How much shouting /arguing did you grow up with ?

[Screamer1]

My childhood memories are dominated by a lot of shouting and arguing. My mum was quite a shout mg person anyway, and I'm so desperate to not recreate that for my own kids.

I know that it wasn't all the time so why does it dominate my memories so much. I'm trying to work out if I was just particularly sensitive to it? There were a couple of huge rows between my parents that were pretty horrendous. But I think the reality was that it may have just been a period of time when they weren't getting on.

As a teenager I rowed a lot with my mum, so more shouting. Maybe I'd have been like that anyway but I can't help but think I was modelling some kind of behaviour

I grew up with a lot of shouting & arguing.

I think it's actually made me a better parent as I was determined it would be different with my own DC, and it is. My young adult DC haven't grown up in a shouty environment at all.

I remember lots of shouting but my parents separated when I was 6. Then all I remember is my mum throwing tantrums/ locking us out as kids/flying into an irrational violent rage.

Now I see the signs and it makes me uneasy and anxious. If I have conflict with another person I want to cry (but don't as I learned with my mum it shows weakness). It's horrible.

In answer to your question, as a result of this I'm quite a pushover ie avoid conflict. But when I do lose my rag everybody knows it. And I'm embarrassed that I've lost it that bad and compare myself in my head to my mum, even though she used it as control and I only do it out of frustration. Clearly I haven't spent enough on therapy but I hope you realise you're not alone

That sounds similar to how I feel drama. Although my children are only small so I'm hoping I can fulfill my wish to not have them grow up in that kind of environment. I think it really affected me.

I'm just wondering how common it is. My DH grew up with no shouting or even disagreements. It came as a huge shock to him when his parents divorced when he was 25.

Screamer I empathise. I grew up with my DF screaming at us kids and my DM a lot. Even now a raised voice makes me nervous. Wasn't all the time for me either but it has affected me. I do not wish to get married. The screaming involved threats of violence and even actual violence sometimes (although rarely) and we felt we were walking on eggshells around DF.

furyous with me the affect has not made me into a pushover but someone who is easily anxious, which often turns to rage. I am very sensitive to slight sir conflict but react aggressively towards it rather than shrink back. At school I was the angry kid who lashed out at people. I was shy with adults but did not hesitate to get physical if kids "dissed" me in any way

We didn’t do shouting/arguing much. My family specialised in repression and simmering resentment .

One of my friends came from a very shouty family, it just seemed to be how they communicated. I found it very stressful at their house.

I guess what I’d like is the in between scenario, where everyone gets to talk and is listened to. But that’s not always realistic when e.g. you’re trying to hurry everyone out of the door to get to school on time. I don’t have teens yet and am worried about the step up to bigger issues than getting socks on!

I also made up my mind I would never be controlled by a man ever again. I remember how scared my DM used to be of my DF and how mcuh it hurt seeing that.

DH grew up with no fighting as well, his parents never raised their voices. He can't understand what I went through at all.

Furryous that also sounds similar. I hate conflict but can loose my rag very occasionally and then immediately compare to my mother.

I'm sorry guinea. That sounds really unpleasant and no wonder it's had an affect on you.

None at all. My parents never shouted at each other. I really don't even remember them having more than a couple of arguments

My mum was shouty but my childhood was idyllic despite that. She gave me good values. After divorce there was a horrible period around age 15 with my mum but in hindsight I was being a year due to depression which went unrecognised.
I also hope not to emulate via shoutiness but I don't think it badly affected me

Nowt I think that's how my mother communicated. And it is very stressful. She gets very sensitive and will then lash out by shouting. My father rarely ever shouted at us but then he wasn't around as much.

When they had these huge arguments i remember thinking they were my fault and trying to act as peacemaker. I feel a bit resentful that I was in that position at 8 years old. But then I don't know what pressure** they were under.

My mum was a full blown alcoholic. She’d seperated from my dad who lived in the US and we came back to Blighty because her family was here. She was always aggressive; always shouting at me and my sister which progressed to getting hit whenever we displeased her.

I think myself and my sister have long term PTSD (among other things) as a result. We’re both very fucked up in our different ways.

I recognise it and try to change it but it’s very hard. It’s like we were brainwashed to interpret the world negatively at a very young age.

Interesting Lemony. My parents adored me and did so much for me, which is why I wonder why my memories of these negative shouty times outweigh the good.

Could just be personality type I guess?

No shouting for me (more of that simmering repression mentioned upthread - all very English). I appreciate it more now I'm grown up, and I'm trying to do similar for my DC (with less repression and passive aggression)

DH had the complete opposite, with lots of shouting, banging, drinking, hitting.... He therefore thinks that an occasional argument is OK becuase compared to his childhood it's bliss

I can imagine it's hard to get a middle ground. How do you deal with petty disagreements now? Just soak them up?

guineaholic11 funnily enough i was the opposite of you - at school I was the quiet shy pushover this may have had something to do with me going to 6 primary schools and always being the new girl but that's another story ... I was always bullied and teased and took it

Now though, I use 'banter' I.e a charming smile so I can get away with passive aggressive stuff when people annoy me, and then when it doesn't work I lose my shit and have no problem with telling people what I think of them. It takes a lot to get to that point though as my DMs training is that it's not 'ladylike'

My DM has bipolar and used to shout, argue, get pissed and hit out, still does

I'm not sure OP ...maybe. I am quite anxious but blame this on my dad and my medical condition ...maybe I just have more things disguising the effect?

I think it’s ok to let the dc see the odd argument. They need to see that disagreements happen and can be resolved. But repeatedly having the same argument, with shouting and swearing and never getting anywhere because one party storms off when they are ‘losing’, or the other gives up for a quiet life, isn’t healthy, for the children or the relationship.

I can identify with this too. Far, far too much shouting and arguing and just all sorts of awfulness that I have been very keen not to recreate - with varying degrees of success :(

Sometimes I have a physically 'allergic' reaction if a couple starts bickering and I just hate it. Not to normal little bickering or teasing, but to the kind that indicates resentment and lack of respect and general fucked-upness and is barely kept undercover in public. Ugh, I hate it.

On a light note, I loved Karl and Susan Kennedy from Neighbours when I was younger and it had a surprisingly strong and unsettling effect on me when he turned into a cheating fool and messed up their seemingly perfectly lovely life.

On a serious note, I often feel quite messed up and damaged by the whole experience. I don't generally shy from conflict and am usually (pleasantly) assertive so that can be very helpful and healthy, but will often get some sort of delayed reaction after the fact which is not so healthy at all. It sucks to have grown up that way.

I worry about this lots, my dh is if Mediterranean stock and is quick to raise his voice, be dramatic and gesticulate- this makes my Adrenalin levels go through the roof and I then do fight or flight ( fight being also raise my voice/ flight being storm off and then not be able to sleep from stress). I cannot seem to change him. Like others my parents didn’t shout but would be passive aggressive and my mother seems very manipulative because she never expressed her anger/ needs.

Loads. My biggest memories from when I was little are of me and my sister sitting in the living room in the dark listening to my mum and dad shouting and balling at each other and being too afraid to turn the light on in case they noticed us. They never did turn on us but, only being 3 or so, I was terrified anyway. I remember the time when my mum started throwing all the pots, pans, flour, sugar and other foodstuffs around the kitchen because my dad had a go at her for not keeping the place clean enough.

I remember the night they split up - I was almost 5, we were woken in the night by shouting and crying. It must have been worse than usual because my sister and I crept downstairs and they saw us. We tried to go to my dad but my mum said, "Don't go to him. He's a bastard."

After that we walked through the streets in the middle of the night to go and stay at my aunt's house. They never got back together and my mum married my step-dad a year or two later. They had their ding dongs but nothing like as bad as the ones between my mum and dad.

There was a lot of shouting as we got older because my younger brother and sister came along and as siblings we argued quite a lot and I don't think my mum really knew or had the patience or energy to deal with it (we were skint so she had to work all the hours she could just to make ends meet) and so would just shout at us.

I see and hear my mum in myself and try my best to contain it and hold it back and I always try to make up with my dc after getting shout because I'm afraid they'll be scared.

Dh and I rarely argue.

That's it. It's the fear I still feel. It's not massive but it's definitely there simmering in the background.

I remember once when I was a teenager and my mum had told me to tidy my room, I think I'd just shoved all the mess into a cupboard. I must have been rude to her too. I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep and she stormed in and started pulling everything out of the cupboards. Sometimes now as I'm going to sleep I get this quick jolt of fear. Maybe I'm conflating the two things, but it's weird how that event has stuck with me so vividly .

Mosquito my mum is Mediterranean. I wonder if this is a culture clash.