another thing to add to the list of things that confuse me on a gut level: when people describe talking to their parents on a regular basis, or uh pretty much ever actually
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you're telling me you guys didn't get punished for telling your parents things that fell slightly out of line with their expectations so quickly learned to not tell your parents anything ever? 🤔🤔🤔
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and they wonder why i take so long to reply to their messages now 🙄
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one of the fucked up things about this is it didn't occur to me that anything was "wrong" for a long time b/c all the teenagers i saw in TV, movies, etc. growing up also hated their parents, and also so did nearly all my friends, so it all just seemed normal to me
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do any of you feel like you had good relationships with your parents? what was that like? what did they do if you came to them with problems? did you feel comfortable opening up to them about uhhh anything? what did they do if you fucked something up?
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I feel like mine were overall good with some hiccups? My dad's reaction to my coming out was pretty impressive tbh. My mom had a couple of areas of not being great and there are still certain things that I wall off from her but some things I can go to her for advice
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"you know how you fucked up?"
Yeah
"Have a plan to not have that happen again?
Yeah
"Ok"
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I cut all contact with my mom at 18, but had a decent though not very close relationship with my dad until my 30s, when he started dating a very abusive woman who affected our relationship a lot. Now haven't talked to him at all in 1.5 years.
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I also find the idea of having a close relationship with my parents a weird idea. And also a sad idea, having missed something important in life that many others have.
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Yes. Dad was fun, cool, free, the friendliest person I've ever met. He made us laugh a lot. Mom was grumpy, demanding, fierce, would be at someone's throat in a second for us. When we were kids, she valued our freedom, had our back, celebrated our wins
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I could go on and on. A whole chapter just about how she supported me in adulthood - I left home at 23, brought them both near me by 27. Now they live literally next door, and she's still my most important support pillar❤️
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I was a pretty nerdy kid, so I think there was little worry about me getting into real trouble anyway.
mostly I was just introvertedly independent and they were cautiously okay with that space. I asked their advice when needed and they were generally wise and thoughtful
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gf has a good relationship with her parents, and hanging out with the family is super weird, cuz I have nothing to map the interactions onto. I’m constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, and someone to start sniping or screaming or needling each other, but they just… don’t
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it would weird me out to not feel the extremely palpable omnipresent tension in the air is there no extremely palpable omnipresent tension in the air?
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I had some of that same experience as a kid. Though my parents divorced when I was 17, and I came to realize that most of the problems were due to my father and that my mom had really just been doing her best.
As a result, my family (minus my dad) is much closer now.
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I remember being like 22, and breaking down crying after realizing that my mom really, actually, loved me.