Oh, my God, do you ever read something and find the rock in your stomach sinking down through it altogether to your knees? That’s how I felt about this article on adult children’s estrangement from their parents.
The title should have been my first clue that this was not going to be a very self-aware essay.
BUT OF COURSE I STILL CLICKED ON IT, YOU GUYS. Oh God, it’s very sad, of course, but it’s also so unsettling because it’s so vague about the cause of her children’s silence, which naturally makes one wonder what her part in the estrangement is and why she seems so unaware of her own behavior. It’s just “young people are narcissists, it’s sad but true, what can you do about it.”
Since I have been met with silence when trying to understand my children’s point of view, however, I have turned to studying estrangement. I have researched every article I could find on the topic, presented at conferences and co-authored a paper about estrangement. I started a private social network for those who are experiencing the same thing, and one thing is clear — there are literally thousands of stories just like mine…
Parents tell stories of ill-spoken words, of misunderstanding, of unhelpful interference from others. Much of what they describe, while conflict-laden and uncomfortable, doesn’t seem bad enough to have caused estrangement. The scenarios don’t appear to warrant a total cutoff. At least not according to the way I was raised. I hear that phrase a lot, too.
Can you imagine having to cut your parent off and then finding out they had started co-authoring academic papers and publishing articles online about the narcissism of your generation? That is probably not conducive to rapprochement!
Most of the parents I talk to are boomers, who share similar values and beliefs, including thoughts on how parents should be treated. The similarities I’ve seen in stories about how they lost contact with their children created a new direction for my research — our culture.
Specifically, I have directed my focus to the rise of narcissism among younger people. The topic is hot right now.
The book, The Narcissist Next Door, was released just last month by Jeffrey Kluger, science editor of Time magazine. Kluger writes: “Parents spend a lot of time ensuring their children have high self-esteem. You need a healthy ego to climb to the top of your profession. But when does self-regard become narcissism?”
Narcissism has been long been associated with the notion of entitlement, which typically suggests a lack of empathy, a feeling of superiority and a tendency to overreact to criticism.
So I wonder.
I…hoo boy.
My sons consistently refuse to reply to my emails and let my calls go to voicemail, or barely speak if they do answer. They accuse me of being a terrible person, but won’t elaborate about exactly what I’ve done. Well, sometimes they do, but it doesn’t make sense, at least to me. For example, it’s hard to be part of the birth of my grandchild if I didn’t know that I was going to have one!
All this started because of a personal email they felt entitled to read on my computer.
If they are like the adult children who responded to my site’s survey, they are probably suffering, as I am.
Good God, I have several hundred questions about this. They won’t elaborate, but they do? But she doesn’t seem to remember what they’ve said? What was in that email?
Normally I don’t recommend reading the comments, but in this case they’re actually full of (mostly gentle!) suggestions and questions for the author. This is somewhat chilling! If at some point in your life a family member feels they need to stop talking to you, I recommend not writing articles about them on the internet; just my Hot Take.
Tags: estrangement, family, hoo boy
“Narcissism has been long been associated with the notion of entitlement, which typically suggests a lack of empathy, a feeling of superiority and a tendency to overreact to criticism.”
I don’t think the author realizes she just described her own behavior.
I was thinking, “well someone here is a narcissist.”
Bingo.
Baby Boomers are notoriously bad at recognizing their own narcissism. There’s a reason they were called “The Me Generation” for so long. Now, as they age, they can’t stand the idea that the world does not revolve around them.
My thoughts exactly. My N-parent radar was screaming the entire time I was reading this.
“I believe that a culture of “self-esteem” — give everybody an award, change dress sizes so larger people feel smaller, allow teens to be disrespectful to those in authority — has set the tone and created a possible outcome I don’t think anyone expected: the idea that it’s OK to cut off contact with your parents.
When something, or more specifically, someone, no longer supports the view you have of yourself — get rid of them!”
Am I a narcissist if I agree with that last sentence?
If she thinks that ‘changing dress sizes so larger people feel smaller’ is part of what ‘self-esteem’ is, I can… begin to imagine why her sons have decided to cut contact.
Also I am not totally sure that that’s how current-day dress sizing works. I’m actually pretty sure that it’s the OPPOSITE of how current-day dress sizing works.
Nah, vanity sizing totally happens. I have beaten it by not wearing things that are sized by number now, though. I am always a Large and you can’t take that away from me
One of my aunts has, as a result, been a size twelve for over twenty years, from high school through birthing and raising three kids.
Also,
give everybody an award
What a hackneyed, lazy trope.
And really? Millenials were raised to think that their best was automatically good enough? Millenials were raised to think whatever college, whatever career they happen to stumble into, they’re truly winners in the game of life? Does that sound right to anyone?
Also what is that weird body judgment/dress size thing she slipped in there?
Did my MIL write this? She was always very concerned about everyone’s weight loss/gain sizes etc. (But we never cut her off, we just ignored that)
A clue to the sorts of reason her kids cut her off, probably.
Seriously. If she thinks that is why sizing makes no sense she is seriously delusional about how fat shaming the world actually is.
Also – this woman *worked in advertising* which means she *knows* when and why dress sizing started to change. my 65 year old mother jones that she managed to gain 30 lbs but still wears the same size dress she did when she was 25. BOOMERS!!!!!
I’ve actually been curious for a while about this trope and its origins. Do other people remember getting awards for everything they did growing up? I both do and don’t – I know there were, like, participation ribbons for youth soccer and stuff, but I a) remember being very aware that I was terrible at youth soccer despite this and b) also clearly remember the day I got a “most improved” award at volleyball camp (I was also terrible at volleyball, but I was SUPER PROUD of that award because I had worked my tail off the whole week and could finally serve a ball over the net). I guess what I’m saying is that my impression is that, for better or worse, our generation still grew up with an awareness that some people/actions/things are better and more praiseworthy than others.
It’s a trophy to mark getting all the way to the end of that extra-curricular activities season.
Which, when you’re the generation that starts every school semester being in like twelve extra-curriculars that you may or may not want to even participate in because in first grade we’re already worried about kids being sufficiently accomplished and well-rounded to get into a good school in twelve years because grades aren’t enough and blah blah blah, can turn out to be pretty useful for keeping track of which years you stayed in an activity and which ones you managed to quit.
Maybe once or twice, like at the end of a full season of youth soccer? But that didn’t fool me into thinking I was any good at soccer.
As you say, it was not exactly a mystery to us that some kids were better than others at sports, school, singing, or whatever. It’s actually kind of amusing that the people who write about this stuff think our understanding of the world is so shaped by what our parents wanted us to believe that we missed out on the way that the world sorts and categorizes us from the beginning.
Like others are saying, mayyyyybe a participation ribbon for soccer or something, as a kid? I received a handful of awards in high school — a couple national French things, Boston youth art awards, and a runner up in English at my graduation — and all of them a) were earned and b) barely made me feel adequate in those things.
Oh, oh, I got a fake prize for balancing the most books on my head during the mock awards ceremony in 6th grade (they gave fake prizes during graduation rehearsal) and that definitely blew my ego way out of proportion and I will now try and balance anything on my head, except joke’s on you universe, because I am a flawless head-balancer and nothing is beyond me.
The only time I remember is in high school, where there were as many awards as people in a mandatory toy boat building activity. I also went to a Quaker school, so I chalked it up to that more than something happening to my generation. Any other competition I was in had distinct winners.
I’ve had this discussion a few times – I say something like “well, participation trophies helped me gin up a sense of perseverance that helped me a lot as an adult” and get back “Well, you were just special to begin with so it couldn’t have had anything to do with that.”
Thanks, I guess?
“I guess what I’m saying is that my impression is that, for better or worse, our generation still grew up with an awareness that some people/actions/things are better and more praiseworthy than others.” Bingo!
Kids aren’t dumb. I recall getting the “Most Dedicated Runner” prize in middle-school cross-country. It was pretty obvious what that meant: Hey, you weren’t that good at running but you certainly came to practice. It did not particularly inflate my self-esteem.
MMMHM. “Everybody gets a trophy –> kids grow up entitled” presumes “kids don’t see right through that bullshit.”
I got a ribbon regardless of how I did in the “Junior Invitational Swim Meet,” but it mostly just pissed me off and made me wish I had done well enough to win a better ribbon for placing. I am so, so very over the “participation award” trope. Find a new angle to thoroughly wear out, millennial-criticizing jerks.
right? Those were the most embarrassing prizes. “Okay, I know I came in last, don’t rub it in!”
I just assume anyone using that worn-out trophy trope just can’t remember childhood and how rife with embarrassment/anxiety opportunities it was.
Ugh, right? I remember bitterly throwing away a few participation ribbons because I was so disappointed and angry with myself for not doing better. I have no doubt that millenial-bashers would critize that, too. If I keep the ribbon, I’m entitled; if I don’t keep the ribbon, I’m an ingrate.
And that’s how they win EVERY ARGUMENT.
I have a REAL chip on my shoulder about those Past-loving, Present-bashing types, because their circular reasoning is INCREDIBLE. The main reason it irks me so is that I somehow dó feel guilty, like my generation let them down or something. If only I could get rid of that…
Anyway: the mechanism:
If something in the past was WORSE/HARDER, it means they are stronger/have better moral fibre than us namyb-pamby spoilt youngsters.
If something in the past was BETTER, it means that we somehow made it worse and are worse and it’s all our fault.
WIN/WIN for them, LOSE/LOSE for us.
But I am very happy with my latest comeback. Instead of defending the present/saying that the past wasn’t all that either, I just say: “How nice for you then that you got to live in such wonderful times…”
My nephew gets those for cross-country. He’s in eighth grade, there are upwards of 100 boys in each race, and only the top 6 get place ribbons. Everyone else gets participation ribbons and he hates it – he says he’d rather have nothing. And it’s made worse because the little running figure on the ribbon looks ike the standard symbol on men’s bathroom signs, so he refers to it as “the toilet runner” and makes all sorts of jokes about him running off the ribbon to get to a toilet.
and if all the kids wear uniforms, there won’t be any if that trouble about fashion!!1!1
I….kind of agree with that, actually. I went to school in two countries growing up – Australia (where all kids wear school uniforms) and the US. The pressure to look good for school in the US was SO crushing, especially since we weren’t that wealthy – I got bullied for wearing walmart clothes by girls who brought designer purses to school. It got to the point where I would wake up in the morning and spend more than an hour obsessing over what to wear. When we got back to Australia, it was a blessed relief to have a uniform again. Not that people don’t get bullied about other things in Australia – they do. But at least rich popular kids have to get to know you a bit before they decide that they hate you – they can’t just pick you out by your unfashionable sweater and leggings at 20 yards and decide that you suck and deserve to be taunted.
Maybe it’s more a cultural issue then? I’m a New Zealander, attended three different primary schools, two different intermediate schools and one high school in one small town and two bigger cities. Some years I wore uniform and some years I didn’t, depending on the school I was at or the year I was in. I don’t recall anyone being bullied for what they wore. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but if it was going to happen I would have been a prime target.
It’s very possible! I found the culture in the US to be very, very different to Australia (or what I know of NZ), so it could definitely affect how students treat each other. Australia has the tall poppy thing going on, which would probably have some impact on class-related bullying. I wish I’d gone to a non-uniformed school in Australia so that I could draw a comparison. The only thing that makes me think we might have the same issues if not for uniforms were reactions I saw to people’s outfits on Mufti Days (days where you can choose to come to school in street clothes in exchange for a donation to charity). People would dress in their most trendy/fashionable gear on those days, and the kids who wore daggy clothes would get picked on. There was one (poor) girl I knew, in particular, who used to stress about Mufti Days because she hated the pressure to look good. It’s hard to draw a proper conclusion from a random collection of special occasion days though. :
I never went to a school with uniforms, but a couple of good friends did. One went in middle school and got most of her kilts through the uniform exchange, and everybody fucking knew, and the other went to an oddly expensive Catholic high school (my experience is that generally the religious schools cost much less than the secular private schools) on a music scholarship, and there were plenty of other status symbols, like the brand of your shoes or bag, or the car your parents bought you at 16, or how nice the cross necklace you wore was, etc. No one at that school was bullied specifically for what they wore, but everyone knew who was poor (and therefore a target) and who was rich (and therefore untouchable).
Are you American? I think the above commenter could be right in saying that it’s a cultural thing, maybe. I can only speak from my own experience, but in all of my schools uniforms/the dress code that went with them were pretty all-encompassing and a great equalizer, generally. At one of my high schools (the private one), for instance, nobody was allowed to wear makeup, jewellery or carry their own bags/wear their own shoes (there were school-logo backpacks and sports bags that we were required to use and they sold shoes with the rest of the uniform at the uniform shop). Most of the schools around where I live seem to have the same dress code, judging by the groups of school kids I see on the bus and in the streets. It was a bit more lax at my other high school (state school) – we could style our hair like we wanted and carry our own bags – but it kind of worked out, because a) all the uniforms were cheap and sold at local stores that are kind of like Old Navy no matter how rich you were, b) low income parents in Australia can apply for a schoolkids bonus payment from the government to help them cover the cost of uniforms and school supplies, and c) pretty much nobody at a state school is rich (rich parents send their kids to private schools) and there was a lot of theft that happened there, so nobody was wandering around with gucci bags or anything.
Like I said, it’s just my experiences, but I preferred the uniformed schools so much more, I was miserable not wearing one in the US. At my private school, my best friend and I were there on scholarships because both our parents were poor, and we were never teased once about it – we were generally well-liked. Whether this is because uniforms brought us all down to the same level, or whether it’s due to cultural factors (upper class people are not nearly as respected as they seemed to be in the US, and many Aussies can actually harbour quite a bit of antipathy toward richie riches) – or a combination of both – I am not sure. I’m not convinced that uniforms are a bad thing, though.
I don’t think that they’re a bad thing, but I don’t think they solve all problems, and in the US (which yes, is where I live) where uniforms aren’t as commonplace, they can be a hassle for parents. I think it may also come down to the culture of the specific school – my schools had pretty lax dress codes, and while yes, there were fads that went through, I don’t recall anyone being hassled for how they dressed (for the most part – I’m sure some people were asses). Having a strict dress code or uniform would have stressed me out a lot.
I like how you phrased this: I got “Most Improved” all four years of Cross Country, because I came to every practice and sucked cheerfully and pleasantly. I felt a little weird about getting an award for that when other people moved from “OK” to “Quite Good” in the same time.
You know what’s an incredible life lesson for an obsessive overachiever? Not being at all good at something, and showing up and giving it your best anyway while NOT being a jerk. It’s what got me through my worst jobs, and it was really nice of my coach to encourage me.
I agree, I was mildly embarrassed about the award, but I don’t really think the category is a bad or harmful thing! I mean, isn’t the freaking NYT constantly writing articles for Type-A parents about rewarding “grit” and not just success? But then also it’s apparently bad to acknowledge people for showing up and working hard? Whatever.
Whatever. It really comes down to “all parenting (except maybe mine but I’m also insecure about that) is doing it wrong” syndrome, I think.
It’s like it’s an immensely complex field with thousands of variables, and no one technique is always perfectly applicable or something! How can the news face it if it can’t be smashed to two points of view – three at the most?
Ugh that is one thing I still struggle with no matter how many times I do it – being cheerfully bad at something and not giving up. I only want to be amazing at things (but I don’t think that’s because I’m a millenial).
I once won third place in a hurdles race at a track meet, because there were only three people in the race. I found it embarassing and cringeworthy, but I guess according to the boomers it turned me into a narcissistic monster.
I played soccer my entire childhood, up to my teens, and we got trophies for participating when we were young, yes, but those were trophies the parents bought, and everyone understood they weren’t “real” trophies. I know this to be true because there were ALSO “real” trophies for the actual winners of the tournament, and it was a mark of shame to only have the participation trophy for being on the team.
And I think the participation trophies stopped at age 7 or 8. We were not very old before the trophies were only for winner, second place, third place. There were some thirty-odd soccer teams in our district, so you were by no means guaranteed a trophy.
I think my elementary school science fair had two tiers of participation ribbons: you participated and were good, or you participated and were not bad. So it was sort of a participation award, in that everybody got one? But also a way to still rank children and give them something to strive for.
Another kid and I tied for the “Low Score” trophy during a church league bowling tournament once. That’s right, there were only two trophies: one for high score and one for low score. That other kid and I planned an elaborate fucking custody agreement about sharing our Loser Trophy because even though we knew it was the Loser Trophy, we both wanted it because: Trophy.
Bless you both.
Goddamn this rules and that award scheme rules
Did the High Score trophy winner and the Low Score trophy winner then immediately have to switch trophies as part of a parable lesson?
We got trophies at the end of swim season in Jr. High (mid-90s), but the tone was more “this is a memento for the hard work and camaraderie of the summer,” and less “you are all good at swimming!”
I did rack up a bunch of academic awards in high school, but I think I viewed them primarily as “necessary things for getting into a good college,” rather than actual indications that I was better at academics than other students.
Of course, to blame a generations narcissism* on their always being told that they were special as children is really to blame the (boomer) parents. It’s not as if eleven-year-old little leaguers came up with the idea of the participation trophy.
*not actually narcisssism, but rather the natural self-absorption that comes from being young and freshly independent (to various degrees) and trying to figure things out.
It will never cease to amaze me how often the people on the receiving end of bad behavior are blamed for the fact that they had to experience it.
Yes! Exactly! That’s what like, 90% of these ribbons are for, “remembering hard work and camaraderie.” Only an idiot or a narcissist (like, someone who is already one, not a milennial) would interpret a ribbon that way.
I have so many “Participant” trophies and ribbons. So many. None of them ever deluded me into thinking I was worthy of praise for my athletic abilities. Especially since I often had friends who were actually GOOD at the sport in question playing along with me.
I worked my ass off for all of my medals and awards when I was young. I don’t think anyone at my school got one for no reason.
I think I might have gotten a “participation” trophy at the end of my soccer season, but that was a f***ing joke because I was terrible at softball and spent the entire season in the outfield.
Honestly, boomers talking about how millennials grew up getting awards they don’t deserve, it’s a huge red flag to me that said boomer is completely out of touch with millennials and harbours irrational bitterness toward them. So many boomers I have met have been like that. :
My problem isn’t that everybody gets a trophy, it’s that anybody gets a trophy. No 5-year old deserves a trophy for playing soccer. a) Every 5-year old on earth is garbage at soccer and shouldn’t be rewarded just for being marginally less garbage than the other 5-year olds, and b) Wouldn’t it be nice if we encouraged physical activity as fun and an end-in-and-of-itself, rather than A Thing You Do To Get a Cheap-Ass Trophy?
As I recall, the people who cared most about trophies and awards ceremonies were the parents. There were maybe a few hours of pride as you brought one home and put it on the shelf (I wouldn’t know, I never got any but the dreaded participation, but my brother did), but the people who really got excited about all the achievement-honoring pomp and circumstance were the parents, while the kids were antsy to either go play with their friends, or escape these tyrannical peers. Again, makes you wonder which the *real* narcissist generation was.
I like the trophies and medals I have from my years of playing (mostly recreational – I only have two from seasons where anybody officially kept track of standings, and actually both of those are for first place), because they remind me of the fun I had playing, and I can look at one and go “oh yeah, that was the year I played with so-and-so” and so forth. They don’t mean anything to me other than that – mementos. I do appreciate the ribbon one coach gave me for being the “most versatile”, which is something that has actually served me pretty well in the adult world – in work situations my biggest strength when I’m not actually specifically competent at a particular aspect of the job is that I will pretty gamely do whatever is asked of me unless it’s really outside of my skill range. This willingness to do anything, and being generally competent and trustworthy (even when I was convinced I was not because anxiety, you can go fuck yourself) landed me a paid position at a film festival I had been volunteering at for years, despite my utter lack of actual experience with that specific job. I kind of flubbed my first night, but a) everyone assured me it was ok and b) helped me break down where the problems were, and everything went pretty smoothly from there, to the point where I’m now getting job offers from people I’ve worked with at the festival (it’s not my actual field, I’m a biologist, haha), and when I told the ops manager that I couldn’t do this summer because my friend is getting married on the other side of the country, smack in the middle of the festival, the immediate reaction was “don’t apologize, just come back for the next one!” I’m just saying that being recognized for what at the time seemed a little like an afterthought but is actually a useful skill has helped me (and helped my self-esteem as I occasionally manage to break through the anxiety and realize that people are not trying to make me feel good when they say “good job” or offer me jobs, they actually mean it, because even if I am not The Best Ever, I am reliable and willing to do what needs doing, at least when I’m working, and that is fucking valuable).
If you ever want to watch an old white person go COMPLETELY NUTS for no good reason, just mention the phrase “participation trophy.”
There was a thread on Andrew Sullivan a while back about a teacher who found that a good way to motivate the most troubled students in her class was to give them some recognition when they made an effort. It was immediately met by a tidal wave of incoherent letters from Sullivan’s army of crotchety readers.
Oh man, I know what you’re talking about. I swear to God that whenever he raises any contentious topic, he first posts a wave of asinine responses from idiots, just to raise the blood pressure of everyone reading and make his more intelligent readers take time out of their day writing a rebuttal, of which he posts a sampling. Which is a little bit of a salve, but still, sometimes the initial stupid responses are SO UNNECESSARY. See the recent response to Obama’s free community college plan.
And yes I’m trying to wean myself off The Dish since THE ONE THING he’s an obdurate asshole about is, of course, feminists. I heard “ultra-liberal femi-left” one too many times.
Yeah, I used to read it regularly but I’ve been taking a break. I like it because he links to a lot of cool stuff I wouldn’t otherwise read, but lately there’s too much stuff that I’d rather NOT read.
Exactly! I will miss getting educated about so much random crap I’d never know otherwise. And I like the roundups highlighting a variety of responses to big important things, like State of the Union address.
This is especially infuriating since there’s actually research showing that praising effort rather than skill is better at encouraging kids to develop good work habits and challenge themselves. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnew…
If you praise skill over effort, you end up with the Baby Boomers.
And you know the Crotchety Reader Army demands cookies for not being racist/sexist/*ist. What are those if not edible participation trophies?
Not even though, because for most of those people (who demand cookies for not being *insert horrible thing here*) they’re actually being rewarded for keeping their terrible terrible participation to themselves.
Positive reinforcement is for spoiled brats! Time was, a teacher could tell you you’d be an utter failure at life if you didn’t stop misspelling Thursday, and you’d thank them for it and instantly improve.
Definitely. When someone no longer supports the view you have of yourself, it’s obviously much better to ask them why repeatedly, refuse to listen to their responses, refuse to accept responsibility for your own actions, refuse to apologize, and then start a website about how hurt you are.
Don’t forget to author some research papers about how they’re probs narcissists!
I’m too chickenshit to read the original article, but…is the author an actual, say, psychologist? Or sociologist? Or expert in another of the social/human sciences? Because if not, I’d be tempted to read “research papers” as “online screeds,” since it’s not like the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology publishes research papers from random parents who are pissed off and read a lot on the internet.
Considering the fact that the survey she cites was from a sample taken from…her own social network chances are she’s not exactly a hardcore research methodology type.
She doesn’t say in the article, but a little googling suggests that she is a documentary filmmaker, so. So. I haven’t turned up any projects she’s done other than this one on estrangement, though admittedly I haven’t looked very hard.
So maybe the seed of children cutting off their parents started with us. We boomers were the first generation with parents who were ultra-concerned about making sure their children had a “better” childhood than they had.
A common story among parents who have estranged adult children is how much they had focused on their children, how much they did to make sure their children had all the best advantages, made them the center of the family universe — and often how they treated them more like an equal or an adult than a child.
Yes, your kids probably cut you off because you were too nice to them. If only they had no self-esteem, they would feel obligated to remain in contact with you despite whatever it is you did to them, and thus there would be no problems whatsoever.
“So maybe the seed of children cutting off their parents started with us.”
In my case and in the case of the people I’ve known who did this, it sure did start with the parents. Usually by being consistently and overwhelmingly harmful.
Oh, yes. Look at them reassure each other what good parents they were, all they did for those ungrateful kids! Wow, wow, wow. I get the idea to want to gather in a support group, but without some kind of trained therapist at the helm, it’s actually the least helpful thing for them. They’re just going to get more defensive and entrenched about their good parenting history.
Nice Guys finish lasttttt amirite? Definitely you were just too nice. Definitely you just did too good of a job.
“We boomers were the first generation with parents who were ultra-concerned about making sure their children had a “better” childhood than they had.”
Speaking of narcissism…
Because nobody in the history of ever has ever tried things like, oh, I don’t know, MASS SCALE IMMIGRATION to make sure their children have better lives than them.
“and often how they treated them more like an equal or an adult than a child.”
This. This is the problem. Children are not equals and not adults, they’re children. They need to be cared for like children. I have no idea why the boomers think it’s a great idea to try and turn their kids into adults, but it’s messed a lot of them up.
To me, this linked story on the site is even more horrifying: http://www.nextavenue.org/article/2013-11/what-do…
“1. Don’t expect your child to be your confidant. While your friends may be all ears for a graphic description of your latest mammogram or blow-by-blow recount of a fight with your boss, your children will probably not be as riveted. Coleman says they don’t want to hear about such personal things — but not because they’re self-centered. “A parent/child relationship is pretty intense,” she says, “and as they get older, the natural tendency is to want to separate and gain some distance.”
WHAT
AT WHAT TIME WOULD YOU EVER MAKE YOUR CHILD YOUR CONFIDANT
HOW IS THIS SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE OK WITH A YOUNGER CHILD
WHAT IS HAPPENING
Oh man, you’re lucky then. Both of my parents treat me as their confidant. I know every detail of their sex lives, their fights, their health scares… I was just thinking yesterday about my mom telling me the story of the moment that she knew that she and my dad would never love each other again and their marriage would never be fixed. She told me that story when I was 14. No surprise that I have armchair-diagnosed both of my parents with varying degrees of narcissistic personality disorder.
Oh yes, my parents did this to me too, it is one reason I have pretty much quit talking to them. No, it is totally not okay, but it seems not uncommon, especially (HMN!) for Boomer Parents, some of whom seem to think the entire point of having kids is to make yourself a best friend who can’t escape.
The not escaping thing. Man. When I was a teenager, we had an assignment to summarize biographical articles on famous writers in the Encyclopedia Britannica (the end result had absolutely nothing to do with the actual life or work of the author, I’m sure). Anyway, I got fascinated by the fact that in none of these articles were their lives run by their parents. The parents (and hometown) got a brief mention, but that was it. Like, “So and so was raised in x, by parents who were y and z. His first novel was published in 18blah blah and ushered in the era of whatever.” (I’m lazy today!) But the early life was never mentioned again. That was something to attain, in my teenager mind. Escape. It made me uncharacteristically unafraid of new experiences and traveling and new people as an adult, which is good. I’m still working on making decisions without giving any effs about what my mom thinks, though. Life goal!
Oh, that sounds awesome, I am glad you found them! It is good you did not end up reading about Edna St. Vincent Millay or Marianne Moore, though. 🙂
And good luck with that life goal.
A BEST FRIEND WHO CANT ESCAPE
… but then moves across the country as an adult and you have no idea whyyyy
Yes, exactly, how confusing! Surely it must be the fault of (fill in blank here).
My mom blamed it on my dad for a while but then realised that even better she could blame it on those CRAZY California people I was now friends with!
My partner’s mom blamed it on me. So that was fun.
I somehow suspect that these parents have problems in relationships with their actual peers, as well. Because it doesn’t seem as if they understand how to have a mutually supportive best friend relationship.
HAhahahaha. Ha. Heh. . . too real.
“a best friend who can’t escape.”
RIGHT ON THE NOSE. Brilliant. Thank you.
Yup, mine too. Especially my mom, and especially after he cheated and they had an awful divorce when I was 24ish. A couple months ago I had to tell her that I was so, so sick of hearing about my father (from whom I am formally estranged now) and her new husband and her problems with both. Just, if she brings them up at all, the conversation is over. It has helped a little.
My mother decided to make me her confidant. When I was 7 or 8. And she was crying because she wanted to leave my father (decent guy, the marriage was just a horrible idea). So she decided to tell me that. That I was the reason they were still together.
Good times!
My mom was having problems with my stepdad when I was in my mid-20s. They married when I was 3 and my bio dad died when I was a baby, so stepdad is my dad for all conversational purposes, usually. But she was pissed at him for reasons and after she told ma a llllll about the reasons she went into great detail on how she only married him because of me.
(Still can’t decide if that one was more or less traumatizing than when she was trying to find out if I was having sex with my boyfriend by talking about her sex life. With my dad who is also my stepdad and somehow even more ew.)
It took me until a couple of years ago to get the courage and conviction together to set up some boundaries with my mom. It was at the end of a terrible semester when she casually mentioned that she thinks sometimes about what it would like to be a widow and I burst into tears because I don’t want to think about my dad dying. It’s rough.
Yeah… my parents divorced when I was four and my mother basically made me a combination parent/spouse to her. Then she turned violently abusive when I got old enough to not want to do that anymore. Like @Sara, I’m pretty sure my parent has a personality disorder.
I am so sorry you had to live with that.
Eh.
😉 Thanks.
It’s a classic element of a narcissistic parent-child relationship.
When I was 5, my mother told me about the affair she had had many years before I was born. She hated by was still married to my dad, and loved to make sure I knew how “mean” he was.
Years later, I asked her why she told me about that and she said that it was because she was lonely, and wanted somebody to understand her.
That’s what your friends are for, Mom, not your 5-year-old. Holy crap.
When I was 4-5 my mom told me that my dad was not my biological father! And that she had had an affair! And she told me his name! He sent us Christmas cards for years and she put the picture of his new baby on the fridge when I was like 12 and wouldn’t shut up about how much it looked like me.
Like 15+ years later when the guy googled me and found my email address and emailed to try to get back in touch with my mom, she said “do you know who that is?” and I said “when I was 4 you told me he was my biological father” and she said “oh, I don’t remember that. I was wondering how I was going to break it to you.”
o_O
OH. MY. GOD.
o_O indeed.
Post-divorce can be especially bad for this “child as confidant” thing. Even if I’m an adult who mostly made it through the divorce fine, you can’t talk me into being as annoyed or fed-up with your ex (my parent) as you are. And you shouldn’t want to!
Yeah, note that in the article the second example of hurtful children pushing parents away is this guy who is entirely bewildered why his kids would be a little chilly to him after a divorce.
Yeah, don’t go to your kids for validation for your hurt/wronged feelings. God. Parents going through divorce need a mandatory support group to make sure they don’t take things out on their kids.
Omg. My mom was actually pretty ok at not talking shit about my dad during/after divorce (lots of slip ups, but the thing was brutal), but I remember when she changed her name back to her maiden name and asked me to do change mine too . I was 14 or 15 I think, and desperately hanging onto my relationship with my father, and I mean, COME ON.
While my parents didn’t get divorced, they were having a rough time of it for a summer while I was home from college. They tried to make me the confidant, but fortunately I was old enough to say, “I am your child, not your marriage counselor. If you want to talk about dad/mom, find one.”
My next-door neighbor has actually mostly cut contact with a good friend of hers, because she wasn’t ok with how openly her friend was telling her (the friend’s) children about the marital difficulties she and their father were having.
I can’t even read the linked article because this is how my mother thinks. She’s constantly complaining to me what a self-involved narcissist my sister is, and completely unaware that she is one herself, and views her children as just extensions of her. (My sister DOES have narcisstic tendencies, and I’ve come to realize I do too, but we learned them from her.)
My mother made me her “adultized” partner when my dad left when I was 7. You guys don’t even want to know the shit she thought it was ok to tell an elementary schooler. Even now, in my thirties, it’s a constant struggle to get her not to tell me intimate (and gross) bodily stuff, and I’ve had to practice the refrain “I’m not someone to talk about this stuff with” for certain things.
Is the author of the article single? Because my mo never remarried and only had weird boyfriends who all left and now she doesn’t even really have friends, and I feel like that all ties together somehow with alienating your kids in that particular way.
Oh my god. My partner’s mom was like this AND she also never seemed to have adult friends who stuck around for any length of time. She married a couple of times and had boyfriends but nobody really stuck around and IMO it’s not hard to see why. She even tried to suck me into her sick “too close” relationship like she had with Beloved’s ex, until I was like “hang on, this is way inappropriate.” On her deathbed her and my partner kind of made some peace, but she never truly understood that or how what she did was wrong.
I’m sympathetic, because her own mother is exactly like this. And terrified, because how am I going to escape it?
Therapy and lots of it.
My grandmother was a narcissist. My mom isn’t, because she spent some serious time getting her shit together.
You’re already too self-aware to be a narcissist for real, tho, so feel good about yourself.
I’m glad I have a son for my oldest child, at least. We have 4 generations of daughters hating their moms (or having difficult relationships) and I hope this breaks it.(Therapy in my 20s helped me deal with figuring out my mom; I suspect if I could do therapy in my 30s it would be to stop from becoming her.)
Well, my partner is a boyperson who had one of those overly-close inappropriate relationships with his mom, so it’s not just daughters, although it’s my (vague and nonprofessional) understanding that daughters can have it worse with narcissistic mothers.
True, my mother just recounted a conversation with her dad that was basically one she and I have had before. But the mother daughter one seems more prone to the stuff I want to avoid (gossiping about/criticizing everyone we know, telling too much personal/sexual/bodily detail, basically treating me like a BFF the way her mom did to her).
I wonder if there’s a gender component….
There definitely is for my mom. She’s definitely a narcissist and my brother totally escaped it. He has no idea what I’m talking about when I try to talk about the shittier parts of growing up with her. I suspect it’s easier for her to project onto me since we looked really similar when I was a child. She believes too strongly in gender roles to limit my brother to being a perfect little Christian housewifey.
Blargh I sound bitter but that’s just the facts.
No disrespect to actual Christian housewives, its just not my jam
SAME. Same. So similar it’s creepy. Well except for the fact that my mom is on her fifth (!) marriage now, because she is insufferable.
When I was 14 she would literally brag to me about having sex with my stepdad. *shudder*
I try to tolerate her, my sister stopped talking to her years ago. She’ll never understand why.
Ugh, moms who tell wayyy too much about their sex lives. (When I was 11 I asked what oral sex was and instead of the dictionary definition got an explanation with examples from her own life). This is weird, but do you feel like your mom being oversexed impeded your own development along those lines? When I was a teenager she was always trying to be this bright sexy charismatic center of everything, including when I had friends around, and in retrospect I feel like it really made me difficult to move into my own role as a woman and sexual person.
OMG YES
It took me a long time to understand that both my confidence just as a person and also as someone desirable really was affected by having her just kind….up in my space that way, all the time (walking around naked, telling me stuff she shouldn’t have, trying to be Cool Hip Mom).
Ugh, it sounds like we have the same mother. My sympathies. 🙁
I’m starting to feel very thankful that my parents raised my sisters and I with the philosophy “I am the parent. You are the child. We are not friends.”
YES. Whatever other crap I went through with my parents while growing up, it was not the “let’s be best buds” problem. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that priceless gift.
When my son was born I said “I don’t want him to think of me as an actual person until he’s an adult.” I saw both of my parents as actual, flawed people before I was ten and it basically told me nobody in the world was safe or could be trusted.
With our kids we are trying to let them see we are real people and can make mistakes, because otherwise we would spend all of our time and energy policing ourselves to be a Perfect Parent and there would be no room for reality.
But our mistakes? ARE NOT our kids problems. They are our problems.
Real emotions are one thing. “I’m a person exactly like you who doesn’t know what I’m doing” isn’t really how you want to see your parents as a kid.
Hmmn, well, I sort of agree & sort of not, I think. To be SUPER clear I am not trying to say in any way that I think you are doing it wrong — you know what is best for your kids. But I am going to talk about us a little.
I think that kids definitely need stability and consistency from their primary caregivers, so of course we are going to do our best to provide that. And things have to get done, like the kids get fed and they have clean clothes and they go to bed on time, stuff like that. Not that we can’t mess it up, but it has to happen most of the time, because that is what makes for security.
Also, I really think kids need to have the sense that their parents can take care of them, which is what I feel like I hear you getting at — the sense that the parent is really The Adult and can work it out.
But for me the nuance is, it is okay for my kids to see me /not know/ and then /work it out/ when the problems are on their scale. I don’t have to have the answer right away, I don’t have to always walk without falling down. When my daughter was born everyone here wanted to be the Perfect Parent for her, and for a long time we thought that meant never messing up in front of her, or at least never letting her see it, because how would she trust us if she knew that sometimes we got lost driving or whatever? But now we have begun to realise that she needs to see us struggle and fail and then get up and work it out, or otherwise she does not learn that this is part of life. So when I get lost driving, I don’t pretend I am not lost, I tell her we are lost and that we will pull over and look at the map on my phone. And in the relationship with her, she tells me she doesn’t like it when I yell, and I tell her that I know, and I am sorry, and that I am working on it.
It is a fine line, I know, between that conversation, and the one where the parent makes it all about the kid, which is narcissistic and horrible and damaging. My mom used to blame me every time she got lost because clearly it was because I was *distracting* her! And I do my best to never, never do that — and when sometimes I mess up and do it anyway, I admit that’s what I was doing and apologise for it.
Sorry for the brief, blunt reply before — mobile devices are crap for nuance.For starters, my kid’s only a year and a half old, so obviously I am faaaar from expert on the subject of parenting. But what I meant wasn’t really the mistakes and foibles of everyday life; I mean stuff like “our financial situation is dire and here’s what’s going on,” or “let me tell you about all your dad’s affairs,” or just the general crap parents do when found through a nasty divorce and custody battle. My mom also told me every detail of the physical and emotional abuse her and my dad’s parents inflicted on them growing up, also when I was a child, basically ensuring that I “knew all about” every authority figure in the family (I don’t mind having known about the child molester on each side, for safety reasons, but the information wasn’t presented in a child-appropriate way).Versus my husband’s family had a lot of ups and downs financially because his dad was an independent businessman, and he said he and his brother never really realized when they moved from a mansion to an apartment it was because they were poor, or that the Gameboys that were their only gifts that year for Christmas were big sacrifices, and so forth, because his parents just didn’t let him into that stuff. I do think there’s a middle ground — he and his brother were a little too coddled, and his parents splitting due to infidelity a few years ago surprised the boys but not me or my SIL — but I’d rather err that way than raise kids who, like me, didn’t really have a baseline of safety in their heads.
Oh yes definitely absolutely.
What your mom did was *awful*. She did not treat you as a human being, and I am very sorry for it. Our mom was the same, and we grew up thinking all parents were just like that and wow were we surprised when we finally discovered that some parents actually have private inner selves they do not smear all over their kids. Ugh, it makes me so angry.
The hard thing is for years it made me feel special and privileged and “chosen,” which is how parents get away with doing this shit to their kids.
It also makes for some hilarious revelations as adults. My mother comes off as very straightlaced and would regularly tell us how “you don’t have to drink at parties to have fun! I’d usually just have a pop and it was way more fun than drinking!” Well, it turns out the drinking thing was correct, in that she never liked being drunk, but in my mid-20’s she admitted that she’d “tried every drug that didn’t need to be injected.” and then followed it up with “Don’t tell your brother and sister until they’re older.”
ahaha, my mom’s party advice was always “If you’re ever nervous, call me and make a big deal about how awful I am for making you check in, and I’ll come get you, no questions asked.”
Plus the invaluable (if gross): “If you think you drank too much, make yourself throw up, it will get rid of most of the alcohol and you’ll be better off in the morning.”
She was really really good and honest about partying and that we wouldn’t get in trouble for drink/drugs if we reached out to our parents. My siblings and I always knew the worst that would happen was being laughed at for silliness.
I think that’s the best parent-provided safety net ever. Because most kids/teens wouldn’t call and beg Mom to pick them up, but if they “had to” call and check in they’d no doubt be a bit salty about it. Meaning the kid can get out of a bad situation (anything from “ugh, THAT kid’s here???” to “I feel really unsafe”) without letting on that they don’t feel right about the situation.
So, yeah, great job your mom!
This happened to both me and my husband when our respective parents were getting divorced. We were both adults (and not together yet), but our moms each leaned on us hard. For me, it was very strange because my mom had not been demonstrative or really emotional at all throughout my childhood (and this was her 4th divorce). I didn’t know how to handle it so mostly I just read the internet while she cried on the phone and then when I found she’d started smoking I yelled at her. My sister was 15 and still lived with her, so I tried to take as much of it as I could, but it was definitely foreign waters and was very surreal.
The other day, my preschooler called her dad her “best friend.” He said that it was a really sweet thing to say and gave her a hug, but then said that it is much more important that he is her dad.
That, right there, boomer parents, is the whole thing. Do that thing and you won’t find yourself writing obnoxious “think pieces” about why your kids are so awful to wide-eyed, blameless you. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT.
Yeah, that’s pretty much why my contact with my mother is limited. She’s not consciously abusive (like my sister, with whom I have cut off contact), she’s just completely oblivious to appropriate parent-child boundaries.
Oh man I love that this horrifies you, as it was my life from about 9-10 until about 2 years ago, and I had no idea it was weird. My mom and I were just really close, you know? My anxiety WEIRDLY has diminished greatly since I started keeping our conversations pretty surface level.
My husband, too! He had no idea that his relationship with his mom was weird until I showed up and was like, “Have you ever noticed that every time we see your mom she talks at length about your dad and his wife?” or, later, “Uh, how do you know that your dad has herpes? Oh, your mom told you? When you were 10? Oh… Oh my good God.” It takes every ounce of my patience to not freak out on her because I think she is so self-centered and was so abusive of the power dynamic between her and her child. My husband spent his parents’ divorce comforting his mom while she cried and broke dinner plates on the floor, but the tables never turned so that he was comforted. He cried alone. It makes me very angry and has taken years of therapy for both of us to negotiate the effects.
“Drama of the Gifted Child”… and any child gets to play. I see the book has only gained in relevance over 30 years.
We had a copy of that. Strangely, it did not help.
Yup. I could really have done without my dad opening his heart to me about how he sometimes thought he’d have been happier without a wife and children.
UGH, WHY
OH MY GOD.
Hmm. My mom and I have discovered that now that I’m an adult, our relationship works a lot better when we treat each other as friends and confidants rather than parent/child. (Unless she’s trying to talk to me about problems with my dad, which is uncomfortable because he is my dad, but things like mammograms and fights with her boss, sure.) I guess the difference between me and other commenters here is she didn’t start doing that until it was old enough to be appropriate. I agree that making a child or teenager a confidant is completely inappropriate and an unfair thing to do to them.
Yeah, if your parent actually acted like a parent to you when you were younger it’s different. Also, like, a parent like this is pretty much the crappiest friend ever, who takes and takes and rarely gives. If I tell my mom about anything going on in my life it turns into how Thing X that Sucks for Me is actually hurtful to her, rather than being supportive.
My mother made me her confidant when I was a kid. At the time, it made me feel special. In retrospect, I have realized how harmful it was. I spent most of my childhood not allowed to be a child. I arranged my own birthday gatherings but my mother insisted we throw her a party every year–including after I moved out. I had no job and no money but my mother would disown me if I didn’t get her gifts, so I shoplifted presents for her. I think it’s part and parcel of a larger and more unhealthy relationship with a narcissistic parent.
Last year I was busy organizing my son’s first birthday (a week after hers) and my mother had a passive aggressive silent tantrum over me not getting in touch to organize her (59th) birthday too. I only recently realized other people didn’t grow up regarding their mother’s birthday as basically another holiday which occasioned rejoicing and group celebrating.
My mother did this exact thing to me. My therapist calls it “parentification”, where the child is encouraged to parent and care for their own mother/father. It really screwed me up.
All I could think about when I read this was Amy Poehler from Mean Girls.
Honestly I’ve dated people (and was married to one) whose lives would have been so much better if they had cut off their awful parents, or at least set some very clear boundaries with them. More people should try it!
Boundaries are the GREATEST. THE GREATEST.
My thoughts exactly. Contrary to what they may claim, you’re not obliged to your parents because they raised you.
The rich fucking irony of Boomers labeling a different generation as a group of entitled narcissists. They have to see that, right?
Right. Like, who do you think allowed this culture of narcissism to fester in the current generation? You were the ones giving us all the trophies!!
RIGHT? It was a generation of entitled narcissists giving us all “Participation” trophies and claiming every T-ball game was a “tie” while a generation of bemused 5-year-olds thought ‘really how stupid do they think I am?’
we didn’t even particularly want the trophies in my memory! I wanted the pizza and to hang out with teammates and I enjoyed sports, but it was the adults foisting these unnecessary trophies on us.
Which makes me wonder if the trophies weren’t really kind of for the parents rather than the kids. Like, every parent wants their kid to excel, so give the kid a trophy and you won’t have the parents calling you up to ask why their kid isn’t #1 in everything.
Ding ding ding!
thiiiiisssssss
Yes absolutely. I don’t recall trophies for everything but I remember a real focus on exceptionalism that persists to this day with my mother and I find INCREDIBLY toxic. Doing poorly in any subject was a complete disappointment, usually phrased as “I know how smart you are, and you are my kid, so your lack of ability in this subject is a shame, because how could the fruit of my loins be so terrible at math? Work harder!” or turned into “We’ll you are so smart this terrible teacher is the problem” so either way, no matter what, the answer wasn’t simply that we all have strengths and weaknesses, it was always that I was failing to excel in all things, as was my birthright.
Additionally anything I liked doing and was good at was also destroyed by the pressure to keep on climbing. No achievement resulted in a “good job” without being immediately followed up by how I could apply this success towards additional steps up the ladder- “you should submit that painting to this contest. You should send this poem to this person, etc” Although this looks suspiciously like support, it does two things. One it allows no time to savor fruit of your hard work, and two, it robs your child of any momentum, placing them in a bind where if they do decide to go for the brass ring, it’s seen as only the next step expected of them by a parent. there’s no way off.
A run for student council treasurer logically leads to an expectation that I became the first female governor of a state. If I were then Gov GGHH, my mom would start sending me links to “governors that became presidents” and names of presidential campaign managers on inauguration night.
This is definitely a boomer expectation for their kids- you can BECOME ANYTHING! and I think it’s horrible, because it destroys confidence in any particular path- if you are a multifaceted snowflake, your concentration in any one subject rob the world of an alternate equally talented you in another field and it sets us all up for disappointment, given that there isn’t actually room at the top of a pyramid for everyone’s talented children.
Fortunately for me it’s not bad enough to lead to estrangement, but I have always had to be very guarded around my identity with my parents and its definitely set me back in confidence and time in my life.
My parents did the exceptionalism thing a little, and I did it to myself more. I think the gifted program at my elementary school was kind of not a good influence in this.
While skimming this book, I ran across the advice that kids should be praised for effort rather than results, because if you praise them for trying they will be willing to try new things and put in effort when things are hard, but if you praise them for results then they will stick to things that are easy for them to get results in.
I think maybe this is part of the problem with this kind of exceptionalism, that it involves ignoring the part that a kid’s effort played when they do well, and then treating any effort as insufficient and disappointing when they do badly. In both cases there’s no room for anything along the lines of “I’m proud of how hard you worked.”
I agree with this completely. It’s the same with how it is so much better to say to someone, “i love your style, I love your outfit, this look suits you so well” versus, “you are soooo pretty”. Because one praises and recognizes the work they do in presenting themselves to the world- and one rewards a static quality that they don’t control.
And in the case of this example it would be like, “You are so pretty, you should be a model!” That way it’s not enough to just be pretty, its that they haven’t done enough with it, versus, “your style is always so on point. The way you present yourself is an inspiration to me! I’d love tips if you have any!”
Wow are you me? Your comment actually cleared up a lot of stuff I’ve been wrestling with, but couldn’t articulate. Thank you!
You are welcome! I’ve had a whole life to ponder this one… My suggestion when you get the “you shoulds” is to just go, “cool, thanks Mom/Dad” then carry on ignoring. It works fine for me.
if you are a multifaceted snowflake, your concentration in any one subject rob the world of an alternate equally talented you in another field
I’m definitely still trying to figure out how to work around my mental/career paralysis thanks to this particular idea. Treading water in a random job and hoping something will reveal itself to me as My Calling is a work around, right?
Haha. I was briefly employed at a career center, and they told me I couldn’t hang up the following poster:
http://demotivators.despair.com/demotivational/po…
To which I say, “BUT IT’S TRUE!!!”
For me the re-adjustment was, “Am I living a GOOD life? A rich life? A happy life? One that adds value to the world and where I enjoy about 50% or more of my time?” I gave up the way I’d placed my identity at the center of my career, which was how I was so focused – that I needed to do what I love and do it the best of anyone. The reason they pay you to work is that it’s stuff people wouldn’t just love to do for free. There’s no “Calling”. I found if you ease up on that need for it to mean that much and be who you are, it’s easier to endure the disappointing parts of any profession. And it allows you to change jobs or subjects without beating yourself up over not being who you said you would always be.
My job isn’t the best job and I’m also not climbing anywhere, and to be honest I think my profession is pretty BS, at least 70%, but it doesn’t make me constantly miserable all the time. I like to think I add more value than I subtract by doing what I’m paid to do and repping for the non bs 30% as much as they’ll let me. I have good friends, great hobbies and I volunteer, and I’m very very rarely bored or feel like I have time to waste. To me that’s a rich life worth living. I don’t need to be ambitious for a particular marker of “success”, just ambitious in my goal to be interesting and happy. That interestingly enough has led me towards more of those external validations than I ever thought it would.
And I found my calling is in making beautiful things (namely art). I have yet to transition to making a living from art and I hope someday I will but I remind myself my life purpose is the making and not in being famous or being paid (It’s ok if those things happen, but only as they both would probably help me make more art and spend more time making it). It’s also to give and have lots of love in my life, something that I get closer to and then farther from and then closer to over time, and that includes doing things like learning how to be a kinder, softer person than I am completely comfortable with, and that’s plenty for my life path. I’m really happy now. The only time I have to take deep breaths is when someone starts with, “This is so good, you know what you really should do with that?”
That is a superb poster, and I can see why the career center wasn’t on board. Sadly.
I’ve started to get to a similar point in my relationship with work as you’re describing; namely. I have begun to feel like it’s ok to do a job and get fulfillment elsewhere. Now my question becomes, if “it’s not my calling” isn’t a reason to quit a job, what is? Work in progress, in any case.
Complete daily misery? Active cruelty from superiors? Something that sounds more interesting or pays better is available?
There’s always something that sounds more interesting 😉
Maybe I meant, something you are reasonably certain is more interesting….
Your first paragraph is uncomfortably familiar. I must have been close to 30 when my sister made an offhand comment about our parents’ motto being “You are better than other people,” and [sound of glass breaking].
It feels so ungrateful to be uncomfortable when my mom rhapsodizes about my talents and how it would be such a terrible shame to waste them. She is kind enough not to add “…like you’re doing now.” And meanwhile I’m afraid to do anything much because I might fail.
Talent is what you innately have. When you get someone harping on about how talented you are, of course it makes you afraid you’ll fail, because you don’t control talent and it could up and disappear on you. Skill on the other hand, that’s earned through practice. When someone praises a skill, you are like, “oh yeah I did it, I got it, I practiced this shit and earned my dues.”
Luckily for me my mom thinks I”m talented at everything but art, and she’s completely uncomfortable with telling people they’re nice or kind, so the only thing I crave deep recognition at, she doesn’t like to praise. Also I’m pretty good in the sack, but she’d have no way of knowing, so… Maybe find something your mom completely doesn’t support you doing and get good at it, so you won’t get any praise for it, and your victories will just be yours to savor. Like…become a tattoo artist. That’s a great job, and it’s one I think most hyper achievement minded parents won’t support.
That is very tempting. If only I had the slightest vestige of aptitude for any visual art. 🙂
Hoo, shit. Likewise, very glad that you articulated that. To this day I am afraid of mentioning to my parents that I enjoy anything.
I’ll never forget a friend’s mom railing against the millenial generation as being “apathetic” about the Iraq War (despite the huge protests happening at the time) and saying “my generation protested and ended the Vietnam War.” As much as I do respect the 60s/70s-era protesters, it took a lot of restraint on my part not to say, “I think it was actually the North Vietnamese Army that ended the Vietnam War. When they won it.”
Also, the majority of people in college were in support of the vietnam war. It’s always presented as “those hippy dippy college kids protested the war to an end” but in fact it was the youth, working class and less educated people, plus veterans of other wars who were against the war, not the liberal boomer college grads who were safe from the draft and had no stake in ti- it’s pretty well proven that the majority of college graduates, are moderates to conservatives who toe the line, because the system works for them. Kent state and SDS notwithstanding. Next time someone pulls this garbage with you.
Everyone was a 60s radical by 1980; sorta like how only like three people in the whole country ever thought the Iraq war was a good idea, now.
pluuuuus after being hippies and free love and protesting, they turned right around and bought into suburban america! who do they think are the people who taught us that we need so much stuff? who was running the advertising companies and the malls? boomers!
It’s pretty funny how in the hazy boomer nostalgia-memory Selma and Kent State and the 68 DNC all sort of blur together with the radical position of liking to smoke weed and fuck at age 20
You ideologue, you
THANK YOU.
But they had to create the “entitled narccisist” title, therefore it’s theirs because they worked for it. Millennials just had it handed to them on a platter.
Oh god, this. Boomers: pulled up the ladder after them, tsk at Xers and Millenials for lack of wall-climbing skills.
As you said, hoo boy. I’m estranged from my dad, haven’t talked to him in years, and I’ve received hours of voicemails that match up with this article. ‘I don’t know what I did,’ ‘What did your mother do to turn you against me,’ ‘why are you so immature,’ etc. Last time I saw him he broke into my house, physically threw me into a chair, yelled at me for five minutes, and then finally left after I repeated that I was going to call the police. Later that day I found out he had gone to my mother’s work to yell at her for taking me away from him. The police were looking for me, because he claimed I had assaulted him (stood up too assertively and immediately after being thrown into the chair from before).
I share this because I still love him in some ways, but we cannot be in each other’s lives. I cut off contact with him for my sake, and kept cut off for both our sakes. This author is wrong, but I feel very sorry for them. The article, the co-authored paper, the social network (oh my god) are all their defense mechanisms for what they did to their kids. Their kids may well be entitled, narcissistic assholes, but the content of that article alone suggests unconscious shame on a level that is tragic for all involved. Hoo.
Yeah, that last paragraph especially. They’re gathering to reassure each other that they were *good* parents and are victimized by their kids, but it is tragic that they’re all in such pain over losing their kids and can’t stop obsessing over it — yet they’re refusing to do an earnest, introspective analysis for what went wrong.
So sorry for what you’ve been through with your dad. At least mine wasn’t physically aggressive (after the stage of corporal punishment).
You know, when my parents were in marital counseling years ago, the thing that stood out the most in talking with them about it was their relative lack of self-awareness, and their utter refusal to take responsibilities for their own mistakes, acknowledge the other person’s feelings/issues and resolve to meet the other person halfway. (They divorced, of course.)
Yes, it’s hard to say, “Hey, yes, I screwed up, but I love you and I’m committed to making it right.” But that’s a big part of what real love is, and what real relationships are made of.
The spouse’s family does not speak English at home. Once we failed to do something for his dad that we said we’d do. The spouse called and was mid apology to his irate father when I suggested he say “How can I make it up to you?” Spouse looked at me blankly, paused for a moment, and then said “Papá, ¿cómo se dice ‘How can I make it up to you’?”
Oh God, you don’t know how to say that, no one has ever said anything like that in Spanish in your presence ever, Oh this explains so much!
I know there are cultures where that sort of thing just isn’t done/said. So tough. It sounds like it was an illuminating moment for you about your spouse’s earlier life.
Truth, and “make it up to you” is colloquial, so a direct translation won’t work – but I don’t think it’s cultural, I think his parents are two very lonely and isolated people with, as you said, not much self-awareness and an inability to take responsibility for their own mistakes. (I’ve visited the extended family in their country, and I swear the average adult spends 10 hours a week doing favors for family members. “Hey I failed to do this thing, can I do this other thing instead.” is the call of the young adults.)
It’s weird, because it’s like they’re locked into a very small range of reactions and opinions and cannot begin to see how accepting that some things are their fault is anything but an opportunity for the other person to attack. It’s terrible!
Wow so much this. It’s really true, and you’ve phrased it so well. It’s something I have had to realize after growing up with people like this (my parents did not get divorced. Yikes!!!!)
Yuuuup some folks can get some perspective and for some there’s a level of total lack of self-awareness that’s just never going to get better. To this day my dad’ll make occasional eye-rolling references to ‘whatever terrible thing I’m sure I did to you all as kids’, sitting in his house where pretty much everything that could be punched or smashed in a screaming tantrum over dishwashing techniques still has dents in it
“At the same time, 76 percent of the adult children say that being estranged has affected their well-being (even though it appears to have been their choice).”
Surely she can’t actually be confused by this. If cutting contact affects your well-being, STAYING would always obviously have improved your well-being. That’s just LOGIK!!! Things can’t possibly be more complicated.
(If I cut contact for good reasons and my mother decided to, oh, I dunno, start a website about how badly I’d treated her and do a survey to see if she was the only one who’d lavished so much love on her children they’d turned into raging narcissists who cut contact with their devoted parents who only wanted to love them, I might perhaps think it had affected by well-being, too.)
I wonder how that survey was worded. “9a. Did cutting contact affect your well-being? (yes/no) 9b. If yes, how? (it improved my well-being/it made my well-being worse)”
Some nerdy/cynical/reluctant to get back to work part of me really wants to look this up and scrutinize it.
oh my god, <a href="http://api.ning.com/files/i5ldI-XyHLD6nGs42rt7NFL9aXLKz4h8XYHWW4tocp*XSVGNkF9ph-dNkL-dKSU8Xc0K3Ugv03ZWbzdRJnnQUm*IjNVCAagD/Adultchildren4_25.pdf"it actually is exactly that. Except that instead of asking “did it make your well-being better|worse”, the follow-up question just gives a bunch of horrible options for how well-being was affected.
there’s also a very detailed question about just what luxuries your poor put-upon parents provided for you growing up, you ingrate.
“If yes, please check all that apply: depression, shame, inability to sleep, appetite, overwhelming sadness, thoughts of suicide”
Also, 61% of respondents would like to have a relationship with the person they are estranged from now or sometime in the future. The top three conditions they would need for this to happen are their parent/s taking responsibility, setting boundaries, and an apology from their parent/s.
The author certainly is invested in ignoring the results of her own research.
Even though you are estranged, do you acknowledge your parents’ past efforts in raising and providing for you as their child?
* Yes
* No
Did your parents feed, clothe, and shelter you as a child?
*Yes
*No
If yes, what part of that behavior turned you into a horrible narcissist who abandons their own parents in their old age?
Do you deny that your mother was in labor for hours, and yours was an especially difficult delivery,and all the doctors remarked on your extreme size and abnormally spiky skull?
gah, okay, now the nerdy part of me (the one that had to take several research & survey methods classes, and isn’t even doing academic research with her life) is pissed.
Wowowow. There aren’t even *options* to express that estrangement has had a positive effect on your wellbeing or other relationships. And SO many leading questions. The entire survey should really be called, “How Damaged Are You By Your Willful Neglect of Your Hardworking Parents?”
Absolutely click through to her survey and check out the questions it is incredible
Also, almost every question was skipped by precisely 607 respondents. Why did they not remove the people who didn’t actually take the survey from their results? They could just mention at the top that there were 607 respondents who skipped every single question, and they have been omitted from the numbers below.
(Probably the answer is that the online survey tool they used didn’t have an option for that, but still.)
That whole dang website sits right on the dividing line between grandma’s indecipherable email forwards and Timecube, and I can’t tell which side it falls on. I don’t know how much of her advertising career is made up but clearly it stopped somewhere short of the invention of Geocities.
I’ve dated people who would have been much, much better off if they had cut off contact with their parents. I have had issues with my own mother since childhood, and a year or so ago I finally got emotional enough to write her a long letter detailing what my issues were and how I thought we could fix them. She respected by boundaries and wrote back a long letter explaining certain things. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with everything, but I never could be–you can’t change the past. Our relationship isn’t perfect now, but it’s much, much better. I’m thankful that she was respectful of my feelings, and not an asshole like the author of the above article.
Good For You. Those letters are difficult, but they can set you free. It’s only heavy, if you can’t set it down.
“If at some point in your life a family member feels they need to stop talking to you, I recommend not writing articles about them on the internet; just my Hot Take.”
But if they screen your calls, how else can you force them to pay attention to you other than by writing a bunch of stuff about how mean they are and publishing it under your own name so that their friends will see it and forward it to them? Really Mallory, your advice is not at all helpful for her quest to force herself into the lives of people who want nothing to do with her.
It’s like the academic version of sub-tweeting!
I’m glad you asked! The answer is: relentless Facebook memes. Hope this helps!
I’m deeply familiar with this point of view. My mother exhibits the same kind of vague befuddlement about why her children barely speak to her–one rooted in her complete inability to see a lifetime of ridicule, manipulation, and emotional abuse as anything other than the actions of a loving mother doing her best to raise her children right. She also loves to talk in generalities about the things mothers deserve to know and be part of, and the obligations of children towards parents. She’s rarely willing to acknowledge the specifics when it comes down to it, and accuses us of holding grudges and refusing to forgive when we try to get into those specifics. It appears to be actually beyond her psychological ability to grasp any sense of her own wrongdoing.
She hasn’t yet reached the point of academic (?) research and publishing on the subject, but it would be just like her to try to find some kind of larger cause (not of her own making) she can blame her children’s recalcitrance on. I suppose this is something to be grateful for.
Your first paragraph sounds exactly like my mother-in-law. She has consistently refused to acknowledge any of her manipulative and abusive behaviour, never mind apologizing for it. If you ask for an apology, then you’re in the wrong because you’re holding a grudge and refusing to move on with your life. In her world, if she does something objectionable (insofar as she’s capable of acknowledging that her actions might be perceived as objectionable by others) and then STOPS doing it, then that’s the same thing as not having done it in the first place. She was an alcoholic from my husband’s early childhood to his mid-20s and only stopped drinking because she was court-ordered to go to rehab after getting a DUI; she started acting like she had never had a drinking problem in the first place, had never done any of the terrible things she did during that period, and nobody in the family has ever brought it up or asked her to apologize or anything like that.
You are my sister.
“…complete inability to see a lifetime of ridicule, manipulation, and emotional abuse as anything other than the actions of a loving mother doing her best to raise her children right.”
OMG. She sounds just like my mom. Can I give you a hug?
Yes, please! Hugs all round!
guys, i’m pretty sure this must be the nom de plume of my crazy aunt.
I think it’s my dad
I am semi-estranged from my mother for many small but pernicious things she did to me and my brother during our childhood. When I got up the courage to elaborate a few after year (I am now 30), she didn’t remember doing most of them, or saw nothing wrong with how she did things. This includes when my first boyfriend dumped me, dragging me into her bathroom to pee on a pregnancy test in front of her “in case I had clean urine saved”. I was 15 and terrified of being sexually active. I suspect even if these grown kids could elaborate, their complaints would be met with the same attitude.
christ
Wow. She really lost that opportunity to be a Mom… in the Best Sense of the Word. It makes me sad that she hurt you and in doing so hurt herself (for something that she may not even understand). No Mom should ever hurt their kid and expect respect.
Oh, man. Just the quotes you posted are way, way too familiar to me. Like they could have been written by my dad.
Even before my teen years, I warned him that I was going to cut him out of my life as soon as I could. He responded by blaming my mother for alienating me (anyone else heard of “Parental Alienation Syndrome”? I’m sure it’s a legit thing somewhere, but not in my case). He became obsessed with finding “reunification specialists” and reading articles like these, like somewhere was a special key to make us magically love him.
From a really detached POV — which I am actually capable of — it is truly sad, because obviously this matters to him a lot, he’s in pain because he’s lost his children (one of whom committed suicide). But he is completely incapable of changing his behavior and personality (and it gets even trickier, because there is real mental illness going on but that had no bearing on the tyrannical power he wielded over my life — hell, he was given custody after the divorce, because he’s a lawyer and engineer), and one of the best things my therapist ever taught me was that *children don’t owe their parents anything.* And it’s better not to lash out at them for your own personal well-being, but you’re not indebted to them, certainly not to the point of continuing to inflict harm on your own life.
Ugh, sorry for the personal spiel but MAN, is this familiar to me. Sad and ridiculous all at once.
Yes! I am so thankful for the therapist who asked me, “If this person was not your mother, would you allow her to treat you this way?” That shift in framing was so huge for me. It’s like a little battle flag I wave mentally every time my mother starts generalizing about how mommies just *care about their kids so much and need to know how they’re doing.* I appreciate that it’s hard for her, and that she does not really seem able to understand how damaging her behavior is and has been, but am I ever grateful that I’m no longer bound to the idea that I should be a part of a relationship that does me active harm just because of a family relationship!
That aside, all those ideas about what parent-child relationships should be like are powerful and culturally pervasive, and one of the worst things that can come from them is the feeling that if you’re estranged from a parent you’re a sad outsider oddball…but one of the best things that can come from a post like this is the realization that you’re not actually alone. ::solidarity fistbump::
Yeah, I totally hear you. Families are actually just made up of people who, as they come to maturity, might find their personalities are not very compatible and so they’re best off at a distance. And that’s *without* dysfunctional or abusive parenting.
I feel like I’ve gotten off lucky in a way because, unlike a lot of people I hear talk about estranged parents, I feel 0% love for him and zero regrets about cutting him out of my life. I’ve never been torn about it. When I met my step-father (and knew he was going to be my step-father), he said he hoped he’d be a better father to me, and I said, “I don’t want a father.” And he actually took that really well and we have a good, more normal parental relationship. I don’t mind grouping him with my mom as “my parents.”
Oh, my god yes. Even though half these comments are making me alternate between rage/sadness and hyperventilation, I’ve been reading them compulsively. Stepping away from a large swath of my very dysfunctional family was the best thing I ever could have done, and yet I always feel a hefty pang of shame when I have to explain it in any way to a new person. I’m planning a wedding and this keeps popping up in new and surprising ways. Always feeling like a sad outsider oddball these days.
I’m sorry you’re going through that, but well done for stepping away from dysfunctional families. Weddings can bring out a lot of baggage but I hope your wedding is a joyful one.
Oh man, wedding planning is stressful enough without all the oddball feelings thrown in. It tends to bring out the crazy in everyone, even under the best of circumstances. Sending you all the best warm, loving, anti-sad-outsider-oddball, adults-get-to-choose-their-own-families spacewitch vibes as you plan, and especially on your wedding day. And some non-creepy internet hugs, too.
Thanks–I’ll need it. I’m reserving a 16 person max capacity backroom bar, my half of which I am filling with the tiny modicum of sane blood-family I have and my much beloved friend-family. I am already getting 2nd and 3rd hand WHY NOT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE passed along and I haven’t even sent the invites yet. Only six months more….
Word to the wise, “Parent Alienation Syndrome” was invented by a creepy fathers-rights activist and pedophilia apologist and has been used by MRAs and abusers to try to gain custody of their kids when both ex and kids want nothing to do with them, for good reasons. It’s also considered junk science by mainstream psychiatrists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Gardner#C… http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/09/nyregion/richar…
Sounds like you did the right thing and that your dad fell in with a really creepy crowd.
SO UNSURPRISED. Thanks for that info, now I can fully dismiss it. (I was probably told that way back when from other people too, but I’ve buried so much of that period of my life.)
My dad was always part of a creepy crowd. Religious fundamentalists, y’know. Plus the mental illness. Our childhood was a wacky ride.
Wow. That’s pretty powerful stuff. I think you are absolutely right to have him honor your boundaries. Aren’t parents suppose to raise the chicks to leave the nest? It’s hard for me to see my Mom as she is… I know she knew pain and passed it along, as it was all she knew. I’m glad it turned into a lesson, just not the one she learned. The more I’ve learned forgiveness, the easier our relationship is. I’m the one that’s Free. She’s still trapped 60 years ago, and plays it out in her mind for eternity. Some people pass their pain onward. There still are, and will continue to be, rough patches and incidents within our family that test the bond. I have just been making my Peace with that knowledge and that it’s Okay to Walk Away; I will if I need to. Just knowing there’s Freedom right where I’m at, makes it easier to breathe. Besides, we are supposed to Love as we wish to be Loved, no? And the best way is to walk alongside each other for now. Distance = Balance. Balance means more time for my own life and sharing it with My Love. She is part of my family, but not my focus and nor should she be. I hope she’ll learn to stand on her own… hopefully my hands can help her up.
This is SO CREEPY because while it was not written by my partner’s mother, it TOTALLY could have been, even down to the weird tone about how she has no idea what she did, well they’ve told her but she didn’t understand.
(We do not talk to our mother either, but she does not have the advanced set of narcissistic skills about it, she just goes off into rage rage rage.)
Answer to the “when does self-esteem become narcissism” question: never. Narcissism usually originates with a disorganized personality and a lack of robust self-concept. This is perhaps my most hated conflation: the idea that self-esteem is a controlled substance that needs to be doled out in measured quantities, lest it lead to self-absorption. Folks with secure caregiver attachment in early childhood, whose voices and affect are acknowledged even at young ages, and who are taught to respect their own strengths and limitations (knowing that the former is not a prerequisite for acceptance, nor will the latter disqualify them from love and affection) – in short, people with well-developed identities and self-esteem – rarely become narcissists.
RIght?? I’m no psychologist, but when I’ve met people who are actual narcissists it’s always extremely evident that their behavior arises from having low self esteem and trying desperately to correct it. Of all the things we need to worry about happening to our children, should we really be worried that they’ll like themselves too much?
the idea that self-esteem is a controlled substance that needs to be doled out in measured quantities, lest it lead to self-absorption
THIS THIS THIS. This is exactly how my parents behave, as if there is some horrible risk that they will cause us to become self-absorbed. When they knew, or should have known, that there wasn’t even the slightest risk that we would feel moderately good about ourselves. I spent my entire life until adulthood operating at -10 Self-Esteem and assuming that it was normal to be constantly starving for love and hating myself for it.
Oh my gosh, I understand this too well. I was just thinking, now in my late 40s, I spent the first quarter-century hiding and dodging and trying to adapt and basically stifling myself, and the second quarter-century kind of coming out of that and learning that things can be okay and finding out what my real thoughts and preferences are. I kind of feel like I’m just ready to begin life. So much wasted time.
This is me. Also, I’ve only just started your second phase and I’m 33, so there you are…
THANK YOU, I was coming here to post that but less eloquently.
I’m glad this posted twice so I can favorite it twice.
Right? Like, being told that you have a physically and emotionally safe place with people who love you is not going to turn you into a narcissist who abandons your parents, nor is it going to turn you into a serial killer. If it did, Mr. Rogers would be responsible for untold suffering, and I think we all know that’s not true.
Answer to the “when does self-esteem become narcissism” question: never. Narcissism usually originates with a disorganized personality and a lack of robust self-concept. This is perhaps my most hated conflation: the idea that self-esteem is a controlled substance that needs to be doled out in measured quantities, lest it lead to self-absorption. Folks with secure caregiver attachment in early childhood, whose voices and affect are acknowledged even at young ages, and who are taught to respect their own strengths and limitations (knowing that the former is not a prerequisite for acceptance, nor will the latter disqualify them from love and affection) – in short, people with well-developed identities and self-esteem – rarely become narcissists.
My mother was cut off by her parents and hasn’t spoken to them once in 25 years. My mother grew up very wealthy, you see. A trust fund baby, silver spoon in the mouth. My father came from a broken family (in more ways than divorce) and was quite poverty stricken. They met at my mother’s country club, where my father worked as a…bus boy or backbar: She was 17 and he was 21. They been together now for 29 years…however, he was not worthy in the eyes of my grandparents and there was even some racial undertones. My dad is white, but is very tan and dark, so he can be racially ambiguous seeming. In my parents’ wedding, the pastor had to take out the “speak now or forever hold your peace” part. After the wedding, my grandparents legally disowned my mother. My parents joke that my dad “had to teach my mom to be poor.” Despite it all, they are together still, my dad as a stay at home father who takes care of me and my siblings and my mother is a well-respected doctor. I, as a business student and a collegiate player of a very country club sport, have connections in the society of my grandparents, where I have heard mentions how my mother disrespected her parents…etc. What a joke. I have never met them…except my grandfather at a funeral. He came up to me and said hello and I, at about 5 years of age, said, “Sorry mister. I can’t talk to strangers. Bye now.” There is more to the story, of course, but I feel as though I’ve aired some sort of dirty laundry already. But parents get to believe that they are some sort of god to their children. They have no flaws. They raise their children their way or the highway. Baby boomers call every generation under them selfish…but what have they caused? They have caused us. They have caused the difficult environment that we must fight through. We are a reflection of them…hmm it seems they have trouble seeing that mirror.
Cutting off an abusive parent is like cutting off a gangrenous leg. It is totally necessary and it hurts and you will be missing something that you should have had until you die.
But nobody likes to think of themselves as gangrene, I guess.
here here
That is a fantastic analogy.
I would like to like this more times please.
I am somewhat estranged from my mother. The reasons are considered and known to me. As I age I think I notice a pattern in the thinking and actions of many boomers that appears to mark them as entitled, arrogant, even spoiled. They do things they think are “adult”, and they feel like they deserve deference and respect in return. But it feels more like belligerence and conceit to me. In my mother it is exaggerated.
I wonder if some of this isn’t to do with the simplistic mythology of heroism America created for itself after WWII. What I was told as a young boy can still cloud my adult thinking. If I was told my culture was somehow superior to every other culture, that even God preferred it, and then given all the things my parents couldn’t have, perhaps I would think of myself as a mythically heroic figure for just showing up as well.
When you put it that way…how strong! But it’s true, I think.
Is there any advice on how to be the grandchild of a self-obsessed person who estranged her children?
My father hated his mother and avoided her at all costs. (A bit extreme, but understandable) After he passed away, I’ve been dragged into the fight between my grandmother and her last son, my uncle. I’ve got the generational distance to keep myself out of it for the most part, but every time I visit her I’m bombarded with her issues. All of the bad feelings from her relationships with her children are starting to land on my shoulders. She and I get along well otherwise, but she tries to get me to explain why her sons hate her and get me ‘on her side’.
I don’t want to lose her, but I don’t want to get that involved either.
disclaimer: i have zero experience with this whatsoever. i never even met my grandparents.
but i would say, if she gets as explicit as trying to get you to explain why her sons hate her, you are totally within your rights to just say pointblank, “grandma, do not put me in the middle. i’m here to spend time with you.” and then forcefully change the subject.
This, this!
Set a boundary, and see if she respects it, and if she does not, then set it again a little more strongly, and eventually you will know if she is going to respect your boundaries or not. And then you can decide what you will do next.
Thank you! I’ve tried to set boundaries in the past, and it takes her awhile to get it. But it has worked a time or two. Hopefully she’ll get it on this one.
I will admit, the last time it worked was after she tried to talk about how terrible my dad was, which was about a week after he died. I just burst into loud sobs. So you know, when all else fails, go for extreme emotional reaction.
Or you could start being honest. My gram once asked me if I thought she’d neglected my mom. I said “yeah, you really did.”
Thank you! I know I need to stand up for myself more, and that’s a simple but kind way to do it.
Yes. My grandmother doesn’t shit talk my parents, fortunately, but does like to bring up old grievances constantly. I go for a variation of this: “Grandmother, we don’t get to visit that often. Let’s not spend it talking about this.” Works beautifully.
Seconding yeah_elle’s suggested language.
I have a grandmother who was a pretty bad – perhaps abusive, by today’s standards – parent. She was, however, a loving grandmother. My mom gave me the gift of setting boundaries with her for acceptable behavior with her grandchildren and keeping me unaware of her bad behavior until I was old enough to understand it (and its roots – WWII-related PTSD). Fortunately, without the stress of daily child-rearing, my grandmother was capable of meeting those boundaries.
Which is to say I don’t think you have to cut off your grandmother for bad behavior toward her children, but you can and should set your own boundaries and stick to them without guilt.
I had a Grandmother like this. It took me years to figure out that maintaining a relationship with her was not worth the effort. I stopped visiting her about a year before she died and it was like a huge weight off my shoulders.
Speaking as someone who has cut their parents off completely, there are diverse ‘seeds’ that plant the idea to sever in your head, but there is one commonality that I’ve noticed in reading/talking to people in similar situations, which always makes that seed flower. The other party’s refusal to acknowledge your point of view. You can get into the nitty gritty details of why but there’s always an excuse, a shift to another topic, etc. It’s like those awful telecom service cancellation calls that get released sometimes, where the rep is trying to keep you going in conversational circles for hours until you get frustrated and hang up the phone- but applied to your real life emotional shit.
Anyway, gotta go barf at the idea of stoned-tonio and blaggatha (cutesy nicknames for my ex-relations) posting on this crazy ass message board.
That is a terrific analogy.
this. refusing to acknowledge your point of view. see also: gaslighting. “mom, i still feel hurt about all those times you completely forgot to pick me up at school and i waited until after dark or had to invite myself to somebody else’s house.” “darling, what are you talking about? i was always waiting right outside your classroom door… did you see the sale at nordstrom’s this weekend?”
yes, perfect analogy. I don’t talk to my dad much and my mother thinks that i should just tell him all the things that bother me to “get them out of my chest” Yeah, no. part of the reason is that he refuses to really listen and engage and ends up badmouthing me, my sisters, my grandparents, my mom. Everyone but himself is to blame for everything.
Don’t know if you’re familiar with “Community,” but they have some lovely Boomer-narcissism jokes, my favorite of which being lyrics to a Christmas song: “Baby Boomer Santa, thank you for everything!”
I don’t know which bit I want to respond to the most.
A common story among parents who have estranged adult children is how much they had focused on their children… made them the center of the family universe — and often how they treated them more like an equal or an adult than a child.
Translation: I was over-involved in my children’s lives, made them my “friend” or confidant in an entirely inappropriate way, had no boundaries between them and me and their achievements and my emotions, and then became more overtly abusive when they dared to grow up and have people in their lives who weren’t me.
When something, or more specifically, someone, no longer supports the view you have of yourself — get rid of them!
That’s actually 100% correct and something that it takes a lot of work to do sometimes, because of all the intersection social pressures and oppressions trying to keep you abused and silent.
For me, the estrangement began over what I believed to be a misunderstanding.
That’s nice for you. Sounds to me like it’s not what they believe.
Jesus. This asshole.
ETA: Every time I read that “center of the family universe” bit I get chills and a stomach bowling ball.
Seconding this, my dad made me and my sister “the center of the family universe” in ways like “I’ll kill myself if you ever leave me” and having complete and utter breakdowns (as in, tearing off clothes/running in the streets/being picked up by police) when I did things like have sex with my high school boyfriend, so yeah, this is NOT (always? even often?) about being too generous and indulgent with your kids.
Holy shit. That must have been fun to deal with as a teenager. I’m sorry that happened to you.
My parents made me the center of our family universe.
They made sure I was cared for and fed when they were hungry. (But I never knew they were hungry until I was an adult and needed food stamps myself and they were explaining that they understood what that was like.)
They never (or rarely) let me see them fight. They certainly never shared their anger at the other with me. They didn’t let their emotions make them say petty things to me. Because my need for security was more important than their need for a confidant.
In that same line, they discussed their grown-up worries, which were many, with each other and not with me.
When they punished me, they also talked to me about why — but they didn’t make me agree with them and let me have my feelings.
When I was shutting them out and furious with them as an adolescent due to my anger with them about how they handled my depression/anxiety/isolation/self-injury, they were still steady and loving and didn’t force me into being closer than I was ready to be, even though I know now how hurt they must have been.
They have always encouraged my dreams, even when those dreams meant moving far away from them. And when I did move away, instead of bombarding me with guilt about their empty nest, they took up new hobbies and started a new chapter in their lives.
And you know what the result of my parents making me the center of the family’s emotional universe was? I am incredibly close to them as an adult and could no more imagine cutting them off than cutting off a (non-gangrenous) leg.
A child should be the center of the family’s emotional universe. But that doesn’t mean indulging them or cajoling them or spending every waking minute with them. It means that you bear in mind who they are and what is appropriate and behave consistently in ways that are respectful to them. It means the things you do for them are for them, not for you to have the pleasure of saying you are doing for them.
I actually disagree, but I think it’s one of those disagreements borne from “you never had this thing be a toxic presence in your life so you maybe don’t hear/understand it the same way as others.” There’s some good discussion of this phenomenon over at Captain Awkward on this post and in comments there.
I’m glad you had the experience you did. That doesn’t mean that “I made my child the center of my universe” means the same thing to everybody. When it’s toxic, it’s a lot more than “indulging them or cajoling them or spending every waking minute with them.” I think you should read many of the comments here on this thread about these kinds of families before commenting further on these topics.
Wow, I didn’t read it that way at all – I liked Gratefuls post because it showed what putting your child before yourself actually means, as opposed to what the parents like the one in the article think it means (giving them stuff, confiding in them like they’re adults, etc). This is what “making the child the center of the family” actually looks like. Seeing what child-centered parenting is supposed to be makes the utter wrongness of narcissistic parents’ complaints stand out even more. I think Grateful seemed to understand the issue very well.
I do understand the intent. Did you check out that CA link? It has a great example in comments of how people who survived this type of abuse see and hear some things very differently from people who didn’t. So a somewhat harmless phrase to you guys is something much different with other experiences behind it. Telling me my interpretation of the phrase is wrong is just more gaslighting and denial of my lived experiences.
I will also say that in my experience, people who parent in loving and supportive ways with healthy boundaries and whatnot also tend to have robust lives outside the parent-child relationship and would not typically say something like that, or at least not while defending themselves against their child who had cut off contact with them.
It’s not a harmless phrase to me and I’d prefer it if you didn’t assume anything about my childhood, OK? Yes, I’ve read the Captain Awkward discussion. I’m not saying that YOU are wrong in saying that this phrase is harmful, I’m saying that I think Grateful’s post actually supports that view by showing what child-centered parenting actually looks like. For example, actual child-centered parenting would mean never telling the kid that they’re the center of the family, because it would make most kids feel guilty. Grateful shows that using that phrase is gaslighting, guilt-inducing and wrong, by describing what those words literally mean.
I’m pretty uncomfortable with how, in a thread about how damaging it is to be constantly told that your experiences didn’t happen and your feelings don’t matter, I’m being told that one of the phrases I found particularly triggering isn’t that bad really and lots of parents aren’t like that and maybe I just don’t understand what those words really mean.
I am saying, and I said in my first comment, that I found that phrase particularly troubling. I don’t feel like the appropriate response to that is to tell me I’m reading the phrase wrong, that that isn’t what most peoople mean by it, that the phrase actually can be said in ways that are loving, etc.
No, I’m saying that you’re reading the phrase right! I definitely didn’t say (and never would!) that those words can be loving, or are mostly used in a loving way – I’m saying the opposite. I’m saying that IT IS horrible and guilt-inducing to make a big deal about “making the child the center of the family”, because if the family was ACTUALLY built around the kid’s needs, that would look like what Grateful is describing. _No parent who actually, truly DOES put the child’s needs first would ever say those words to the child!_ Those words are used to gaslight. It’s a trap.
Kids really need to not have to carry that.
I think you are misunderstanding me (or that I am not making myself clear). I do know that it’s more than that. I meant the “cajoling/indulging/spending every minute with them” more as the things I imagine the narcissistic parents saying they did for their children that their children should be grateful for, when, in reality, that comes with trampling on boundaries and being inappropriate and making children responsible for your every feeling just so that the parent can say, “But look at everything I did for you! You were the center of my world!” When in reality, no. The parent was the center of the world, and the time/money/hobbies/etc were a vehicle for the parent to feel good, because the parent sees the child as an extension of the self.
In a really, truly child-centered home, the wishes and needs and boundaries of the child are at least taken into consideration (even if they can’t always be honored). The child does not have the burden of the parent’s happiness and fulfillment riding on them. Basically, what I mean, is that if parents are REALLY making children their priority, they are not careless about appropriate roles, boundaries, or expectations. They do not indulge their feelings at the expense of the child.
Hope that clarifies.
I understood what you were trying to say, but it really came across, especially considering the context, as telling me that I just don’t really understand that phrase, which carries with it an unspoken rider that I’m wrong to find it triggering.
I’m going to step away from this particular line of discussion now because it’s really upsetting me to have to argue for why I am triggered by a particular word or phrase on top of feeling all those bad old feelings again.
That’s so good to know, Grateful! That that sort of parenting can be done. I didn’t have that experience, but I hope to be a parent one day. And I’d like to learn to be a parent like that.
To Ethylbenzene, I can see why Grateful has put it like that. In my family my mum is the centre of the family’s emotional universe and it is still a bit of a new concept to me that I have emotions of my own after being so used to the cycle of attempting and failing to be there to manage my mum’s. Grateful’s parents sound like they took a more selfless attitude to being a parent. Makes you think – what is the reason to have children? To give something to your child or to get something from them? If the only way you can have a relationship with your children is if they meet your expectations for giving you your identity, giving you companionship, encouragement and emotional support nobody can sustain that!! (Or I can’t)
The part that gives me the most visceral horrors is: “My sons consistently refuse to reply to my emails and let my calls go to voicemail, or barely speak if they do answer. They accuse me of being a terrible person, but won’t elaborate about exactly what I’ve done. Well, sometimes they do, but it doesn’t make sense, at least to me. For example, it’s hard to be part of the birth of my grandchild if I didn’t know that I was going to have one! ”
It’s seriously triggering to moments when I’ve tried to tell my dad how I feel about something he did. The complete denial of yourself and your feelings, the instant turnaround to the parent and his feelings, and his essential rightness. It’s so LONELY to try to talk to someone who denies you. It’s so crazy-making.
The people who cannot accept that other people get to have negative feelings about their behaviour are so scary to me. Did you never grow up? You can have acted in a hurtful way, and need to hear about it and apologise for it, without being an essentially bad or terrible person. But those conversations, the “WHY ARE YOU MAD AT ME” “Well, here’s why” “YOU ARE INSANE THAT NEVER HAPPENED AND IN FACT I GAVE UP EVERYTHING FOR YOU” conversations. They are so hard.
::nod nod:: Absolutely. They don’t actually WANT to know “Why,” they want an argument wherein you will suddenly be convinced of your wrongness and their rightness and grovel and do what they want. Except even if you DO do that, it’s never enough and it’s never right and you’re only doing that so I’ll shut up and go away….
Ugh. I’m so sorry you are feeling triggered. I wish you peace and people in your life who hear you and believe you about your lived experiences.
Thank you!
I am at peace. My dad and I have a relationship that totally works now. Eg, a pretty distant one. It’s actually become kind of lovely. We see each other for dinner with my siblings and our partners every 2 months or so, for birthdays or whatever, nobody expects much, and we kind of appreciate each other for who we are. He was a terrible active parent, but he’s not a bad parent to an adult, in that he’s kind of vaguely supportive and doesn’t expect much.
I’m working on talking about my feelings without fear, and my boyfriend is amazing. After two years, I’m starting to be able to just say “hey I feel [negative emotion] about [thing]” without apologising and freaking out. He’s always like, “ok let’s talk about it”.
I wish you peace too. I hope you have people who hear you and love you and believe you.
I just finished reading “The Family Fang” and it details similar themes of estrangement, and relationships in dysfunctional families. One lesson I took from the book is a narcissist is completely oblivious to other people’s feelings- forever. Sometimes the kids have to cut them off to save themselves.
Ding ding ding ding!!!!
Wish, wish, WISH my 18 year old’s girlfriend (and to some degree, my own kid) could do that. Her mom has had her in and out of treatment for things like “running away from home” (sneaking out of the house to RIDE THE SCHOOL BUS at 15). Last month her mom used the “oh my card isn’t working trick” and sucked away her paycheck at the grocery store–while still not allowing the 19 year old girl to leave the house without cell tracking enabled.
My son, the eldest, is seriously trapped in my abusive ex’s “oh now I’m so lonely and I can’t bear for you to be at college we need to talk every day” –he says, “Mom, why did dad wait until I was in college and gone to care about my life? Why is he so needy?”. I’m legally prevented from discussing any of this with the younger ones, and have to tread carefully so that what truth I can tell the eldest doesn’t put more crap on his plate. I know how much it screwed with my head, and I was an adult when the narcissist got his claws into me. Kids don’t stand a chance.
It feels like Lucille Bluth wrote this essay.
Or a version of Lucille Bluth who cares enough about other people to write articles about her relationships with them and start message boards to talk about them
Oh my God, Mallory, thank you for this. It’s amazing to me that estranged parents generally seem way more likely to find wide platforms to share their perspective than, you know, their estranged children, who apparently just woke up one day and thought “I should stop talking to my wonderful parent because my feelings are hurt and also yolo.”
From my own estranged father, I have learned that even though he is willing to acknowledge that he was a terrible parent, he still expects sterling, devoted, and unconditional daughtership from me. Now THAT’S entitlement. (Highlight: I am half-Jewish. Once during an argument, he wrote to me, “This must be your mother’s upbringing, because a real Jewish daughter would never be so cold.”) Recently he got angry at me for not being attentive enough regarding health problems that he hadn’t actually informed me about. “I’m done!” were the final words of the card. I hope he is. I’m fine with being cut off, since that seems more accurate to the situation anyway, even if I’ve been blamed for the estrangement for years.
I say this as a Jewish kid from an interfaith family who was raised to keenly appreciate both sides of her heritage. There are few things more low in this world than a parent disbarring his or her child from their heritage or implying that the kid isn’t a “good enough ____” because the parent decided to marry out. SO MUCH RAGE.
Does anyone else really really want to read that email?
SO BADLY.
e. All of the above.
Maybe the kids would like to air out their side by releasing them… but if they’re sensible (and it seems so) they know it’s probably better to keep out of the maelstrom of shite that that would involve!
I cut off contact years ago and I’m alright. My dad is alright. When we still talked to each other it was an emotional roller-coaster. No one was happy. Whenever we saw each other we would fight or I would just have to leave to avoid the argument. It can be immensely hard for a parent to hear, but I DON’T believe you owe your parents anything. They had a kid and they have to deal with that. I think you should appreciate what your parents have done to you, but catering to their emotional needs at the expense of yours is wrong. If they are abusive and you have the power to end that abuse, you have a responsibility to yourself to do so.
I’m also estranged from my mother for different reasons, and I wrote her a long letter trying to explain why I couldn’t be in her life until she changed. Her boyfriend tried to murder me twice before I turned eighteen, and she’s still with him. It sucks, but if you are in pain and they are the source it is perfectly valid to cut that out of your life, at least until it STOPS being the source of so much hurt.
Some day I may have a relationship with one or both of my parents again. I’m hopeful that it will happen, but I don’t expect it. I have other friends who’ve had to make the split, and I know that it’s hurt them as much as it’s hurt me, but staying was hurting more. The line time and again is that they don’t understand why their children have done this, but I know I’ve told my own parents clearly exactly why I have and exactly what it would take to change it.
Think of your parents as significant others that you can’t choose. If the relationship is unhealthy, it should end or at least change considerably. Much love to all those who’ve been disconnected, both parents and children. Try to understand yourselves.
“Her boyfriend tried to murder me twice before I turned eighteen, and she’s still with him”
I feel like you could have written that on the back of a post card if you wanted to explain why you couldn’t be in her life. I mean.
wow. so bad. I’m estranged from my father. It does hurt and I don’t think many people would stop talking to their parents if it wasn’t completely necessary for their emotional health.
Once, when I was in elementary school, I forgot my lunchbox at home and my mom dropped it off for me at the office. When I came down to get it from her, the receptionist made some kind of comment about how I now “owed [my mom] one.” I remember after school, my mom sat me down and explained to me that the comment had deeply disturbed her, and how my brother and I should never feel like we “owed” her or my father anything for acting as our loving parents. I think this was borne of the fact that her own mother was manipulative and emotionally abusive, something I only realized closer to adulthood, which had left my mom with a lot of scars and complexes that she’s still working to heal. I think a lot of that came out of her own feeling of “debt” to her mother, which prevented her from questioning my grandmother’s actions and standing up for herself, or even breaking off their relationship.
Long story… but the whole narrative of how boomers’ children are “coddled” and this shock at how they could become estranged, even after a parent has “done so much” for them… it’s so unbelievably toxic. There’s such a wide gap between “being thankful for your parents” and “working off a debt that can honestly never be repaid.” If I ever have kids (doubtful) I would want to love them as themselves, not as some emotional crutch I can rely on for the rest of my life, some affection trophy I can brandish about, like “look how much these things love me!”
God this hit hard.
Am I your mom? Or really, I love your mom and hope I treat my kids the way she treated you. I love reading about good parenting from damaged parents. It gives me hope.
Also, in your second paragraph I’m reminded of Frances McDormand’s character in Raising Arizona. Like, the babies were precious, but once they got older they were ruined because they dared have their own wills. I’m not stating this very well, but I hope you know what I mean.
Thanks for posting that story. I’m hoping to have a kid one day, and I’ve been collecting good parenting advice. I’ll have to to tell any future kids I have what your mom told you–that kids don’t owe their parents anything for being good parents. I wish more parents understood that!
A+ to your mama for her hard work and conscientiousness.
Seconding the above replies- it is so hope-giving to hear about people who grew up with awful parents and break the cycle by using it to inform their parenting for the better, instead of repeating what they saw. One of my worst fears is that I won’t be able to overcome the example given to me as a parent, but when I hear stories like that it helps me remember that it really is possible.
I’m really glad her story can provide comfort to people. She’s a great mom, and I honestly cannot think of anything I’d change about her. I know she had to work hard, and work through a lot, to be the mom she was, but that doesn’t make her any less of an amazing parent than the people who had parenting come “naturally” to them. (I hope that makes sense, I’m getting really choked up at work trying to find words to explain how grateful and happy I am for her.)
As someone who grew up with an emotionally abusive and manipulative mother who is terrified of becoming one herself….truly, thank you for sharing this story. Thank you for helping me know that it is possible to break the cycle.
Your Mom is my hero and I mean that without exaggeration. I have too many friends hurt by their parents, who them have turned that terrible experience into a blueprint for their own behavior, without a blink. Ithe millions of conscious decisions involved in overcoming that script are mind-boggling to me, but each is an act of courage and strength my parents didn’t have. Please take your Mom to lunch for me.
And the thing about how children “owe” their parents a certain degree of love and respect and consideration…it’s true, in a way. But it’s part of a reciprocal arrangement, an implied contract that the parents enter into when they have children. Yes, you want your kids to treat you a certain way, and care for you when you’re old, and all of the Old-World “here mother, come warm your hands at the fire” stuff. But you have a part in the contract as well, and their responsibility to you depends on your responsibility to raise independent human beings who feel able to make their own decisions. You don’t get to violate your part of the agreement, and then be shocked and appalled when the other party doesn’t feel obligated to stick around and give you what you feel they owe you.
Yes. We have really struggled with this with my mother-in-law. My daughter is her not-so-secret favorite grandchild and if my daughter doesn’t want to do the same things she does or wear clothes my MIL bought her, my MIL tells her how “ungrateful” and “mean” she’s being and how sad she’s made her grandmother. We have lots of conversations in our family about adult feelings and actions are not a kid’s responsibility and no matter what an adult says about their feelings it shouldn’t make you feel bad. (My daughter is 10 now and it’s getting very interesting to discuss this all in the broader context of the kindness and empathy we hope she is learning.)
Just thought I’d pass on a link to <a href=”http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/” target=”_blank”>www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ which really helped me sort of dissect this behavior in my own parent and find support that I’m not crazy. It’s insane how specific examples can resonate and bring up memories I’ve clearly pushed away. Anyway, they’re having a field day with this. And I thought some other people having that heart-stopping reaction to this writing may need the link.
Yessssss!! Some of those posters are really, really hurting and having a hard time functioning, and those threads can be really difficult to read (I get survivor’s guilt.) But it’s so so helpful.
Offering up a small prayer that my mother never thinks to look online for exoneration from her behavior. I just got a horrible sick feeling around my hipbones.
Hugs to you, friend. <3
I thought of you while reading this. I hope it doesn’t occur to her either. <3
She sounds like the Queen of the Sea Lions.
“Excuse me, but can you provide me one single verifiable instance of when I was a less than ideal parent?”
“Bothering you? I’m simply gathering information about our relationship.”
It’s also pretty clear what’s going on if you replace “understand my kid’s point of view” with “get what I want.”
i.e
“Since I have been met with silence when trying to [get what I want], however, I have turned to studying [why I didn’t get what I want]. I have researched every article I could find on the topic, presented at conferences and co-authored a paper about [why I’m not getting what I want].”
Ugh. Nothing makes me angrier than how the Boomers project their own grotesque and catastrophic narcissism onto their kids.
I’ve published the results on my ten-year study on why you don’t want to hang out with me. The results: You’re ungrateful.
ARGH my mom LOVES to criticise me for being profligate while she renos her tear-down 5 bedroom house in which she lives alone with multiple new granite countertops. Yes, mom, my profligacy is why I can’t buy property. That’s it! You nailed it. Not the fact that housing prices are literally 10 times higher than they were when you bought, after accounting for inflation, and you got money from my dad’s parents for the down payment. FUCK YOU.
ALSO WHILE I’M ON THE SUBJECT where the fuck are these schools that give everyone the same trophy for running a race or playing sportsball, and not making any distinction between winners and losers? WHO, exactly, are all these kids who grew up not knowing that some people win the sportsgame and some people lose it, and one is better than the other?
AND ALSO ALSO, actually, now that I think about it, Boomers hate the idea of rewarding everyone, even the LOSERS, because obviously that’s not how life is, but actually, what? Don’t you get a paycheck even if the boss picks someone else’s idea for the project? Do you get paid for showing up, even if someone else is Employee of the Month? When you are building houses at the new housing development, does the guy who gets all his work done first get a trophy, and everyone else get fired?
Isn’t success in human endeavor defined primarily by cooperation, and this attitude of constant competition actually a toxic distraction that enables the exploitation of workers by an aging capital class of motherfucking cannibals?
RAAARRGGHH
Yes, yes, all of this!
Yes, thank you! I, as a millennial, was never in a school that gave everyone trophies and A’s simply for existing. I had to study a lot to get decent grades and I worked hard in sports and guess what? Was still terrible at them. And I knew I was terrible, because our team lost every game and I was the goalie. SO. Where did they get the idea that this is how we millennials grew up???
Yeah, I don’t know, I am at the wavefront of the milennials, and my brother is solidly within the milennial generation, and our high school had a just-under-50% graduation rate. I don’t know who these motherfuckers think are getting coddled, but it sure as hell wasn’t my school.
Bbbbut Woodstock! And the Beatles!
I literally tried to fave this twice.
Does that actually happen anywhere outside the Montessori in New Hampshire right next to that welfare office all the pregnant black ladies drive their brand-new Mercedeses to
Yeah, they got one in Arizona, now, too, where the illegal Mexicans can pick up their new computers.
My experience of high school sports was ‘compete through the pain!’ I know someone who kept going through a competition with a broken toe.
My experience of high school sports was, “Everyone is a dick to you for not already being good at swimming, just quit sports and join the newspaper, what, were you going to have a career as a professional swimmer or something? Who gives a shit.”
I don’t have a career as a newspaper guy, either. I don’t even remember if I ever got any awards in high school.
My experience was high school sports was “Quit when the coach makes you cry during practice” and I have never looked back. In fact, I learned a powerful life lesson. Does it make you cry? STOP DOING IT.
I find it hard to believe that a philosophy that allowed you to stop doing an activity to which you were indifferent and otherwise provided you no material benefit just because it was emotionlly traumatic is a philosophy that would get you very far in life. You’re going to look back and regret not spending all those weeks crying in the sidelines of the field hockey field when you’re old person and not fanatically committed to trying to play field hockey at any cost.
Well, I am pursuing a career in academia, so doing things that are emotionally traumatic for no material benefit seems to now be my thing. If only I had kept playing high school volleyball. Surely I would be retired and lying on a bed of hundred dollar bills at this exact moment.
“Isn’t … this attitude of constant competition actually a toxic distraction that enables the exploitation of workers by an aging capital class of motherfucking cannibals?”
Yes! This is the topic of the book “The Myth of the Spoiled Child” by Alfie Kohn. Here’s a podcast featuring an interview with the author, if anyone’s interested: http://fair.org/counterspin-radio/phyllis-bennis-…
*Wipes genuine tear of slight sadness from eye, while also smiling*
Dang
Truth hits weirdly when put so well
I adore everything about this comment. Thank you for making it. My f-ING God, if I have to hear about the mythical camp/t-ball league/whatever that “gave everyone a trophy” and how that impulse to recognize every child’s effort as worthwhile and relevant has broken society and doomed us all to compulsive navel gazing until we starve to death, I may hulk out and smash something. Thank you for putting it this way.
I’m so glad you mentioned this!! I saw it yesterday and thought “I bet the Toast would have something to say about that.”
She just was too giving a parent. Had she but been stricter! Had she not tried to nourish their self-esteem! Had she not written that SECRET EMAIL! Truly, she was so excellent her sons are probably just cutting her off as they know they could never reach her level of perfection in parenting.
Do you think the secret e-mail was a public Facebook post? Because I really do.
Or an email she sent to them?
Though really what I think is she wrote this email, left it open on her computer when her sons were visiting knowing they always ask to use it and when they turned the screen on they couldn’t help but see it, which was the passive-aggressive plausibly deniable plan.
(I actually get along with my parents great.)
I can verify that this is a thing – my mother left her insane manifesto re: the root causes of my queerness* and how badly it was hurting her open as a draft when I came “home” the summer between college and grad school. One computer in the house, one dial-up internet account with different log-in names (so if she’s logged on, I’d have to log her off and sign in as myself), and a full-screen missive that starts “Dear [Entendante]”… all of which clearly adds up to my snooping into things that weren’t my business and weren’t intended for me to actually read, and which therefore she “never said to me.”
Whoops, guess that hit close to home, or something.
*spoiler/trigger warning: I am apparently queer because I was molested as a child. Which would be a bad enough theory, except add on to that the fact that the incident she alludes to didn’t actually happen. Whee.
Why Some Grown Kids Cut Off Their Parents
Could their estrangement be caused by how we raised them?
No, of course not
“It’s all our fault for turning them into narcissists. Why can’t they look past the love and sacrifice that characterized my parenting, and continue to arrange their lives around me? Guys, remember, this is what happens when you love someone too much: they just don’t appreciate you, and eventually stop returning your calls.”
OMG, she’s a Nice Mom. If only she’d tried negging her kids more!
Like it seems weird to say, but this reaction she’s having is EXACTLY how Nice Guy behavior works: when you get cut off, you get increasingly desperate for validation from your subject, and start acting out in these really weird ways — writing blog posts, going to conferences, having very important OPINIONS on the subject that you’re just trying to UNDERSTAND.
This is not a healthy way to have a relationship.
I kind of want to link my mother to this, and thank her for being wonderful, but this article would probably upset her.
“No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
No one cuts off their parents because the parents were *too nice* to them. Article thesis total fail.
Does anyone else see a parallel to the “Nice Guy” mentality here? I.e. she was SO nice, she was just TOO nice, she did everything right and that’s why her children hate her. It’s a similar feeling of entitlement to someone’s time and love, and a refusal to acknowledge that she could be the bad guy in any way.
Frankly, I’m not looking forward to “Aggrieved Estranged Parents” becoming the new Men’s Rights movement.
From the upthread discussions, I’m pretty sure there’s a huge overlap — to the point where they’re virtually indistinguishable
Momzoned!
That was a cathartic snort-laugh. Thank you!
*gold star* to you.
It’s sort of a relief to know that other people’s parents also use “I don’t understaaaaaaaand (your personal decisions as an autonomous adult)” when they mean “I don’t like this reality; give me a different one.”
Did anyone else start hard-lurking DWIL after Nicole posted about it last summer? Every post is about someone’s stupid relative leaving them series of unhinged voicemails and wailing that they don’t know what they diiiiiiiiiiiiiiid, and they’re sorry, OK. They’re sorry that they’ve ever made mistakes in their lives, and pick up the phone, you stupid bitch, I don’t know why you don’t love me, I’m going to harm myself. Next message, So are you coming to Olive Garden on Sunday or what? Let me know! I baked you nine birthday cakes!
yup. It doesn’t help that my in-laws are high-functioning narcissists (seriously George and Lucille Bluth with Ph.Ds) and Mr. Delperro and I are thinking about having a baby, so that board is relevant to my situation (and terrifying).
My mother (a psychologist, and the child of a pretty monstrous narcissist) thinks I’m going overboard, until I remind her of all of the crazy undermining BS they’ve already tried to pull on me, and I’ve witnessed them pulling on Mr. Delperro. Then she’s totally on my team.
This is a legit description of my (non)interactions with my mother over the last two months.
THANK YOU for reminding me about that!
This thread is providing great entertainment: http://community.babycenter.com/post/a54650380/ho…
shitting christ
Oh my gooooooooood
This is a Lifetime Original horror movie right here.
Oooh yeah. I don’t have nearly the issues most of the people on the board have to deal with, not even in the same universe, but dang those ladies will give you the confidence to stand your ground. And speaking of birthday cakes, there was one incredible thread with a MIL who canceled her grandkid’s birthday cake order to bring/buy her own, I forget exactly, and then I think later bit a cop while trying to trespass and possibly kidnap the baby. She probably wouldn’t see what she did wrong, either…
Sorry for the derail but “I baked you nine birthday cakes!” made me LOL, which was nice because this thread is (understandably) very grave and somber. So…thanks!
So, the original article was terrible and probably very similar to several of my estranged family members’ thoughts about big ol’ gay feminist weirdo me. However, the comments section here has made me feel a whole lot less alone. May we all make the wonderful, loving families we actually deserve.
HA HA horrified cackling of recognition.
I have a parent who I should cut off but have not for many reasons, one being eeeh laziness? One of my siblings, however, did cut this person off for many years for very good reasons, and the parent’s response was always “well your sibling has to deal with whatever is wrong with them in their own way so I guess I’ll just DEAL with this UNWARRANTED HURT caused by their LACK OF SANITY”. YES SURE OK, that must be it.
I promise you, even if that woman’s sons sent her a bullet point list of what she did to them to make them cut her off, she’d find a way to make it their fault and not hers. And probably use it to write a few more articles. Sometimes people realize trying to reason with narcissists is like sweeping the beach of sand, and just say fuck it and go live in the mountains.
Reading this article I think I know exactly why her kids don’t talk to her
I read the start of that second quote as “Most of the parents I talk to are boners…” and I won’t take it back.
I’ve been estranged from my father for 10 years and I’m horrified that he will read this and start calling me again. The worst is that he is a psychologist in my area so whenever I try searching for one his face pops up.
Well, I was raised by an unloving and unaffirming mother, which is apparently why I’m so narcissistic, I have to post things twice. Sorry about that! 😉
I haven’t spoken to my (objectively deranged, toxic) mother since I was 18 (nearly 20 years ago) and I couldn’t be happier about it!
I can identify so much with so many of these comments. I can’t decide whether this was the best thing or the worst thing for me to read at the beginning of a forced 7 months living at home. So much for setting boundaries. Somehow these 7 months are supposed to improve my mental health to the point that I can return to school, but I can’t see living here doing anything but more harm.
I don’t really have any advice, but I wanted to wish you good luck.
Thanks, I really appreciate that. Hopefully some good therapy will help to mitigate some of the damage that living with my mother again is inevitably going to do?
Thank you to Mallory and everyone in this comment thread. It is really astonishing how exactly so many of our detailed various experiences line up exactly, and so reassuring to hear that “it happened to me too” and you’re actually NOT the only person who has ever done this ever instead of “clearly you are the worst because every OTHER child on the planet would NEVER do that to their poor loving parents who have only ever given you everything.”
I hope we all become the most thoughtful, considerate, boundary-keeping, supportive parents ever. (if you want kids, of course!)
It is almost like we were raised by a generation of people who were particularly bad at parenting! Or something.
Also, this line is in-fucking-credible: “We boomers were the first generation with parents who were ultra-concerned about making sure their children had a “better” childhood than they had.”
Yes, not only are you the best parents who ever parented and your children left you because of it, you are in fact the ONLY parents in ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY SPANNING MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS who wanted a better life for your children. The only ones. Everyone else just gave birth and tossed them out in the road to fend for themselves.
Right? God knows, your parents who lived through the Great Depression didn’t have any similar thoughts about your lives being better than theirs.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST have you never heard of immigration?
You think people move far away from their communities to places where they can’t speak the language for THEMSELVES?
Fuck you lady.
It’s just making me think of all the Filipina women I have worked with who work 70 hours a week in Canada DESPERATE to get their kids here. Jesus.
Look, this generation–it’s not their fault, but they were born to parents who wanted to sacrifice so much for them, and born at a time of phenomenal technological and economic innovation, and the whole culture–art, media, advertising–has revolved around them from the moment they were born to now–they just don’t have any sense of what it means to sacrifice or contribute to a healthy, considerate society. They just keep taking and taking.
They can’t help it, these Boomers. Many of them never learned any better.
My boomer (narcissist) mom was telling me about how she’s going to some community meeting in her town where seniors can apply for property tax reduction based solely on age. I pointed out that that must negatively impact local schools and she shot back that it’s not her concern, and why should she have to pay higher taxes when she’s living solely on social security. Which will be gone by the time these kids are old enough to retire, of course.
Lady used to go to peace protests. Can’t believe how self absorbed their generation has become.
Haha boomers wringing their hands about narcissism…
Cell phones and email have enabled a lot of this intrusive, controlling behavior. In earlier times, you had to write letters that took days to arrive, and long distance phone calls and travel were more expensive. People lived with the reality that your kids grew up, moved out, and from then on, you really had limited knowledge of their day to day life. Now, if you don’t text somebody back instantly, they get offended. You can return to those days of yore in spirit. Just don’t be always available, give them a chance to miss you. Occupy yourself with things you love. Pacing is everything in difficult relationships, including pacing right out the door if necessary.
TAKING VOTES NOW ON A TOASTIE SUPPORT GROUP FOR CHILDREN OF NARCISSISTIC PARENTS.
(the comments alone have already instilled in me a warm and fuzzy feeling of not-alone-ness and it is woooonderful and so helpful and so appreciated right now you have no idea.)
I would like to found the auxiliary group for Toasties who are the children of parents with BPD. We’ll salute you from across the hall.
Sign me up! Can I be treasurer?
IN.
This is so clearly necessary. I was talking to some people on the Awl months ago with similar backgrounds and it was so helpful.
check out this one, it’s also good for children of BPD and other psychiatric disorders: reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/
Omg here is a thread title from her message board: “Should we tell our children what they have said, and done to hurt us?”
I feel like I have bugs all over my skin. Oh my gods.
Oh, for sure. That will definitely help.
Right? Probably people only cut off their parents because they think it will make their parents happy. They must be totally unaware that their parents didn’t want to be cut off.
Oh, they definitely already have. That thread is clearly there for masturbatory praise.
The one thing I do think is worthwhile about what she’s doing is the support group – I’ve cut people off and been cut off, and I think from either side it’s a painful experience tha makes you need support and assurance that you’re not alone. The problem with a peer support group, though, is that these parents will probably just reinforce each other’s belief that they’re the victimised ones who have done nothing wrong. Part of the support you need when you’ve been cut off is owning up to your own part in the relationship and then forgiving yourself for it – because you sure as hell can’t expect forgiveness from the person who cut you off.
“Elizabeth Vagnoni’s career in advertising let her work on campaigns like AT&T’s Reach Out and Touch Someone and DeBeers’ Diamonds Are Forever.”
Oh. I think I understand.
Mind. Blown.
“All this started because of a personal email they felt entitled to read on my computer.”
Serial season 2
I tried to like this 1000X
For everyone reading this post I want to warn you away from watching Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here because it felt like a movie written by this lady, where the son who cuts himself off from his emotionally abusive father is told he must go to his death bed because otherwise selfish.
Also because Zach Braff.
COUNTERPOINT!!!! I have a personal stake in this as my brother has disowned the family (myself included), had four kids, and never given us a reason why, though I have guesses. However, he is , for the record, an ass who the last time I saw him threw a 5 pound tub of butter at my head (we were eating breakfast, he jokingly spooned some jelly on my hand, and then I did the same. I was 15, he was 25).
He’s had four kids who my mother has never met, and it breaks her heart. She was definitely not the greatest mom, and there was a serious level of emotional neglect when I was growing up that almost destroyed our relationship. BUT – we have since talked about ALL of it, and she has handled it incredibly well and is wonderfully supportive now, and I realized that most of that was about her being deeply depressed about her own abusive family, husband, and employers, and being human and wholly unprepared for the single motherhood she had herself thrown into.
Realizing you parents (and kids!) are unique human beings with thier own troubles, and not an extension of yourself, is hard, and people fail to do it.
Bottom line: some kids are assholes too, and these kids DO sound a bit messy, though lord knows this woman is clearly nuts for then devoting her public academic career to solving her own familial issues.
“Bottom line: some kids are assholes too, and these kids DO sound a bit messy”
To be fair, though, our only perspective on the kids is coming from their mother, who has a vested interest in making herself out to be the victim.
Eh. Just because YOU healed your relationship with your mother doesn’t mean that he should have or has to or is like you. He can be an asshole AND ALSO have made a valid choice. It’s easy to think you were raised by the same person and had the same experiences, but in a lot of ways you weren’t and didn’t.
Yes, siblings growing up in the same household can come away with different experiences. In my case, I have only a very superficial relationship with my mother because to me she was (and still is) a verbally abusive bully. My brother gets on well with her and would criticize me for being oversensitive if he read this.
So who is right, my brother or I? Why doesn’t he remember or care about the bad times?
From what I remember, he didn’t get it as bad as I did. We were both subject to her rage tantrums, but I received the lion’s share of her bullying. You see, she is a “Chill Girl,” a woman who bases her identity and self-esteem on her contempt for other women… including her own daughter.
OH 🙁
The “chill girl” phenomenon was one of which I was all too aware, but I’d never thought about it as relates to my own mother. Only difference is there was no brother to be favored; it was just me, the best worst daughter in the world.
My grandmother-in-law is a horribly passive-aggressive version of the “Chill Girl”. None of the men in the family get her guilt trips or slighting remarks, but *all* of the female in-laws do.
It’s great.
In fact, narcissistic parents often have a “scapegoat” and a “golden child” (as happened in my family too), and it’s often hard for the “golden child” to fully grasp the implications of the parents differential treatment of the scapegoat. (from http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html)
I have an estranged parent of my own, but I want to add a different group of people she is disregarding with her shitty, vain article.
“In the past, elders’ experiences were valued and their children listened to them. Estrangement did happen, but it appeared to be reserved for parents cutting off a wayward child — the ‘black sheep’ of the family.”
First, just the offhand permissive “oh parents are allowed to cut off the black sheep of the family!” like it’s just a simple task some parents are faced with. But second … I work with abuse victims and there are fairly regular instances of parents (and grandparents) who have to cut off adult children due to issues of abuse. It is heart rending. Short of death of a child, you have never seen parents grieving so heavily as when they have to get a protection from abuse action against their own child or grandchild. Many of the ones with cause can’t go through with it out of love for their child. There was a case where a kind, mid-60s couple was paying for anything for their son’s life that they could just pay directly to the provider (apartment, phone, etc.) because he was an addict and would use any direct funds for drugs. Having had enough of them not giving him money directly, he beat the father one day and then vandalized the home, further threatening to set it on fire unless they started providing him with cash. Dad filed for a protection from abuse action and they kept mom off of it, just in case their son wanted treatment and needed to contact one of them. Son came to the protection from abuse hearing solely to barter for more of “his” possessions (that they had paid for, which he admitted, but his phone and computer contained his “intellectual property” so now he was entitled to them) and for his dad to keep paying for his apartment for a few months, while insisting they were the worst parents known to man for “financially bullying him” into seeking drug treatment. Dude was also tweaked out of his mind, at what could have ended up being a hearing.
His parents were distraught and kept asking me to assure them they were doing the right thing. They didn’t see him, but asked if he looked healthy. They told me stories about how wonderful of a son he was when he was clean and how smart and talented he is and how much they missed him. They did not want pity. They weren’t even particularly judgey of the kid, they clearly loved him and just wanted him to get help. The kid expressed no fondness or concern for his parents, or regret for his behavior (“they take everything so seriously–they were happy I did it because it gave them a reason to put me through this”) and was extremely offended that they would presume he needed any help. I’m not saying they were perfect (nor their methods), but I could just feel the sorrow they had at having to do this to their child.
So for this woman. To insist (passive aggressively!). That she is the victim of bad, nasty, narcissistic sons who just WON’T LET HER IIIIIIN while she has done EEEEVERYTHING to try and UNDERSTAND them makes me so angry on that level of having witnessed parents who were abused and still loved their child and only wanted the best for them. She can’t even conceive of what her sons want or what could be best for them and their families, only herself.
This is so totally something my severely personality disordered, abusive father would have written, assuming he could ever come out of his prescription drug addicted haze -but at least my mother gets her martyr fix, so win-win, I guess? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Having any contact with my father is like petting a lion at the zoo. The lion may let you pet him a few times, but eventually he’s going to bite you. And this will be your fault, because you knew he was a lion when you started petting him.
A Boomer complaining of the younger generation’s “entitlement”? That’s rich!
I only recently (finally) connected the dots and realized that my mother’s behavior easily qualifies as emotionally abusive. (It’s been a rough week, Toasties.) And yet, I have seriously considered cutting her out of my life, even before this. But guilt always stays my hand. Feeling sorry for her. She has her own mental health issues, and, I suspect, her own history of maternal emotional abuse from Grandma, and I do feel for her. But the less contact I have with her, the better I feel, and also I can’t solve those issues for her. True confession: I’m terrified that if I become a mother someday, I will make the same mistakes. That I will be yet another link in the chain. 🙁
Does anyone else dread the sugary disgusting spectacle of Mother’s Day, dread picking from a pile of abhorrent cards with ribbons and roses on them for your Dear Mother, dread feeling like a Horrible Ingrate for feeling this way and actually not wanting to get your mom anything? But then getting her something anyway because GUILT?? Ugghhh.
Yes. I have luckily cut off contact with mine several years ago, but I felt this way for years and continue to feel guilty. (I try to overcome it because I know that I absolutely should NOT, but sometimes the bad habit wins.)
However, I have a lovely stepmother. She is a nurse and newly-minted lactation consultant, who used to work with a midwife and works in labor and delivery. I got her this for mother’s day one year: http://gifts.rescue.org/product/health/safe-deliv… and it made her cry. (the good kind!) I recommend it. That way, your mother can’t say anything negative without being a Horrible Ingrate herself, and you know you’ve actually done some good in the world as well as doing something to fulfill the Mom obligation.
Our mothers sound pretty much identical. The chain of maternal emotional abuse is particularly strong in my family and back when I was a young cookie in a very conservative town where the future inevitably held children I was terrified both of emotionally abusing my children and of the increased abuse from my mother. But here’s the best thing I’ve realized: my mom is not just emotionally abusive to me, she’s emotionally abusive to everyone. So I make a concerted effort to not follow her example in the other relationships in my life. I don’t treat my partner the way she treats my dad. I don’t treat my coworkers the way she treats hers. You can practice and learn healthy relationships!
And yes, mother’s day is the worst. I view the time and money as paying to keep peace and then avoid facebook and take refuge here where clearly there are a lot of us in this boat.
I’m terrified that if I become a mother someday, I will make the same mistakes. That I will be yet another link in the chain. 🙁
There is a line from a cartoon that reassures me every time I think of this. It’s from “God, The Devil and Bob”. A rough paraphrase because it’s been about ten years since I saw it:
“Being a parent is like passing on a punch that came from your father, and from his father before him, in a line that stretches back millennia to before humans were even humans. The trick is, to pass on a softer punch.”
My partner and I are planning to start the creating-a-tiny-human process this year, and I feel that fear so hard. My mother used to tell me all the time that I’d ruined her life. The part of me that knows that’s not true lives in terror of making my kid feel the same way. The (ever smaller, but probably never to be fully eradicated) part of me that still believes her swings wildly between a) fear that I will ruin my kid’s life because that’s just what I do, and b) fear that my kid will ruin my life because that’s what having a kid does*. Partner has been amazing through all of this and is always there to tell me that I’ve only made her life better, but it’s hard to trust that fully on a gut level.
* Obviously I know that’s not true. But some stuff gets into your bones and no amount of reasoning can get rid of it completely.
I felt guilty about cutting off my emotionally abusive father, but what makes me feel good about the decision is seeing how much better my life is, how much happier I am, since I made that decision. I used to feel the same way on father’s day and his birthday, I felt obligated to get him something (and wouldn’t have wanted to deal with the fallout if I didn’t), but I didn’t feel sincere about it. Now on those days I still feel a little bit of freedom, I don’t have to pretend that we have a normal relationship, that I appreciate him, that I feel any of those greeting card sentiments.
I hope you find a way to do what’s right for you.
Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) is incredibly hard for me, too, @Loony_Lovegood–you are not alone.
I hate writing anything in those cards–what am I supposed to say? “Thank you for never letting me feel like I was good enough for you”? It’s horrible.
Set your own boundaries, and gradually bring yourself to be at peace with them. It’s a long process, but it’s okay to choose distance, if not complete removal of another person from your life.
I’m scared of making those same mistakes, too, but being aware of them is the first step. Apologizing when we make them is the next. We are not our mothers, and we are not bound to make their same choices. *hug*
This is hard. You’re not alone in your struggle or feelings, and it’s okay to choose separation.
This rings very true for me. I did my dot-connecting last winter with the help of a therapist and a few good books and it was really, really tough, but so worth it. I will recommend:
Mothers Who Can’t Love -Susan Forward
The Emotionally Absent Mother – Jasmin Lee
and ESPECIALLY Understanding the Borderline Mother – Christine Ann Lawson (highlighted my copy to death)
As for parenting, I am 9.5 years into that journey and I do my best. My “bible” is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk – Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch. It is so, so smart about how to be an EMPATHETIC parent, in ways that were certainly counterintuitive to me, but make such a difference in “getting” my kids and letting them know that I get them. I can’t say enough good stuff about it.
In sum, there is a way to live without (most of) the guilt and to parent without passing down (most of) the baggage. It’s hard work, but really liberating.
The thing that really gets me is the expectation that the majority of the people who cut off their parents do so easily and quickly, at the slightest thing. While there are perhaps people who do that, what I have found through knowing many people with toxic relationships with their parents is that for various reasons, they are LOATHE to do it, even when talking about how it would be best for them to do so. They’ll talk about how terrifying the idea is. How they worry about the social stigma of it. How not having any concept of support through family scares them, how being cut off from the rest of their family is a real worry, how they’d feel guilty because they can’t give back to the people who raised them, even IF those people did an awful job of it.
It is not a situation I have ever seen anyone take lightly. I certainly haven’t ever seen it stem from narcissism. Most of the people I’ve seen consider doing it in spite of their automatic desire of selflessness to their parents, and that just makes even skimming this revolting to me.
I know someone who logically should cut his parents out of his life, that that is the only sane response to dealing with these people. And yet he’s never considered it and if he were to try everyone would think he’s nuts because it’s Just. Not. Done.
Meanwhile, seems to me *some* parents are willing to threaten estrangement far more easily. Almost like there’s a power differential that should be acknowledged or something. HMMM. 😐
Now that I am here, I have lost energy. All I can say is
#banboomers (with the men, of course)
I remember years ago seeing this story on the news about a group of grandparents whose children had cut them out of their lives; the focus was on this one woman who reminded me of the letter writer. They were petitioning the court to grant them visitation rights to their grandchildren. The thought filled me with horror. I don’t think they won.
I only recently (finally) connected the dots and realized that my mother’s behavior easily qualifies as emotionally abusive. (It’s been a rough week, Toasties.) And yet, I have seriously considered cutting her out of my life, even before this. But guilt always stays my hand. Feeling sorry for her. She has her own mental health issues, and, I suspect, her own history of maternal emotional abuse from Grandma, and I do feel for her. But the less contact I have with her, the better I feel, and also I can’t solve those issues for her. True confession: I’m terrified that if I become a mother someday, I will make the same mistakes. That I will be yet another link in the chain. 🙁
No. No. You will not. You are already halfway to breaking the chain.
Think of it like being an alcoholic. My father was a rage monster (toward me, not toward my mother or sister) when I was growing up, and my mother is a passive aggressive with narcissistic tendencies. They engaged/engage in a lot of unhealthy behaviors that I spent time as a young adult being terrified that I would emulate myself if I ever opened up to a serious relationship. Like being co-dependent. Like enabling the worst behaviors of the spouse to the detriment of others. Like pretending things are fine when they are not and holding unreasonable grudges. Like having a hair-trigger temper. I lived a long time terrified that any moment now, I would become them.
I am not. You are not. We are not. We need to be a little bit more vigilant, to be a little bit more careful about laying the groundwork with our friends and partners. We need to assess our behavior a little bit more carefully than we might otherwise so that we don’t trigger the same old traps. We need to see a therapist when things become too much. We need to be aware that stress is a trigger, and to be prepared to go and talk to a therapist if things threaten to overwhelm us.
We can win this, though. We are not our parents.
It got very dusty in here after I read this. I’m so glad to have come back to check on this thread.
Didn’t think I could love The Toast’s comment section more than I did already, but there we are.
Thank you so much. I needed that. *lifts chin up* You’re right. We can do better than our parents did. Thank you.
Yesss, my pregnancy and subsequent motherhood has sadly driven a huge wedge between my mother and I, because she wasn't the spotlight of my life anymore. So far she's missed my shower and his first birthday, and didn't see him on Christmas last year either because she got here too late. She acts like she loves him but rarely makes a real effort to see him, and it's just sad.
Last year I was busy organizing my son's first birthday (a week after hers) and my mother had a passive aggressive silent tantrum over me not getting in touch to organize her (59th) birthday too. I only recently realized other people didn't grow up regarding their mother's birthday as basically another holiday which occasioned rejoicing and group celebrating.
He believed that parents should be more flexible and affectionate with their children and should treat them as individuals. Previous conventional wisdom had been that child-rearing should focus more on building discipline.
It’s…really possible to do both. You can love your children, tell them you love them, but also explain to them that they shouldn’t bite their siblings, play rough with the pets, or smear their food on the walls. “I love you, but don’t do that” is not an enormously complex parenting concept.
(Not suggesting that this line is easy to walk, or that parenting doesn’t require a great deal of patience and empathy. Just saying that there wasn’t this sudden sea change in the 1950s, where everybody just stopped believing in discipline, and parents no longer remembered that they could be anything other than BFFs with their children.)
Sad for you and for your son. Weddings and babies seem to bring out the worst in narcissistic relatives.
Agreed. Estranged from parents for clear, definable reasons, they completely fail to understand what they did.
I feel like estrangement is where I’m headed, and I can’t process any of it because my parents are definitely not this grossly oblivious woman (though my living grandparents are, which is perhaps relevant). I think they try when they can, but the kindling the fueled our family in my mind is gone. We are a very anglo-saxon family, filled with stoics and sublimation and heavy silences. My parents did not prevent the abuse that I suffered a door over and even though it’s not something they’re responsible for it’s scarred us irreparably. I know they blame themselves and I think I did too, though not to the extent that I blamed myself – that feeling of betrayal is still there but you can only catch it in the periphery of your vision, like a stalking creature.
But anyway, they blamed themselves, and I’ve let them, and now we’re left in a situation where we’re both incapable of talking to one another and afraid of doing so. We have never spoken openly about what was done to me, not once, never, in the 12 years it’s been known, and it has festered and eaten in our silence. Now our relationship just feels like a desert, no life, nothing to salvage. I depend upon them financially and am in their debt (so much of our relationship is explicitly about debts), but once I’m free of that I may just walk away. And they don’t deserve that. But I’m tired of living in this dead thing. It is what it is.
Maybe it’s because I’m autistic and could never establish a strong bond with either of my parents despite their best efforts. Maybe it’s because my mother is bipolar who was callous and acerbic in her manic periods. Maybe we’re all autistic and living disconnected from one another because we can only ever see inward. I don’t know. It is what it is.
I’m actually reminded of my forgotten aunt, who wasn’t much older than I was (she must be in her late 30s or early 40s now). Completely cut herself off from our entire shared family, I only remember her because it was a relatively fresh development when I was 5 or 6. I wonder about her sometimes. I don’t know what her reasons were, but knowing my grandparents, I don’t think I would blame her for whatever it was.
I am so sorry that you are feeling so much pain, the things you have been through, and the ways your parents were unable to protect you. But, if the cutting off hurts, I have found that growing some distance and time will often make things better; that taking a few years of less contact and less enmeshment makes it easier to talk, and open things up for a real relationship in the future. Maybe that will happen for you, maybe it won’t. Either way, I wish you healing.
I feel like estrangement is where I'm headed, and I can't process any of it because my parents are definitely not this grossly oblivious woman (though my living grandparents are, which is perhaps relevant). I think they try when they can, but the kindling the fueled our family in my mind is gone. We are a very anglo-saxon family, filled with stoics and sublimation and heavy silences. My parents did not prevent the abuse that I suffered a door over and even though it's not something they're responsible for it's scarred us irreparably. I know they blame themselves and I think I did too, though not to the extent that I blamed myself – that feeling of betrayal is still there but you can only catch it in the periphery of your vision, like a stalking creature.
But anyway, they blamed themselves, and I've let them, and now we're left in a situation where we're both incapable of talking to one another and afraid of doing so. We have never spoken openly about what was done to me, not once, never, in the 12 years it's been known, and it has festered and eaten in our silence. Now our relationship just feels like a desert, no life, nothing to salvage. I depend upon them financially and am in their debt (so much of our relationship is explicitly about debts), but once I'm free of that I may just walk away. And they don't deserve that. But I'm tired of living in this dead thing. It is what it is.
Maybe it's because I'm autistic and could never establish a strong bond with either of my parents despite their best efforts. Maybe it's because my mother is bipolar who was callous and acerbic in her manic periods. Maybe we're all autistic and living disconnected from one another because we can only ever see inward. I don't know. It is what it is.
I'm actually reminded of my forgotten aunt, who wasn't much older than I was (she must be in her late 30s or early 40s now). Completely cut herself off from our entire shared family, I only remember her because it was a relatively fresh development when I was 5 or 6. I wonder about her sometimes. I don't know what her reasons were, but knowing my grandparents, I don't think I would blame her for whatever it was.
I got sucked in and went on a Google hunt, hoping that one of her sons would have had and then leaked a copy of the estrangement-inducing e-mail on the Internet. No such luck, but I did find a blog about dissenters being banned from Elizabeth Vagnoni’s website for estranged parents.
http://bannedfromestrangedstories.blogspot.com/20…
“I am shocked and surprise to find myself unexpectedly “banned” for suggesting that we estranged parents may just have played a role in the estrangement with our adult children, and that we also need to look at ourselves!”
Bless this thread.
It’s so wonderful to know that there are other people who have chosen to hold their family at a distance to maintain their own sanity.
It’s good to know we are not alone.
While I know by & large most people who are estranged deserve it & most ppl who do the estrangement need the boundary…that’s cold comfort for me. My half-sister estranged me 6 years ago because of (my stepmom says) my continuing relationship with our dad. I have to state here that he’s not physically abusive, and I hate everyone assuming that he was every time I tell this story. He’s just your average alkie loser, no more no less.
I loved her unconditionally. But I also loved him. Hell, I still love them both. But he calls and writes and visits when he can…and she did the slow fade and blocked me on FB.
My stepmom says I didn’t do anything wrong, and offers me the olive branch that maybe ‘someday’ I’ll get my sister back. As for me, I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what I did, if I should keep sending cards to her last address, if i should keep hoping or not.
My stepmom said in the past that my sister was sad that my dad ‘gave up’ on her. I emailed and pointed out that a one sided relationship was particularly painful, and we both knew he’s not built for that.
I don’t want her to wonder in ten years if I gave up on her. But hoping hurts so badly, y’all, ad very few ppl can know or sympathize with how bad this feels. And I’m not sure its fair for her to get to waltz back in. When? When he dies? That could be another 20 years. And would she expect me to just be silent about being ignored this whole time? Would I have to swallow down feeling this very real pain in the hope she won’t run away again?
Christmas breaks me. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve never known what to do because she won’t tell me.
I went at a public high school in Australia that had a pretty diverse cross-section of SES background in the student cohort. They offered school uniforms patterns and fabrics to DIY sew (as a cheaper alternative to buying pre-made), which my mum decided to use.
About 3 years into high school I figured out why I always looked so weird; it wasn’t my misshapen body (which you assume at 14…), but the fact that she sewed all the skirt pleats back-to-front, and decided to cut my blouse super-baggy, but maintained the correct waistband size. So I was wearing a giant balloon blouse and a skirt that seemed to collapse in on itself. No ever said a thing to me, until I worked it out, told everyone and then we just laughed and forgot about it forever more.
Socks, on the on the hand – one had to have a particularly strong sense of self to attempt to wear your socks at the wrong length and you. For the record, so low on your ankles they pretty much slipped under your feet was the required style.
My parents have their individual issues, but are basically nice, and reasonably sane, and I love them both. I might even like them if we weren’t related. Things like this make me very, very grateful for that.
"She's leaving home after living alone "
It's "living a lie," I believe (rhymes with the 'buy' at the end of the previous line). Still, an apt soundtrack.
omg this is so true. I hate the expectation that unless something is seriously awful, you will and should stay in it forever. Like what if you just feel a bit meh about your former carers and would rather watch reruns of Friends than phone them? My family includes a paedophile, so valid excuse, but even if it didn't, I think I'd feel so-so about them. Their house is always super warm though, they have amazing central heating.
Mine were abusive but I also find this pressure to be internally anguished really annoying. I think people who want that from you should watch more TV. Plenty of drama there.
THANK YOU for putting in writing what I was thinking as I read the original article a few months ago. SO vague, SO self gratifying and not at all productive for EITHER ESTRANGED PARTY. I stumbled across the article because I am adult child trying to stay estranged from my narcissist father. I do not recommend it.