wanting to discuss my desperately unhappy and wretched past leaving me feeling miserable for days. It just seemed to make everything worse. CBT might have been better but it was out of my price range.

Like Bluebutterfly, I rarely think about my toxic parents because I am happy about the present and hopeful about the future. I also have an amazing DH who managed to persuade me that I will not turn into my mother!

PS I think Tolstoy was wrong. All unhappy families are the same-lacking in empathy and parental love.

I've never read the book people sometimes mention on here about 'toxic' parents, but I have been using the word for years about my father's mother. I'd never heard it used in this context. I use/used it to describe a woman who managed to taint and corrupt anything she had contact with. From his birth to her death she was a selfish, manipulative creature and used any contact with family to sew seeds of dischord.

So what term would you prefer then?

Labelling is of course simplifying, as someone else said in the same way that calling your parent an alcoholic is simplifying.

As for our children saying the same things about us - why would they? We're not abusing them.

Have read a few threads, and certainly don't think most people are talking about their mums "not doing the ironing". I think many are struggling with the realisation that their parents didn't have their best interests at heart, which I would imagine (though luckily have no experience) is a fairly shocking realisation. Don't particularly like the term "toxic" but if it helps some people to stop blaming themselves for things that happened in the past, move on and not repeat their own parents' behaviour patterns, I don't see a problem. It doesn't necessarily make you a "victim" any more than any other description.

yabu (and I don't see myself as a victim I see myself as a survivor from their toxicity).

Upwind: most NHS surgeries now offer CBT (this has been introduced fairly recently) - it might be worth asking about?

I find this OP very strange and judgemental. If YOU don't find the term useful then don't use it....
If someone else finds the term useful then you seem to be saying they should not use it because YOU don't like it...

How very egotistical.

I may very well be wildly egotistical - I'll leave that for others to decide

I do feel that language is hugely important.

I dislike the fact that it has passed into popular usage on these boards and I think it's important to question whether that is right or not.

btw you asked in your OP how it HELPS.

Well, for me, participating in one of the stately homes threads galvanised me into getting couselling. Because I'd read quite a bit and followed the threads, I only needed 2 sessions. After that, I felt free and for the first time in my life, at peace.

That's how it helped. Sorry that's not the correct way of "accepting the past and resolving issues".

morningpaper - I am sure that there are many people who need access to such NHS resources much more than me. I am happy and coping well with life, though if I ever do slide back into despair I will ask my GP for a referral. I just wanted to point out that professional counselling is not always the answer, especially when it just seems to involve dragging up past traumas.

Having toxic parents is not necessarily a life sentence, nor does it always lead to any kind of victim mentality. It is just another label (and actually, not one I've ever used before today). If there is ever a time when my own DC mutter things like this about me, I hope I will be able to laugh at the absurdity of their teenage angst - given that I have some perspective on bad parenting!

the advice and support I got on here a couple of years ago - regarding "toxic parents", which book I bought and read, changed my life. I can't possibly say how valuable it was. I was in deep deep shit and many MNers came to my aid. So although I understand about not liking soundbyte-type labels, this one HELPS people who need help. So I'm happy for it to persist.

Question away MP

Some of the posts on here have implied that anyone who might mention that they had abusive parents is whingeing and moaning and wallowing in victim status.

That doesn't imply a spirit of questioning to me. That implies a spirit of kneejerk sneering and undermining people's feelings and experiences.

I don't understand why people feel the need to do that.

If it helps someone to call their parents toxic then so be it. Some people have had difficult childhoods and it is up to them how they refer to their parents.

well, admittedly it is a horrible term but then what it describes is horrible. I have a friend who suffered incest in her childhood and recommended her a well-regarded book "Toxic Parents" (don't know whether this book 1st coined the term? probably not). Anyway, for those who've suffered severe trauma such as incest, the term is invaluable as a rightful means to help shift the blame onto the parents away from the victim. It shouldn't be used lightly, however

Littlebella I don't see that on this thread

Misschief: good post (and I think that it WAS the book/author that coined the term, although I don't know)

I think the problem for me is the bunging in of "difficult childhoods" (mentioned in this thread) with issues such as severe abuse (also mentioned) are a vast spectrum and to slap one label on the whole experience is wrong

mp - I use difficult childhoods to mean what the person using it means. I'm not putting my own labels on someone elses experiences

gob whinging = very good expression!

Well I hate to go against the trend and I can see what MP and custy mean, but it has helped me to cope with my family. That label reassured me that this is not an uncommon practice, that I am not alone in having a controlling and abusive mother. It helped me to come to terms with her behaviour.

It's like when a parent knows that there is something wrong with her child. She goes to all the doctors and whilst they agree that something is wrong, no-one knows what it is. Then they find out that the child has ASD, this doesn't bring about a cure, but just knowing that makes them feel better. Because now they know that their child has a recognised disorder rather than an unknown one. They can converse with other parents and they can use the label to tell teachers/HVs/family what is wrong with the child rather than listing a set of behaviours.

I'm not suggesting that ASD is in any way toxic. But having that label is useful for me. When people ask me why I don't see my mother I can simply say that she's a toxic mother. It stops me from having to relate everything she's done or describe her behaviour to them - it incorporates everything she is.

Ok, it's not a cure. But it helps me to deal with it.

However I do agree about the 'victim' thing. I think that maturity comes about when you stop blaming your parents for your own behaviour. But label or no label, people will always convienently blame their parents. My children will blame me, although I hope to a lesser degree. Taking away that label will not take away the victim mentality.

MP I do.

I have never met anyone over the age of 16 who blames their parents for their own choices.

They may want to examine the influence their parents had on their attitudes/ outlook on life so that they can stop repeating damaging patterns, but to describe that as "blaming your parents" is just simplistic rubbish.