Parents you can tell anything to and be heard without judgement, or a list of all your failings in life.
Parents you’re not afraid to tell that you tried for something, just in case you fail and it will be used against you for the rest of your life?
Just to clarify, I love my parents and know they love me back, but 10 minutes is literally the limit of co-existence
One of them doesn’t listen at all. He’s also dead so I’m willing to overlook his blatant lack of enthusiasm.
I have two great parents
My best friend has one, with the other one being an violent alcoholic
My SO has a brain damaged (literally) father and a hyper conspirational spiritual mother.
The more I learn about everyone else’s parents the more thankful I get
Mine are self-absorbed narcissists, so no. However what I really wanted to share is this book I read recently that was eye-opening to say the least (someone on Lemmy recommended it in another post):
“Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” by Lindsay Gibson.
Good luck out there.
Also this series/blog:
https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html
I’ve heard that’s a great book; that and “Im glad my mom died” by Jennette McCurdy
I read this book years ago and was disappointed by it. It’s basically a list of anecdotes shared with the author by clients mixed with descriptions of studies she’d read. She didn’t sound like she has any personal experience with the subject, or any real insight. The way she portrayed her clients, and children of immature parents in general, also bothered me. There’s the “good ones” who blame themselves for their parents’ behavior and are always the innocent victims, and the “bad ones” who blame someone else for everything and also sexually abuse their siblings. No depth or nuance in the way she sees the people she writes about, and no sympathy for children who react badly to their parents’ fuckery. The final thing I found lacking was that the book doesn’t really go into how to deal with immature parents: different ways of interacting with them that can be helpful, if and how to cut contact, etc. It’s all about helping people to realize that your parents treating you badly is a bad thing. Like, okay, but then what?I respect that the content is helpful to some people, but personally I regret spending $35 on it. Might be better to look for it at the library.
You might want to revisit it. She does provide a number of different ways to try dealing with them (including distancing yourself as one approach), and your own relationship tendencies. That’s what the last couple chapters are all about, actionable next steps. I personally walked away with a few new mental and behavioral approaches to try.
Nor does she characterize them (us?) into two groups, in fact she goes out of her way to explain that nearly every person this applies to has a mix of traits of differing degrees from internalizing and externalizing attributes. She also provides a number of exercises for helping to self-identify where you (and your parents) fall in the mix of various experiences, attributes, and behaviors. I didn’t take away any “good” / “bad” connotations, but rather various examples throughout the spectrum (including the extremes) of how abuse and reactions thereafter can vary greatly.
I interpreted it as her personal experience comes from her professional training, and treating many others. Granted she doesn’t say anything about her own parents, but honestly that would seem unprofessional to me if she had made it about herself.
I’m not sure what form it would take, in terms of sympathy from a psychology book, but she didn’t seem unsympathetic to me, just straightforward and sticking to facts.
Granted, I spent $0 on it since it was a library book. $35 does seem steep. I’d say like $15 would be appropriate.
From your description, it sounds like it might’ve been revised in the last few years. The version I bought, which was published in 2015, was rough. Maybe I will re-read it and see how it hits me now.
My parents are absolutely fantastic, they will always listen, do anything possible to help me in any way, and only ever think of what’s best for their kids.
They are calm, considerate, reasonable, smart, loving, and a great team.
I will never meet anybody else as fantastic human beings as them.
I can’t imagine having parents that are awful people, that must be such a terrible burden and impediment to healthy growth for a child :-(
My dad was like that, he was my safe person and would always celebrate my success, had wise advice and truly cared for my wellbeing. When I became a parent, many things from the way he taught me were passed on to my own kid. Then he died. That was ten years ago and I miss him everyday.
My mom was abusive all through me and my sibling’s upbringing, she stills is, mind you but I am very low contact/ on the brink of no contact now. As a mother myself, I have done the exact opposite of what she did to me so my kid is treated with respect, compassion, genuinecuriosity about their interests, acceptance and grace. They will not know what not being loved or unwanted feels like.
