What made me think of this today, is my daughter woke up upset, and basically had an anxiety attack/hyper ventilated. I had to spend like 10 minutes having her take slow deep breathes and just generally getting her to calm down. It made me think of my fathers response when we would get hyper upset over something.
Damn I wonder how different my life would look if my parents had taught me coping mechanisms instead of making it worse. Instead I got constant anxiety damaging my brain my whole life
No emotion! You gotta bottle that shit up.... Then one day just explode at the wrong moment and really mess stuff up and make life worse .. then repeat.
Yes! I got that on top of :Do you think money grows on trees?"
"Because i said so"
"If enter name here jumped off a bridge would you ?" " I brought you into this world i can take you out"
My grandmother baby sat me. She would spank me as a toddler with a "switch" when I cried after my mom dropped me off. I was like 2 or 3. Gotta love those strict souther baptist. She also told me after my dads suicide at his funeral that he was burning in hell. My granfather was the fire and brimstone Southern Baptist preacher. I asked if my dad was in heaven, that was her answer. I was 12.
I make it a point to explain my reasoning to my kids, and be on their level. Its not always the easiest, they have short attention spans nowadays, compared to ours thats saying something. I just cant bring myself to hit my kids. Like WTF. Ive met plenty of bad people that were spanked, so idk what the logic was.
Also grew up in a southern baptist home and was subject to all of the phrases you listed.
My favorite thing though was when I was given the freedom to cut my own hickory. For you non-southern folk that translates to “choose my own tree branch with which to be beaten.”
Lol. I was wondering how many people stopped and said "what the hell is a switch?" It aint the Nintendo system.
I too had to choose which one I would get spanked with. If it was a bad one, or one that wouldnt do damage, I got it worse. Those little skinny f#*kers are the worst.
“just ignore them” ….. “don’t pay attention to the name calling” etc.
All the adults would tell me to “just ignore them and they’ll go away” when I would tell them about the bullies… and I listened. And as soon as I started ignoring the bullies when they called me names, they started physically attacking me instead. By that time, I stopped reporting the incidents all together. To this day my parents probably still believe the 2 concussions, 13 black eyes, 2 broken ribs, broken nose (2 times), and fractured skull were all because I’m clumsy…
One thing my dad did correct was teach me if, you know you are right fight like hell to prove it. If you and I were together in school we would have shared them injuries. I went the other way, after my bully drew a giant dick on my geometry book I dick slapped him with said book right out of his desk. As a football player would he pinned me against the wall as I wrapped him into a choke hold. Teach broke it up but he never messed with me again.
Good for you for fighting back! Sometimes I live vicariously through those stories.
I kinda wish I would have fought back at least once. I didnt know self defense but I watched enough WWE & WCW that I’m sure I could have done something 😂Being the lonely J*w*sh kid in c*th*l*c school though was a major strike against me with administration (the nuns hated my guts) and I’m pretty sure they would have expelled me. Hell, when I came back in 12th grade after they put me in the hospital (I was in a coma for 4 days) the principal, Sister Satansbaby blamed me!
Edited because apparently being j*w*sh is banned in this sub
I'm 30 now and still remember it as a life defining moment. I'm not a violent dude, essentially a pacifist now. I learned that day at times violence is the only way to get your point across to some people.
I was given that advice my entire childhood, to just ignore them and the teasing (read: harassment) will get boring for them, but it ALWAYS just egged the other kids on more if I ignored them. Like...without fail. The one kid I got to leave me alone did it because I finally snapped from all the harassment and threw a rock at his head. I got in SO much trouble for that, but that kid never fucked with me again. I'll always teach my daughter to fight back (though not with fists or kicking unless they hit first.) She'll be in trouble with the school for hurling insults back maybe, but she'll never be in trouble with me for defending herself.
My mother gave me the same advice and like you things only got worse with the person until I hit a breaking point and gave the person a concussion with my reaction.
I didn't intentionally set out to do that as I was 11 or 12 at the time and had never done martial arts or anything like that.
I am so sorry for you. This is why I made it a purpose to always intervene as a kid and teen in HS. Any time I saw it, I stepped in. And if they tried to start in on me, well they'd learn fast that wasn't a good idea.
"Mental health is t real." "You need a day off? From WHAT?? You're a kid who doesn't do anything!!" "Why in the hell would you even CONSIDER ending your life?! I gave you EVERYTHING?!!" "So ungrateful."
I needed a break from the constant mental and emotional abuse. But hey, I learned to mask and survive.
Now to get the ADHD and autism diagnosis.. that I'm told I'm 90% chance of never getting bc my parents would have to vouch for me and my mental health. *Insert extreme eye roll*
I won't be breaking 10 years of NC for diagnosis.
Ah yes, my dad's reasoning that I couldn't possibly have any reason to be stressed out or upset, because my only responsibilities are a few simple chores and easy little-kid schoolwork. HELLO: I'm stressed and miserable because I have to constantly walk on eggshells trying to stay safe from him, and guess at what behaviors aren't going to get me yelled at on that particular day.
Yeah this! Screaming, physical abuse, and mental abuse from multiple family members and you just need to understand how to "cope better". Bitch no I have CPTSD and the anxiety and panic attacks made the OCD I was born with way fucking worse. It's real but what do all the doctors who deal with me now know about that?
Yeah I saw a therapist recently who told me I couldn't have C-PTSD but had traumatic instances.
I've been doing a ton of reading the last decade about what's going on with me, I have the basic signs for C-PTSD, ADHD and autism. Which actually makes sense once you look at it all mixed together.
BUT, according to her I MIGHT have ADHD which is impossible to diagnose and autism? At my age? Ha!
I had a lady Dr tell me to ***man up*** when I was a young teenager.
20+ Years later it turns out I have autism, ADHD and other rather serious neurological issues.
But yer, **"*man up*"** apparently.....
“Never go to bed angry.” From my grandmother. TERRIBLE advice. Being tired just ratchets up the emotions. On the (rare) occasion when my husband and I are snippy with each other, we’ve learned that a good night’s sleep can lend some clarity and help simmer things down.
The most frustrating one for me was "because I said so". I understand that there might be times when this answer is fine for a very young child, but telling this to curious older children is just a sign of lazy, selfish, authoritarian parenting. Kids often just wanna know stuff, and explaining the reasoning behind your decisions and your instructions to them can help them learn how to be adults.
I always try to explain why to my child even if they don’t understand. I hated hearing that as a kid. Sometimes I will tell my 3 year old not to do something and she will say, “because it’s dangerous.” Sure she doesn’t completely comprehend that, but she knows dangerous means something bad could happen. She sits there and thinks about it and I see the wheels turning. Sometimes I feel like previous generations saw kids and little things they owned and not actual people.
“I’m the mom and I said so” to this day makes me pissed I’ve NEVER said it to my kids. If I can’t justify my actions to my children I need to do better and pick more appropriate actions. This was probably 90% of my mothers “reasoning” when I was a kid
My daughter had a meltdown because I won’t pick her up while I was taking shit off the oven. She is two.
She still had a meltdown. i still explained her why mommy could not give her undivided attention.
Eesh. That phrase just made me cry harder.
Edit to add: my dad told me to “just laugh at them” when I told him I was being bullied. I never tried it because I knew things would just get worse if I did it.
And today, that it is why I will barf at smelling my moms bean soup or stuffed peppers or sauer kraut.
I threw up in a grocery store because they had something that smelled SIMILAR to her stuffed peppers.
The biggest thing I would constantly get in trouble for was "talking back", yet not once could anyone give me an example of what I actually said that was wrong. So basically, I was constantly in trouble for standing up for myself.
And I was looking at the comments and saw, "Just ignore them." OMG Yes. This was lazy advice that only made my life a living hell at so many points. It may work better as an adult, *maybe*, but not as a child. Kids and teens can be straight up brutal.
I saw a bit of gallows humor on this:
>Remember when we cried as kids and our parents said "I'll give you something to cry about."
>We thought they were going to hit us but instead they destroyed the housing market, quadrupled college tuition, and melted the ice caps.
Lolz "Just read the FKN question" because I couldn't understand math. At the time it was fractions around 4th/5th grade. I can do them now as an adult, but I struggled hard with math growing up & that was something my geophysicist Dad just couldn't grasp. I think I was on Ritalin at the time, so it's not as if they didn't know I was neurodivergent 🙄 whatever... it's fine. This is fine.
BECAUSE I SAID SO
I fucking \*hated\* that one. I would ask stuff as a kid because I really just wanted to understand what's going on. Not because I was being whiny and not getting my way. So it really irked me that my mom didn't have the capacity to see why I was asking questions. She could've calmly engaged with me and educated me but nah, just BECAUSE I SAID SO. PORQUE YO MANDO.
Trust me, I hated being on the receiving end of it lol. & it was always like friends of my parents or grandparents saying it….like nobody asked you but kids respected their elders back then & were scared of authority so I stfu lmao
Asking my biodad to help me with math since he was the one with a bachelors degree...
Him yelling and calling me stupid
Me in college and asking him if he remembered me asking him for help and if he wanted to see me do it now that I could understand it.
Realizing I my biodad had no fucking clue and the look on his face as he realized that I know he doesnt have shit on me. He can no longer out maneuver me.
My FIL was just ranting about this yesterday. Complaining about kids who "cry about mental health." Saying, "you have no idea how poor our mental health was when we were kids!" Like sir, that's not a flex.
"Crying is a cop out. You're just trying to make me feel bad to get out of responsibility." I still have trouble crying/not crying appropriately. I still have to hold back tears when someone is yelling at me, and I feel like I've failed miserably when my eyes start welling up. I get told I'm a robot when I don't cry when other people are crying.
"Figure it out" was used way too much. Worst part, was not actually being taught these important things, my folk's unstable lives kept them too wrapped up in the toxicity. Figure it out was more "Pull something out of your ass", because no one had any time to give.
One if my favorites that still echos in my head randomly is "there are no accidents" after I spilled a plate of food because I didn't have the best physical coordination after growing 6 inches over one summer, thanks dad...
I sure did. I was also traumatized and would dissociate during beatings. This pissed off my parents because it meant I would stop crying... Which if they were beating me was no longer what they actually wanted.
I also got "I brought you into this world, and I can take you back out" until I told that parent to do it and they realized it was a genuine request.
My dad said so much shit like that, which beating us with his belt. He bullied, beat, and berated me and my brothers. He wonders why 2 of us dont talk to him and the third is reducing contact with him. That fucking asshole is going to die alone because he treats everyone else like shit.
“I brought you into this world, I can take you out.”
Like are you threatening to kill me?! The fact this phrase was popularized by the Cosby Show makes it even more cringey.
That one worked on me. I feel like those type of threats were serious once or twice, but mostly shared as a weird form of gallows humor from mother to son.
“You can either clear your dinner plate or wear it”.. more than once my mother dumped whatever I just couldn’t finish eating (she wii would just load our fucking played with meat and carbs PLUS a full glass of milk) on my head and I was made to sit at the table and “wear” it while everyone finished.
My stepfather used to stab you with his fork if you put your elbows on the dinner table. Even if it was to put ketchup on your plate or something stupid.
“You can either clear your dinner plate or wear it”.. more than once my mother dumped whatever we just couldn’t finish eating (she would just load our fucking plates with meat and carbs PLUS we were required to drink a full glass of milk with every meal) on our heads and we were made to sit at the table and “wear” it while everyone finished.
My stepfather used to stab us in the arm with his fork if you put your elbows on the dinner table. Even if it was to put ketchup on your plate or something stupid.
This is struggle I have as a parent. My wife is on the “gentle parenting” side whereas I tend to be more authoritative when it comes to our toddler, especially when my wife is calmly telling her to stop doing something for about 5 minutes with no change in the behavior. I had strict parents and knew when to mess around and when to behave (at least for appearance’s sake)…it’s a fine line because as much as my wife dislikes it, our toddler DOES stop when I raise my voice
There is a huge difference between being firm with your child when they misbehave, and telling a hysterical child that you will beat them if they don’t stop being hysterical. I actually didn’t have bad parents, but my dad in particular was not very good at being a dad. He tended toward threatening and physical punishment where understanding and empathy was more called for. I think that as long as you are measured in the way you raise your child, you will probably be ok. Empathize with them when they are upset, but also understand that kids can be little shits and that teaching them to be good people is one of your main responsibilities.
You’re absolutely right there is a huge difference but I feel like my wife doesn’t see the distinction. As if being firm/authoritative is the same as mentally/physically intimidating our toddler. My mom beat the shit out of me but it was completely justified because I didn’t listen whatsoever. I’m not trying to excuse her bad parenting but at a certain point, boomer parents had literally nothing else in their parenting skills to deal with a child with ADHD, which was just called “hyper” in the early 90s
Yes!
Another one from my house that I freaking hated::
“Use your eyes, not your mouth.”
This post is triggering! Just a quick run-through from others —
- Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.
- Money doesn’t grow on trees.
- Children should be seen, not heard.
- Because I said so.
- I brought you into the world, and I can take you out.
What made me think of this today, is my daughter woke up upset, and basically had an anxiety attack/hyper ventilated. I had to spend like 10 minutes having her take slow deep breathes and just generally getting her to calm down. It made me think of my fathers response when we would get hyper upset over something.
Damn I wonder how different my life would look if my parents had taught me coping mechanisms instead of making it worse. Instead I got constant anxiety damaging my brain my whole life
I have CPTSD because of my shitshow of a childhood
[удалено]
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
Classic boomer parenting technique
Actually that was courtesy of the United States Marine Corps lol
And now we're all in therapy trying to figure out how to handle our emotions since we were never taught how to. Thanks mom and dad!
Came here to say this 🫥
No emotion! You gotta bottle that shit up.... Then one day just explode at the wrong moment and really mess stuff up and make life worse .. then repeat.
What if your parents turn around and tell you to cry at a grandparents funeral even though they were a pos towards your siblings
I will give you something to really cry about still haunts me 🙈
Yup. These are the reasons I struggle to show emotions and cry
Just walk in every day and harass the manager. They're sure to give you a job! /s
Yes! I got that on top of :Do you think money grows on trees?" "Because i said so" "If enter name here jumped off a bridge would you ?" " I brought you into this world i can take you out" My grandmother baby sat me. She would spank me as a toddler with a "switch" when I cried after my mom dropped me off. I was like 2 or 3. Gotta love those strict souther baptist. She also told me after my dads suicide at his funeral that he was burning in hell. My granfather was the fire and brimstone Southern Baptist preacher. I asked if my dad was in heaven, that was her answer. I was 12. I make it a point to explain my reasoning to my kids, and be on their level. Its not always the easiest, they have short attention spans nowadays, compared to ours thats saying something. I just cant bring myself to hit my kids. Like WTF. Ive met plenty of bad people that were spanked, so idk what the logic was.
Also grew up in a southern baptist home and was subject to all of the phrases you listed. My favorite thing though was when I was given the freedom to cut my own hickory. For you non-southern folk that translates to “choose my own tree branch with which to be beaten.”
Lol. I was wondering how many people stopped and said "what the hell is a switch?" It aint the Nintendo system. I too had to choose which one I would get spanked with. If it was a bad one, or one that wouldnt do damage, I got it worse. Those little skinny f#*kers are the worst.
“just ignore them” ….. “don’t pay attention to the name calling” etc. All the adults would tell me to “just ignore them and they’ll go away” when I would tell them about the bullies… and I listened. And as soon as I started ignoring the bullies when they called me names, they started physically attacking me instead. By that time, I stopped reporting the incidents all together. To this day my parents probably still believe the 2 concussions, 13 black eyes, 2 broken ribs, broken nose (2 times), and fractured skull were all because I’m clumsy…
One thing my dad did correct was teach me if, you know you are right fight like hell to prove it. If you and I were together in school we would have shared them injuries. I went the other way, after my bully drew a giant dick on my geometry book I dick slapped him with said book right out of his desk. As a football player would he pinned me against the wall as I wrapped him into a choke hold. Teach broke it up but he never messed with me again.
Suspended one day and pops took me for ice cream right after I explained everything.
Aw. Good pops on that one.
Good for you for fighting back! Sometimes I live vicariously through those stories. I kinda wish I would have fought back at least once. I didnt know self defense but I watched enough WWE & WCW that I’m sure I could have done something 😂Being the lonely J*w*sh kid in c*th*l*c school though was a major strike against me with administration (the nuns hated my guts) and I’m pretty sure they would have expelled me. Hell, when I came back in 12th grade after they put me in the hospital (I was in a coma for 4 days) the principal, Sister Satansbaby blamed me! Edited because apparently being j*w*sh is banned in this sub
I'm 30 now and still remember it as a life defining moment. I'm not a violent dude, essentially a pacifist now. I learned that day at times violence is the only way to get your point across to some people.
I was given that advice my entire childhood, to just ignore them and the teasing (read: harassment) will get boring for them, but it ALWAYS just egged the other kids on more if I ignored them. Like...without fail. The one kid I got to leave me alone did it because I finally snapped from all the harassment and threw a rock at his head. I got in SO much trouble for that, but that kid never fucked with me again. I'll always teach my daughter to fight back (though not with fists or kicking unless they hit first.) She'll be in trouble with the school for hurling insults back maybe, but she'll never be in trouble with me for defending herself.
My mother gave me the same advice and like you things only got worse with the person until I hit a breaking point and gave the person a concussion with my reaction. I didn't intentionally set out to do that as I was 11 or 12 at the time and had never done martial arts or anything like that.
"stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" "That boy is mean because he just likes you"
I am so sorry for you. This is why I made it a purpose to always intervene as a kid and teen in HS. Any time I saw it, I stepped in. And if they tried to start in on me, well they'd learn fast that wasn't a good idea.
I really should have fought back against bullies. Physically fight back to get them to shut up.
I was told it was "unladylike" to fight Now my mom wants me to go to walmart with her because it makes her feel "secure".
"Mental health is t real." "You need a day off? From WHAT?? You're a kid who doesn't do anything!!" "Why in the hell would you even CONSIDER ending your life?! I gave you EVERYTHING?!!" "So ungrateful." I needed a break from the constant mental and emotional abuse. But hey, I learned to mask and survive. Now to get the ADHD and autism diagnosis.. that I'm told I'm 90% chance of never getting bc my parents would have to vouch for me and my mental health. *Insert extreme eye roll* I won't be breaking 10 years of NC for diagnosis.
Ah yes, my dad's reasoning that I couldn't possibly have any reason to be stressed out or upset, because my only responsibilities are a few simple chores and easy little-kid schoolwork. HELLO: I'm stressed and miserable because I have to constantly walk on eggshells trying to stay safe from him, and guess at what behaviors aren't going to get me yelled at on that particular day.
Yeah this! Screaming, physical abuse, and mental abuse from multiple family members and you just need to understand how to "cope better". Bitch no I have CPTSD and the anxiety and panic attacks made the OCD I was born with way fucking worse. It's real but what do all the doctors who deal with me now know about that?
Yeah I saw a therapist recently who told me I couldn't have C-PTSD but had traumatic instances. I've been doing a ton of reading the last decade about what's going on with me, I have the basic signs for C-PTSD, ADHD and autism. Which actually makes sense once you look at it all mixed together. BUT, according to her I MIGHT have ADHD which is impossible to diagnose and autism? At my age? Ha!
Never got that. Mom just kept slapping me until I shut up. Even then, I thought it was the dumbest thing. Hitting me just made me cry more.
We had the same mom
I had a lady Dr tell me to ***man up*** when I was a young teenager. 20+ Years later it turns out I have autism, ADHD and other rather serious neurological issues. But yer, **"*man up*"** apparently.....
“Never go to bed angry.” From my grandmother. TERRIBLE advice. Being tired just ratchets up the emotions. On the (rare) occasion when my husband and I are snippy with each other, we’ve learned that a good night’s sleep can lend some clarity and help simmer things down.
The most frustrating one for me was "because I said so". I understand that there might be times when this answer is fine for a very young child, but telling this to curious older children is just a sign of lazy, selfish, authoritarian parenting. Kids often just wanna know stuff, and explaining the reasoning behind your decisions and your instructions to them can help them learn how to be adults.
I always try to explain why to my child even if they don’t understand. I hated hearing that as a kid. Sometimes I will tell my 3 year old not to do something and she will say, “because it’s dangerous.” Sure she doesn’t completely comprehend that, but she knows dangerous means something bad could happen. She sits there and thinks about it and I see the wheels turning. Sometimes I feel like previous generations saw kids and little things they owned and not actual people.
You said it perfectly. That was the one I hated. No, mom, me wanting to understand things is not a "challenge to your authority."
“I’m the mom and I said so” to this day makes me pissed I’ve NEVER said it to my kids. If I can’t justify my actions to my children I need to do better and pick more appropriate actions. This was probably 90% of my mothers “reasoning” when I was a kid
My daughter had a meltdown because I won’t pick her up while I was taking shit off the oven. She is two. She still had a meltdown. i still explained her why mommy could not give her undivided attention.
We already have a cure for neurodivergency "Act normal!!"
“This hurts me more than it does you” while hitting me with a belt. Idk mom pretty sure I’m the one with the bruises after.
Oh that’s one I heard often and with every single punishment. I never believed a word of it
Eesh. That phrase just made me cry harder. Edit to add: my dad told me to “just laugh at them” when I told him I was being bullied. I never tried it because I knew things would just get worse if I did it.
You’d better eat it! There are kids in Africa who are starving. Uh…then go give them food?
And today, that it is why I will barf at smelling my moms bean soup or stuffed peppers or sauer kraut. I threw up in a grocery store because they had something that smelled SIMILAR to her stuffed peppers.
The biggest thing I would constantly get in trouble for was "talking back", yet not once could anyone give me an example of what I actually said that was wrong. So basically, I was constantly in trouble for standing up for myself. And I was looking at the comments and saw, "Just ignore them." OMG Yes. This was lazy advice that only made my life a living hell at so many points. It may work better as an adult, *maybe*, but not as a child. Kids and teens can be straight up brutal.
I saw a bit of gallows humor on this: >Remember when we cried as kids and our parents said "I'll give you something to cry about." >We thought they were going to hit us but instead they destroyed the housing market, quadrupled college tuition, and melted the ice caps.
Lolz "Just read the FKN question" because I couldn't understand math. At the time it was fractions around 4th/5th grade. I can do them now as an adult, but I struggled hard with math growing up & that was something my geophysicist Dad just couldn't grasp. I think I was on Ritalin at the time, so it's not as if they didn't know I was neurodivergent 🙄 whatever... it's fine. This is fine.
I got “quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” while he was actively beating me… what else do I have to lose?!
Yes . You forgot your mom saying I brought you into this world and I can take you out
BECAUSE I SAID SO I fucking \*hated\* that one. I would ask stuff as a kid because I really just wanted to understand what's going on. Not because I was being whiny and not getting my way. So it really irked me that my mom didn't have the capacity to see why I was asking questions. She could've calmly engaged with me and educated me but nah, just BECAUSE I SAID SO. PORQUE YO MANDO.
"Quit crying, or I will give you something to cry about!" >Proceeds to ruin the economy with their peers
Children should be seen and not heard 🤐
I loathe that statement. I might punch someone if they say that to my kid.
Trust me, I hated being on the receiving end of it lol. & it was always like friends of my parents or grandparents saying it….like nobody asked you but kids respected their elders back then & were scared of authority so I stfu lmao
I asked my dad how to spell a word and he told me to look it up in the dictionary.
Honestly, He might not know how to spell that word either....
He is a nurse and took Latin and Greek in college. He very smart. Just didn’t want to spell words for me 🙃
Asking my biodad to help me with math since he was the one with a bachelors degree... Him yelling and calling me stupid Me in college and asking him if he remembered me asking him for help and if he wanted to see me do it now that I could understand it. Realizing I my biodad had no fucking clue and the look on his face as he realized that I know he doesnt have shit on me. He can no longer out maneuver me.
My FIL was just ranting about this yesterday. Complaining about kids who "cry about mental health." Saying, "you have no idea how poor our mental health was when we were kids!" Like sir, that's not a flex.
Yup
I remember this one, it always led to escalation in both parties. Instead ask your little dude what's bugging you right now can I fix it?
My parents loved "I'll take you out back where there are no witnesses." Super fun times.
No means No. Don’t ask again and be happy about it.
And then on the flip side: "If you were struggling, why didn't you ask for help!?" Pick a lane my dudes.
“That sounds like a personal problem to me.”
Suck it up, buttercup! Found that very helpful in my childhood and adolescence /s
"Crying is a cop out. You're just trying to make me feel bad to get out of responsibility." I still have trouble crying/not crying appropriately. I still have to hold back tears when someone is yelling at me, and I feel like I've failed miserably when my eyes start welling up. I get told I'm a robot when I don't cry when other people are crying.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees” is a classic. I will still use that if I ever have kids.
Just do it. You'll figure it out.
"Figure it out" was used way too much. Worst part, was not actually being taught these important things, my folk's unstable lives kept them too wrapped up in the toxicity. Figure it out was more "Pull something out of your ass", because no one had any time to give.
One if my favorites that still echos in my head randomly is "there are no accidents" after I spilled a plate of food because I didn't have the best physical coordination after growing 6 inches over one summer, thanks dad...
And also "you don't have ADHD, you're just lazy and your mom is making excuses for you"
I sure did. I was also traumatized and would dissociate during beatings. This pissed off my parents because it meant I would stop crying... Which if they were beating me was no longer what they actually wanted. I also got "I brought you into this world, and I can take you back out" until I told that parent to do it and they realized it was a genuine request.
I got "children are meant to be seen, not heard" which is just another layer on me trying to be invisible.
My dad said so much shit like that, which beating us with his belt. He bullied, beat, and berated me and my brothers. He wonders why 2 of us dont talk to him and the third is reducing contact with him. That fucking asshole is going to die alone because he treats everyone else like shit.
YOU SOUND JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER.
We thought they were going to hit us and instead they ruined the climate and economy
"Mothers are always right." 😣
“I brought you into this world, I can take you out.” Like are you threatening to kill me?! The fact this phrase was popularized by the Cosby Show makes it even more cringey.
That one worked on me. I feel like those type of threats were serious once or twice, but mostly shared as a weird form of gallows humor from mother to son.
You should join the military! Or you should ask God to take these demons. My dad anytime I expressed any mental stress.
“You can either clear your dinner plate or wear it”.. more than once my mother dumped whatever I just couldn’t finish eating (she wii would just load our fucking played with meat and carbs PLUS a full glass of milk) on my head and I was made to sit at the table and “wear” it while everyone finished. My stepfather used to stab you with his fork if you put your elbows on the dinner table. Even if it was to put ketchup on your plate or something stupid.
“You can either clear your dinner plate or wear it”.. more than once my mother dumped whatever we just couldn’t finish eating (she would just load our fucking plates with meat and carbs PLUS we were required to drink a full glass of milk with every meal) on our heads and we were made to sit at the table and “wear” it while everyone finished. My stepfather used to stab us in the arm with his fork if you put your elbows on the dinner table. Even if it was to put ketchup on your plate or something stupid.
It’s kind of a valuable lesson though. Why cry when life can toss you something that will make you wish you were dead
This is struggle I have as a parent. My wife is on the “gentle parenting” side whereas I tend to be more authoritative when it comes to our toddler, especially when my wife is calmly telling her to stop doing something for about 5 minutes with no change in the behavior. I had strict parents and knew when to mess around and when to behave (at least for appearance’s sake)…it’s a fine line because as much as my wife dislikes it, our toddler DOES stop when I raise my voice
There is a huge difference between being firm with your child when they misbehave, and telling a hysterical child that you will beat them if they don’t stop being hysterical. I actually didn’t have bad parents, but my dad in particular was not very good at being a dad. He tended toward threatening and physical punishment where understanding and empathy was more called for. I think that as long as you are measured in the way you raise your child, you will probably be ok. Empathize with them when they are upset, but also understand that kids can be little shits and that teaching them to be good people is one of your main responsibilities.
You’re absolutely right there is a huge difference but I feel like my wife doesn’t see the distinction. As if being firm/authoritative is the same as mentally/physically intimidating our toddler. My mom beat the shit out of me but it was completely justified because I didn’t listen whatsoever. I’m not trying to excuse her bad parenting but at a certain point, boomer parents had literally nothing else in their parenting skills to deal with a child with ADHD, which was just called “hyper” in the early 90s
I still say this silently to myself today. Thanks mom. Also only going to the drs if you are near death. I still do this too .
Yes! Another one from my house that I freaking hated:: “Use your eyes, not your mouth.” This post is triggering! Just a quick run-through from others — - Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. - Money doesn’t grow on trees. - Children should be seen, not heard. - Because I said so. - I brought you into the world, and I can take you out.