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 also agree that a lot of therapy-speak is pointless jargon.

But there are some very useful concepts in therapy - "boundaries" and "personal space" for example.

To profess that your parents 'toxicity' is a direct cause of your problems may be correct, the impact on people who suffer severe abuse is huge, I have personal and professional experience of this. However if you label yourself as the product of toxic parenting you may start to think that all your problems are down to this. When in reality some of the problems could be down to environment or relationships or social and economic factors. You may miss out on taking responsibility for a problem and solving it because you've clung on to the fact that it's your parents fault. This is the tragedy of labels. The effect of labelling an individual is far reaching and effects their future decision making and behaviour. Labelling an experience or a person can be just as damaging to an individuals mental health as the initial abuse.

"However if you label yourself as the product of toxic parenting you may start to think that all your problems are down to this."

Or you may not - you may be perfectly capable of appreciating the complexity and multi-causality of human experiences, with your parents' 'toxicity'being acknowledged in a healthy and balanced way as ONE substantial factor.

Equally there are plenty of people who infantilise themselves and blame their parents for everything who have never heard of "toxic parenting".

Grumblingirl - do you disagree with other labels like PND, dyslexic, ADHD etc? Surely that risk comes with the use of any diagnosis as well as any label...

The book is called 'Toxic Parents' rather then 'Toxic Parenting' though.

I think YAB a bit U because by the time most people have realised that their parents are/were toxic, they are also at a stage where they want to work on it with the full realisation that whoever is at fault, you are the only one who can fix yourself. I don't think it fosters a 'victim' mentality, but is really a necessary thing to acknowledge before you can untangle the mess, and the confusion which causes identity issues and whatever else as an adult.

As children, we all think our parents are perfect. And most of us spend a lot of time in denial before we come to the realisation of the damage that was inflicted. None of this means that the individual isn't responsible for what happens in their life next, but it is an important part of the healing process to be able to see that what your parents have done has damaged you and then look at how you can fix it.

It is essential to critically understand your parents' behaviour in order to break the cycle of abuse and not go on to repeat the same behaviour. It is precisely a lack of insight and awareness of this kind that leads to vicious cycle of abused children becoming abusive parents.

For example, if you have had a very, very angry parent - it can be fantastically difficult not to repeat that behviour with your own children. Having children brings out a lot of problems associated with abuse and it doesn't help to just push them aside if they are an influence on your own parenting.

I think there is a potential problem with ALL labels but we do need them for practical reasons.

Upwind from a medical point of view using a label to make a diagnosis is quite rare - professionals are often very reluctant to diagnose ADHD or dyslexia, the ed psych reports and dyslexia assessments I come into contact with tend to say 'X is displaying characteristics of dyslexia / X is displaying behaviours associated with autistic spectrum disorder or the condition ADHD.' They very often are advised against saying 'X is dyslexic' 'X has ADHD'.

FWIW I haven't cut my useless dickhead father out of my life for being toxic, he has chosen not to be a part of it for no obvious reason. I haven't accused him of being toxic to see if he will cry. His previous tears of remorse have only proved to be an indictator of how sorry he is feeling for himself not any depper emotion.

There are times when his very public rejection of me and my DS has been enormously painful and I would have felt very sensitive to someone objecting to anything I called him on semantic grounds who hadn;t similarly suffered.

As it is I am going through one of my (more common) "pretty well adjusted about the idiot" phases and do find it quite amusing to think of anyone feeling sorry for my father being called "toxic". If that is the worst he gets called, he should consider he got off lightly.

Was searching for old threads with Narcissistoc personaltiy in them and came across this

How awful. To undermine people's experience of abuse by criticising the label they give it

My adoptive father abused and bullied me emotionally for years until I just about lost my sense of self. No he didn't just forget my birthday one year, he repeatedly called me fat and told me I was a fake. That the only reason people liked me was because they didn't know the 'real me'. He raged at me whenever I disagreed with him and controlled me excessively (eating, bodily functions etc). He would lie and tell people at his work that I studied medicine to fulfil his narcissistic need for status. He has delusions of grandeur (could have been an olympic champion, was friends with important American politicians, could have been a millionaire). His lack of empathy is startling. He could reduce me to tears of shame and worthlessness and get a kick out of it. He would ignore me for days if I didn't fulfil his narcissistic needs. He once made me go running with him and wouldn't let me go home to use the toilet. He raged and raged at me, that I was making excuses. I still remember the awful stomach cramps I endured that day, trying to hold it in. He threatened me with his fists, his words and his creepy repressed sexuality (called me a slut).

Reading that Toxic parent book by Susan Forward changed my life. I sought counselling and have pretty much got him out of my life after he turned his need for narcissistic supply onto my DS. I wrote him a letter and he responded by stating he was 'withdrawing from my life'.

The reason he was allowed to get away with this is because of these sorts of views expressed here. He was just doing his best. I should understand that he had a difficult childhood. I should forgive him.

Thus it went unchecked for years and I ended up with eating disorders, self-harmed and suffered anxiety and depression.

If you feel uncomfortable with your parenting or feel you have not always been the best mother, do not transfer this guilt onto others who claim their parents have been abusive. Toxic is just another word for abusive and the intellectualizing of it is arrogant and disrespectful of those in genuine distress

Toxic parents have to come from somewhere.

I often wonder what it would be like to be reading posts in 30 years from the same people who are posting now and tussling for control of "their" family, they will presumably be doing the same thing at that time and trying to force out anyone new who wants some control.

Some people just suck though, but if you only read Mumsnet you could get a very skewed idea about parents/grandparents (in particular MILs).

YABU.

Everyone deals in their own way - my parents were toxic, I had issues, I dealt with my issues. I still fight my triggers sometimes that want me to perpetuate the cycle.

Unless you've gone through it you don't understand and if you've gone through it you can only venture opinions on your journey not judge others.

QuiteANicePersonNowButDidn'tUseToBeTiggaxx

Yes toxic parents come from somewhere. but for those who suffered abuse at the hands of them, understanding what happened to us by labelling them as they are means we won't be repeating the same in 30 years time

Message withdrawn

faintlyamusedeyebrows i totally agree, i call my mother toxic, even though i have broken contact and recieved help for the demons she installed in me,

i will always call her toxic. i still do have some issues but i know it will take along time to fix,

my adult choices i take responsibilty for but it was my mothers toxicness that left me as an adult with no self worth and totally unstable to make 'good' decisions, but like i said i took responsibility for my mistakes and sorted them accordinly, which is something my mother will never do.

no one can tell someone who has suffered to the hands of their parents what they can call them

MP, I have rarely on MN seen the phrase "toxic parent" applied to benign neglect or slightly irritating parents. I have only ever lurked on the Stately Homes thread as I am lucky to have had very good, if not perfect, parents. The way in which some of those MNers were treated was appalling and those parents fully deserve to be called toxic. I hope most of us with parents like my Mum for example who was very disorganised but did her best and loved us dearly, would be savvy enough to know the difference.

oooh this has been going for a year

my longest ever AIBU