It's All My Parents' Fault?

And you haven't mentioned the genes they pass on yet!

The bastards.

With this kind of thing, it's hard to draw the line between fault and blame.

The former is useful if it helps you to understand where certain behaviour patterns come from - in an effort to change or compensate other otherwise cope.

The latter isn't helpful at all. It's just wasteful negativity.

Oh god, I'm using words like "negativity" that's totally my mother speaking.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I find few things more upsetting than realizing that qualities/behavior I don't like in myself are basically just inherited/copied (unknowingly/subconsciously) from my parents. Doubly so when I also realize that their good qualities DON'T seem to have been passed on.

Think how they must feel. ;)

At least they had some good qualities.

As someone said upthread, it is fine, and can be productive, to recognize where elements of yourself/your life which make you unhappy originate from. But be careful not to let yourself think that someone or some outside force (this includes more than just parents) are the sole cause for your misery. If you give this power to someone else you are also giving over the power to bring good into your life.

"I looked forward to having children; imagine how I felt when you showed up." -- Professor Wagstaff to son

it's hard to draw the line between fault and blame.

Doesn't the word "fault" imply that you are, in fact, assessing blame, though? Like if I say, "I don't fault my parents" or "I don't blame my parents," it's basically the same thing.

No, I don't think so. Maybe I'm relying on too fine a nuance of psychological meaning, but I have described two quite different attitudes.

What is that awful poem from? "Don't have any kids yourself" - your parents could have said the same thing.

OK, yeah, I re-read your post. Judging "faults" is difficult, though. The insistence that someone could have made a different decision if...if what?

Or maybe not - I suppose judging a fault doesn't necessarily imply that you're insisting that they could have called on something within themselves to do things differently.

See, I just don't find that attitude helpful. You are what you are, whether your parents made you, or your environment, or whatever. Playing the "what if...?" game is useless. It's not a question of saying "I'd be different if..." but trying to understand *why* you are the way you are (including the things that made you so) in an attempt to try *yourself* to behave in a different way.

You can't change the past, you can't change what other people did to you. But you can try to change your reactions to those things. And part of changing the reactions is understanding why you have those reactions in the first place.

Oh god, I'm going all CBT now, and it's sickening me.

I mean, one of the mistakes my parents made with us was only ever praising us for our *accomplishments*, rather than accepting us no matter who we were. I mean, who knew that would be a bad thing, right? Achievement oriented kids are great, yeah?

Well, I scored in the 99th percentile of the SAT, and I brought my scores home and my mum said "why not 100?" Like, not understanding that it only WENT to 99. But I've still got that little perfectionist voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm never good enough. That people will never like me just for me, but people will only ever like me for the things I do.

It doesn't help to blame my mum or get angry with her, it's in the past. But it does help understand why I sometimes get so unhappy with myself. That I'm unable to see any inherent worth in myself, rather than in my achievements. And hopefully "this is why I'm like this" leads me to recognise the triggers and build a workaround.

Sorry, that was an x-post to your second of the three posts there.

That people will never like me just for me, but people will only ever like me for the things I do.

I don't understand - what are you besides the things you do?

ho boy, those of us who do nothing are worried about that one.

did you just call Shakey "ho boy?"

an interesting factor in this if you're a believer is that we actually chose our present incarnation and our parents

My Mother left me in a room by myself for much of my childhood (joint custody, so about half of my week), which indeed sucked. It made for much emotional carnage down the road which cost me dearly. So indeed, that is a starting point, and there is no way to separate the eventual path from that starting point. So I don't know. When things suck like that (like, for sexual molestation victims), I find it wearying to separate out portions of blame.

I'm sorry was that too downer for ILX? Should I have put an amirite at the end of that? Amirite?!?

No, I just don't care to get anymore involved in a discussion that will veer too personal.

Then it's not personal, just theoretical. It doesn't matter to me anymore.

No, personal for me. I've already said all I can say objectively on this thread.

For various reasons related to my parental relationship circa 16-17, and the downward spiral that followed I have a difficult thinking of myself as having a future or living into middle/old age (hope in general). I revise my expectations downward every six months - I'm hoping for a mobile home in the middle of nowhere and a moonshine still these days.

My issues with them are petty in comparison to abandonment/abuse, and they were great in other ways (particularly when I was younger), but feel like huge betrayals in my mind, and I'll probably never get past them.

My parents recently stayed with me for a week and it was sort of funny to realize how much of what I'm like is based on what they are as well as how they behaved when I was a kid.

My mom sort of lives in her own sheltered world where what she knows and likes is really all that matters - there is no other way. And if she discovers a different way, it's wrong. If you are good at something, you must do it even if you don't like it. Compliments are all backhanded. What others think of you is the most important thing. Helping people isn't necessarily because you honestly like to do so, but because it makes you appear better. She also has a sort of odd affinity for TV shows where people get yelled at for doing things wrong, and she loves to see them fail.

It made me realize where a lot of my fucked up issues about myself came from. I don't live near them anymore so it isn't a big deal, but it's kind of startling to see all this and have it be so obvious now.

i can't tell whether i'll only be able to stop blaming them when i forgive myself, or whether it's vice-versa

Seems like it's part of the essence of adulthood to realize that mom and/or dad did x, y, and z wrong but there's not a damn thing they can do to fix it now, so I'm going to have to fix it myself.

this thread makes me feel weird for not having any big issues with my parents or thinking they fucked me up somehow

I mean THEY don't seem super-happy about how their marriage turned out (and ended) but I don't feel like they screwed me up while raising me at all. Their unhappiness is their own problem.

I saw how things were going between my brother and my father, and retreated to my room for my teen years; comic books, rock and roll, and pulpy genre fiction raised me. My brother tried to retreat too, but sex, drugs and alcohol were worse parents. By the time he was old enough to make his own decisions, he was too addled and addicted to make good ones. So yeah, my father has to take a lot of blame for how my brother (and I, I guess) turned out, but the amount of blame I assign rises and falls over the years.

What is that awful poem from? "Don't have any kids yourself" - your parents could have said the same thing.

-- Tim Ellison, Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:09 (4 days ago) Link

It's Phillip Larkin's "This Be The Verse". It wasn't meant to be any kind of comment on anyone, it's merely the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title...

Question: Should parents be supportive of their kids' dreams, no matter how outlandish, or should they be the cold, harsh voice of total honesty and tell you just how unattainable they are?

(Prompted by yet another argument with my mum this weekend.)

Has anyone ever actually experienced the former? Was it any good for you?

No, they should not be supportive. Up to a degree but completely utterly? I mean, if I had come to my parents and said:"I WANNA BE A MATHMATICIAM!" I would not want them to say "Yes! Of course! You can be whatever you want to be!"

I don't believe it can be "all" my (or your) parents' fault. They give us a push and a tug but apart from that, once you have left the parental, house much of what you do or how you act is your own "fault." I don't mean that you aren't influenced by your parents, it's just that your actions are still "your" actions. Looking at my dad, he was horribly abused but never did that to me. Someone else, who abuses their kid, might give their own abuse as an excuse. I'm rambling. There are times when I think:"GOD NO, I'm just like my mother!" but then I realize that this is just *luck* or that could be because we're both women (whatever that means ey?).

There's YOU, there's your FAMILY and there's YOUR ENVIRONMENT. All play a role in your actions.

Obv if I asked if I could be a speller they'd call me a moron

I just don't think it's really fair for parents to poke little holes in one's self esteem, constantly. I do enough of that myself, I don't need my mum doing it as well.

I don't rubbish her dreams and aspirations, why does she feel like she must rubbish mine?

Argh, no wonder I dreamed last night that she drove our car (with me in it) over the side of a bridge. It was terribly realistic, total nightmare, I couldn't get back to sleep for nearly an hour.

xpost

You are bilingual, this is good.

My parents didn't give a shit what I did so I don't have personal experience here. But in watching people close to me be parents and thinking of the type of parent I'd like to be, I imagine it's a delicate balance of nurturing and teaching. Genearlly speaking, of course parents should be kind and nurturing in whatever they do but isn't part of their role to help their children make good choices in life? Of course they are human and may be wrong. But as an adult you are also free to ignore their advice. If parents are always blindly encouraging of their children, they are probably not doing their job well. Tough love, right?

On a lighter note, I had excellent parents, to whom I am eternally grateful. Strange to say, I can't recall much of what they did or said that was so wonderful. My impression is that most of the time, I was roaming the neighborhood with my mates, or attending school, or engaged in some other childish pastime. It's just that I emerged from childhood feeling wholly loved and supported and fiercely protected, and I love them wholly in return, so I know they must have been doing things right.

I don't rubbish her dreams and aspirations, why does she feel like she must rubbish mine?

She shouldn't. There is a difference between telling you that you can be whatever you want, uncritically and unquestioningly, and telling you that you will never be what you want.

My mother was always a great supporter of a plan. Even if the plan seemed a bit far-fetched, she was always happy to stand behind you if you had any set of steps or any kind of process worked out in order to help you achieve what you wanted. It worked fine for one of us, at least.

Aimless it is obv. their fault that you have turned out to be so well and happy.

It is strange to think about. I can see the confluence of family traits as it merged from both sides of the equation, and it seems my parents' good parenting was just an odd bit of good fortune for me.

My mom probably could boast the higher IQ number of the two of them, but my dad was no slouch in the intelligence division and he was the real parenting genius of the two, the one who had the greater emotional and intuitive ability. There was nothing he couldn't make right.

Matched with another dad my mom would have been a much weaker contributor. He was the emotional rock we all looked to - 100% reliable, in thick or thin. My mom, however, was a great teacher, esp. in the realm of ethics. She could make doing right seem simple and obvious, even to a six year old. Together they smoothed out each other's weaknesses pretty well.

It also helped that I was the youngest, so they had some solid experience under their belt by the time they started on me. Call it accidental riches. I'm one lucky cuss. Nothing else good in my life even comes close to having them for parents. Shit, they even 'raised' some of the neighbor kids just by sheer force of character.

It really freaks me out when I feel my face making the exact same expression that my father would make in a given situation. I seem to have inherited my parents wierd facial tics more than anything else.

ahh, I waver so much on my decision to have kids. I want them but lately have felt that maybe the wanting isn't enough cause. But, based on your description Aimless, I really feel G. and I would be great parents together.