This happened with my parents at my 13th/14th birthday party. Would you have reacted this way?

[summersadness1]

When I was 13/14 I had a party at a business park, bowling. After we had finished, parents came to collect their kids and my parents obviously waited to say goodbye to everyone.

One girl’s parents were late. I don’t remember exactly how late but I think around 20 mins to half an hour. This girl sat in my parents car with us while we waited and she became a bit upset, saying she was worried that they had been in an accident as they hadn’t called to say why they were late (phones weren’t common then and they maybe didn’t think they were that late anyway).

My parents were nice to her about it but not massively re assuring and didn’t seem to fully engage with her about her worries. Her parents then arrived and she was fine and we waved her off. On the way home my parents talked about how this girl was attention seeking and being very over the top about her parents and were just generally very dismissive about it. At the time I defended my friend and said she was clearly just worried and then the discussion ended and I don’t remember anything else about it.

The reason I am posting about it is because I wonder if my parents reaction was normal? I have my own questions about my upbringing and looking at my parents behaviour towards someone else is helpful in tying to make sense of their approach to me.

OP were they routinely negative about events and people? Dismissive of people's worries? Is it part of a pattern?

On its own its not earth shattering, but from hypercritical or eyoreish people, it would seem different.

I feel a bit stupid now! Yes there were other concerns but clearly I am looking into everything far too deeply

It was more that if I was ever upset or needing to talk about something then that was never ok. Always dismissed. I was accused of being dramatic as a child, a show off for dancing in the living room, mocked (don’t think they meant to mock but that’s how it came across) for having feelings etc.

So they were emotionally unresponsive? Stiff upper lip?

A lot depends on the wider context.
At 13/14 I'd have been really worried if my mum was late, really worried. She was never, ever, ever late for anything. She's the type who's always slightly early. (My dad, however, was late for everything - so I wouldn't have worried if it were him.) I'd still worry now, if she were late to meet me!

If the girl knew lateness was unusual for her parents then vocalising her concerns wasn't at all melodramatic and your parents were unkind.

If she was weeping and wailing, she was big over dramatic and your parents reacted normally/appropriately.

If she expressed worries without weeping and wailing but didn't give a foundation for her concerns (didn't say it was unusual for her parents to be late), she was being a bit over anxious. Your parents showed they lack some empathy of the fact some people just naturally worry more than others. Being a worrier, is not the same as being a drama queen!

Your parents might not have liked the girl, or her mother.

No parent is a saint. They had just thrown a birthday party for you and probably spent loads of money are were exhausted with teenage girls.

Why are you going over all this?

Good luck btw.

FWIW, they sound cold and hard.

How long ago was this? I don't mean this unkindly but it strikes me as odd you are thinking about this really.

People who can't stand not being the centre of attention can be quite harsh if somebody else is anxious/having a drama, legitimate or otherwise.

I don't think this was an example of this, but if you are used to your parents doing this then I can see why you are asking the question. Did they insinuate that her behaviour indicated some inherent character flaw, or were they just annoyed by it?

Yes I think they acted responsibly and you are possibly looking too much into it.

FWIW, I had counselling earlier this year. A large part of my problem was that Things were going on in my present life that I was struggling to handle and I was looking at my childhood trying to understand why I was the way that I was. I was thinking about incidences very much like how you describe and almost trying to convince myself that I was unlovable and the way that they treated me proved that.

It turns out that I needed treatment for anxiety and I learned that actually nothing is wrong with me and how I act. I learned that my parents loved me within their own limitations and that I have my limitations too and as a mother, I am definitely going to disagree in the way that they handled certain situations because I have the benefit of knowing the consequences that came from those situations.

Does any of this feel familiar to you?

They could have been kinder and rolled their eyes more discretely
No parents are perfect
One of my students at age 15 was bought just a bottle Of wine for his bday but then alcoholic parents drank before he came home from school, it so things could have been worse for you
Sorry you feel your parents weren’t meeting your emotional needs

Did the girl go on to be an anxious adult?

I’ll go against the grain and say that I think they sounded unkind. 30 minutes is a long time to be late and I’m sure at some point in all that time it would have crossed her mind that something untoward could have happened, especially if it was out of character. My friend’s daughter gets like this due to experiencing a lot of loss when she was a small child and witnessing her mother having a tragic accident. My default wouldn’t be an eye roll and a “what a drama queen”, I’d try and reassure the young person and certainly not slag her off as soon as she was out of ear shot.

Your parents sound like mine. When I was 12 I was sexually assaulted by a stranger as I was going to the toilet in a McDonalds. He grabbed me from behind so I only saw his shoes. I was the new girl in school and was picked up by new friend’s mum. I immediately told her what happened and she rolled her eyes and acted like I was making it up. I couldn’t understand why he’d done it and I was trying to make sense of it but I just remember the mother looking at me in the rear view mirror like she was sizing me up. She mentioned something about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and said “why on earth would someone do that?” about the assault. She later labelled me as a Drama Queen and didn’t really pass on what had happened to my parents. In a really dismissive tone with another eye roll she said “She SAYS, a man groped her near the toilets but when I’ve asked her what he looked like she can’t tell me!” as if I was ridiculous.

Unfortunately, my parents didn’t take it seriously either even though I told them the full details and they knew I wasn’t lying. My Dad was furious at me and said I wasn’t allowed out again and tried to blame my physical appearance (I was wearing a baggy shirt and trousers) and my Mum barely said a word but looked at me with a shameful expression, as if I’d done something disgusting.

My parents never met my emotional needs at all and like you I’ve had counselling. The girl’s mother mentioned above was herself a victim of abuse and emotional neglect and doesn’t seem to have been a great mother, my friend had a lot of mental health problems and needed counselling from a young age due to her upbringing.

When the adults around us act in such a dismissive way it can be hard to know what is and isn’t normal behaviour. You are right to start questioning things as an adult, to figure it all out for yourself.

Trust your instincts on this one. They were mean and dismissive about a worried young person. They judged her and showed a lack of empathy. Something makes you uneasy about it. But it’s most likely only a tiny piece of the jigsaw.

Best of luck as you try to piece things together, I hope you find healing.

Sorry, I’ve wrongly assumed your questions about your upbringing arose through a counselling process. After rereading I see you didn’t mention counselling!

My parents weren't terribly emotionally intelligent/accessible when we were kids (they're much better now!), and tended to quash any negative emotions we expressed. I honestly think it was how it was back then.

Just on the incident with the girl I think they responded perfectly normally and were slightly angry with her parents for not being on time hence their comments about the girl.

The other stuff depends on lots of things really. My friend's daughter drives me mad with her dancing and boasting constantly - falling over and hurting herself if nobody gushes how wonderful she is - in that case your parents would be right.

Dancing like a normal kid - parents sound a bit strict

Teens can be dramatic for sure! But at the same time, I think they were being a bit mean.

I remember my mum used to drop me off for footie training and then go swimming, nip home and come back and get me. One night her car wasn't in the usual spot, so I went in the baths, couldn't find her, got the girl at the desk to ring our house number, no answer. So I went back outside again, wandered around a bit in front of the baths, then heard a squealing of tyres and brakes, it was my mum hauling her arse back to town to come get me. Her first thought was to madly apologise to me, hug me tightly and then went inside the baths to thank the girl for trying to ring, and looking out for me. Turns out she'd gone home, dad had a fire call and that just turned the schedule upside down and she completely forgot about me. I could have only been on my own for 15 minutes or so, but moral of the story is, it was out of character for my mum and she was absolutely mortified at having forgotten her 12 year old child. So yes the girl at the baths was concerned and so was I. I think we forget kids relied on their parents so much more than they do now, and so a few years ago that probably would have freaked a kid out quite easily!!

Also you have to to ask yourself if you are physically able to remember the events correctly.

There is so much evidence to suggest that while a memory remains very real to us, we miss fundamental parts over the years which change the memory completely.

For example, in your memory, you remember your parents acknowledging that the girl was being over dramatic when in fact the conversation could have been based on the way the parents behaved upon picking up and then they noted that she had been very dramatic in her worries. A comment could have then be made that it wasn’t surprising considering the blase way the parents behaved. In your young mind, you only picked up on the negative comment about your friend.

We can’t really trust our long term memory to be 100% accurate and I bet if you asked your parents, they would give you an alternative memory account of what happened on that day.

Sorry I disagree with a lot of PP. They were unsympathetic in the extreme. She was in an embarrassing and worrying predicament.

Both my parents are able to recognise that THEY have feelings but are completely unable to recognise, accept or validate my feelings. It's sadly like very selective deafness. They literally do not hear me at all as soon as it's about how I feel. They possess the ability to filter this out of paragraphs while reacting to all other information.

So as a child ALL my emotions were inconvenient. This is very damaging and it has taken me into my 40s to unknit it. Could this be what you are grappling with?

I hate having parties, by the time the parents come to pick up children I am waving them away with joy.

If a parent didn't show up to pick up their child for HALF AN HOUR, I would be raging. I hope i would be lovely to the child if she was worried and reassure her but I might also be stressed and needing to get on with other things and want this party shite over with.

Your parents had a big party for you and both went to your party too.

No parent is perfect. Have you asked them what their memory of the day was, there might have been other things going on in the background that you were unaware of.

I do think it's a strange thing to be thinking of after all this time.

However, I do think in the same situation, I would try to be much more understanding.

When I was 10, another parent made a catty remark about my mum not turning up for her first stint of library duty in my school. I was a bit worried and a little embarrassed!

A short while later, I was collected from school by a neighbour. My mum had taken an aneurysm.

It has always stuck with me that that parent had a dig at my mum, via me, without even knowing her.

How old are you, OP?

I'm pushing sixty, so was 13/14 in the mid 70's, my parents were born in the late 20's/early 30's, when emotions were repressed like there was no tomorrow. Your upbringing sounds very much like mine - any kind of raised voice (even with joy) was sssshed, pretty much anything I did was 'showing off', there was no discussion over upsets or emotional turmoil, we were just left to get on with it and sort it ourselves. Girls were quiet and well behaved, boys were boisterous and liable to accident.

It was how they were brought up by their Edwardian parents. No doubt there are things that we do as parents now that will make future generations widen their eyes in shock.

So could it be a generational thing?