Of parents

[Sweet or Sour]

With this definably fake holiday in the united states known as ‘mothers day’ now behind us, and leaving all of us [who are in the united states] in it’s immediate wake, it brings up the issue of mothers as a symbol, or rather parents to extend the scope, and the effect they have on us. For the sake of a conservative estimate, it seems to be reasonably safe to say at least a majority of us have, or have had, parents, and as such have been immediately effected by the power that they inevitably hold over us. Regardless of how great your parents were, you are still at least partially responsible for your successes, and likely have shortcomings, and are responsible for them also. Regardless of how horrible your parents are, you still are at least partially responsible for your shortcomings, and you likely have successes, and are responsible for them. To keep with the trend set though, it’s yet another conservative assumption to say that most of those who have had parents, has been influenced by them, and continues to be influenced by them [parents not being extended strictly to the biological sense, but more so as a appointed guardian or some form or another]. It is nearly inescapable. But being the sophisticated and reasoning beings that [most of us] are, we can look at our raising from a standpoint of critical judgement, or that of praise [or both, each expression for different facets]. Some have found themselves under a sort of oppressive influence, and some have broken free from it, and others have found themselves in an absolutely awesome position due to the efforts of their parents. Some have sworn to never do to their own children [regardless of if said person plans to have children] what their parents have done to them, and some can think of no greater gift to their kids than to follow in many of the footprints of their parents. Doubtlessly though, as [arguably] free thinking beings, we look back on things, and pass judgement, and not all the judgement we pass is positive, and hopefully not all negative. What judgement have you passed? What of that which your parents have forced upon you do you find constructive, and devastating? What of their methods are you critical of, and are you still? Were you critical then? What would you do differently, and what would you try to mimic, if you found yourself in the position to act this roll?

Sorry for length

[ByGollyIdBeTheSir]

I have only one thing to say about my parents - Fuck them. Fuck them in the ears with rusted barber's razors.

Okay, technically that's two things...


I was raised by the TV and Oh no! More Lemmings mostly. My father got some bigshot job where he had to commute so I only ever saw him at the weekends, when he'd go off with his friends and relax. So although I got more stuff than my sisters did growing up, I saw a lot less of my dad and I'd have preferred to swop because we're scarily alike despite a 35-year age gap and severe gender difference and we get along so well it's a shame to have seen him so little. Now he's retired, I don't live with him. Sod's law.

My mother and I really don't get along. She hit the menopause at the same time I went through puberty so you can imagine the hormone-driven slanging-matches. My older sisters have her wrapped round their finger and they can keep her there frankly. She's very belittling about people's looks, probably because she's so unconfident of her own, and constantly makes little comments if you put on weight or don't do your hair or wear make-up or whatever so I grew up thinking I was some kind of obese monster. Which was partially due to her because most nights I was fed chips + something because she was always on some weird faddy diet and couldn't be bothered to cook twice which is fair enough I suppose. I started making my own meals at 13 and dropped like two stone and now she and my sisters hate me because even though I'm hardly Calista Flockhart, I'm still thinner than them .


We had a big bust-up and I moved out, missing out on the chance to go to college a second time (I quit the first time because I wasn't ready and worked for a year with plans to go back). Now I'm moving away they're all sad because "they won't get to see me". Um, they never see me anyway .

I don't really feel I can criticise them though. I know I'd be the worst parent ever as I'm very self-centered, and I don't plan to have any kids with the way the world is going. I'm going to be one of those crazy old women who has about 50 cats and collects teapots. You can't really go wrong with cats and teapots.

[Alter alias]

Wow, you have my commiserations.
I consider myself quite fortunate in the old parental department, they are simply people that I share the house with, which suits me perfectly.

[Aeridus]

My parents are very understanding but very critical at the same time.

[Kingofthemorlocks]

Dad's racist, homophobic, bigoted, fanatical Bush-shoe-licking conservative Republican who was raised in a church descended from puritan times, called the Church of Plymouth Brethren.

Mom's racist and homophobic, but tries to cover it up and just ends up being disgustingly hypocritical.

I'm not a very big fan of either, though mom is paying my tuition.

[Wilmo]

Thankfully, I like my parents, I was incredibly fortunate.

granted, I dont agree with their political beliefs; but, hey it's a free country(well, on paper at least). I find that I'm very much a product of the two personalities; though, I tend to be fairly wishy-washy when it comes to labeling myself.


... yeah, I saw the malcom in the middle series finale too

[Swordsman3003]

I could not really asked for much better parents. I don't care to go into the details, but there is nothing my parents to that habitually ticks me off.

[RantinAn]

Mine are good, except when my mother decides that i need to be berated about something when im completly out of reserves of mental cope energy.

[Awkwardschoolgirl]

I'm pretty fortunate with the parents. They're not horrid or anything. But they're not overly fantastic. I can't talk to anyone in my house about anything important, let alone anything unimportant. They're pretty over-protective and treat me like I'm an idiot sometimes. They don't like me making mistakes, and lecture me sometimes. Mom is going slowly crazy which bothers me. Mom and dad fight a lot... but not so much that I'm very worried about it, just frustrated when it happens. That's about all I can say about my parents. I'm apathetic about my family. We aren't very close at all.

[Honor]

Sorry for length

@.@

Dude... It's not the length, it's the srtucture. Paragraphs, carriage returns, and white space... They're not only your friends, the're the friends of your readers.

Good post, though... Very good topic... Just... please. Paragraphs.

I am curious about this, though...

With this definably fake holiday...

What's a fake holiday? What differentiates it from an authentic holiday? What quantity or purity of which quality makes it definably fake?

...we're scarily alike despite a 35-year age gap and severe gender difference...

Welcome. (*rape!*) Cool screen name.

I'm curious about this, too... What constitutes a severe gender difference... as opposed to... say... a standard or normal gender difference?

...even though I'm hardly Calista Flockhart...

Well, thank god! THere's thin, then there's freakinshly thin, then there's "omigod, you call 911 whie I give her some soup!" thin, then there's Calista Flockhart. There's just nothing physically attractive about that.


On to the topic at hand... Dad was a good bloke. Bit of an alcoholic, and certainly had his own demons to fight, but he tried hard to be a good father. I know, genetically, I owe a lot to him... He was very intelligent and very good looking... I got the intelligent part, which is exactly what I would have chosen had I been offered a choice. My intelligence surpassed his own, and nothing about me made him more proud than that. I imagine he could have wished I'd do more with it, in a "go out and earm lots of money on the treadmill" kind of sense, but I think he understood, eventually, that my values were different, and learning and knowledge for it's own sake was more important to me.

Mother was... An angel. Try as I might, the only thing I can find fault with her on was that she worked too hard and sought too little medical attention... She was afraid chemo would render her unable to work, and thus unable to take care of us kids. She taught and/or fostered in me honesty, love, compassion, skepticism, curiosity... Every personal trait or value I find important or worthwhile in myself, I look to her memory as an example and goal.

As cliched and shopworn a bit of advice as it may be, enjoy your chance to know your parents while they're here... Be it good or bad, your relationship with them just doesn't progress much after they're gone.

[Indigo Violent]

My mother and I - well, it's not that we don't get along, it's just that we don't understand each other. I think she wishes my brother and I were normal, and that Dad didn't encourage us to be weird.

[Sweet or Sour]

Suppose white space would be more beneficial to include for the sake of the poor reader that gets stuck in the middle of one of my text clots. But with regards to the 'definably fake' holiday comment, it was more intended to point out two things, first of which is that nearly all holidays that are celebrated are so far separated from their original meaning, even if with regard to sheer time passed, as to commemorate an event that those who are currently celebrating it, could relate to in a much less significant way. Like how there is a celebrated ‘Presidents, celebrated with a day off of work for governmental employees who likely don’t know much more about the men that the day is to recognize than what could be written on a three by five inch index card, legibly, in crayon, much less what the specific day’s original meaning is [or rather, was, previous to the holidays move to a different day of celebration], or even if presidents should be celebrated, so much as to accept they should be simply because presidents are celebrated.

The second reason was because mother’s day in particular was rather arbitrarily assigned to a day. A day like Christmas for example, is hooked to a specific calendar day for a specific reason [again, the reason has very much changed, but there was an original reason of some kind]. In any case, many holidays are to celebrate a day, a day of some meaning, due to something that actually happened on that day that caused said meaning to be present, and for that day to deserve recognition. Mothers day on the other hand, accompanied by a number of other holidays, mark no specific event of origin, and the origin is not as climactic and sudden, but rather a day that is celebrated because it was decided that some day should be celebrated, and that this particular day is as good as any other. Not to say that mothers, and the act of mothering is not deserving of recognition, but that it should be recognized in a different way than, for example, how Easter is recognized. [A fashion that is not so illegitimatizing of the act of mothering, or parenting in general. Seems like something that should be more elevated to a level of general social importance, rather than be given a ‘day’ that seems almost mocking.]

Perhaps ‘fake’ holiday wasn’t the best word of choice. I’ve never been an especially crafty linguist, and my intentions often get mangled in the words used to express them. If only I had the capacity to accurately translate things from where they originate, into a textual form.

For the sake of humor though, there are also accusations that it is a bit of a hallmark holiday

*edit*The original version of this post had a few extra carriage returns indiscriminately sprinkled through it, but it made it difficult to read, and may possibly have been misperceived something with a snide motive. They were removed to fix both mentioned issues.

[ByGollyIdBeTheSir]

What constitutes a severe gender difference... as opposed to... say... a standard or normal gender difference?

I just like inappropriate semi-oxymoronic adjectives. Thanks for the welcome!

[Putaro]

In my case, I was largely raised by grandmother and I think that she did a decent job. We didn't have a big problem with adolescent rebellion or anything like that. Though, one big disagreement that we had was over college. I wanted to go and she thought I should be a waiter because there's always jobs and they make good money from tips. This from the woman who taught me how to read. But, then, in her generation getting a high school diploma was a lot of education. I feel I came out of the process with not too many dysfunctions and I think I know the dysfunctions I do have.

Now, my mom. A good person but my grandmother really screwed up in her upbringing. Constant moving and so my mom, who is shy to start with, never had friends in school. Then she let my mom drop out school after junior high with the rationalization that girls didn't need much education (they had just moved again and my mom didn't want to make friends at a new school - what does a 13 year old know?). After that she tried to keep her close as her best friend and run her life for her and really stunted her emotional growth. The result? My mom (age 60) is pretty dysfunctional, hasn't held a job in 25 years and blames my grandmother (now dead 10 years) for all of her problems. I often feel more like my mom's older brother or father in dealing with her.

My two younger sisters were mostly raised by mom who took a very lenient, hands-off approach to parenting. This resulted in my middle sister very nearly self destructing in her early teens with a short side trip into drug dealing. Fortunately we were able to help her get straightened out and she's now a happy, functional person who's raising a daughter on her own and works as a counselor with kids in an inner-city neighborhood.

My youngest sister was a lot less trouble in her teen years, kind of as a reaction to the middle sister, but hasn't been able to really find a direction for herself after college. But she has a job, seems happy, and generally takes care of herself.

So, if I've come up with any lessons out of my own history it's that parenting involves setting appropriate limits, paying a lot of attention to your kids and giving them a lot of trust as well.

That said, though, it somtimes seems that some good results are because you started with a kid that was basically unbreakable. In the case of my mom, I wonder if she would have had problems no matter how she was raised.

[Squidflakes]

My mom passed away just before Easter in 2003. I think about her every day and miss her terribly.

Life wasn't always peachy with her, but life without her is a million times worse. I used to have a very similar attitude towards my mom that a lot of posters seem to have, one of indifference or mild hostility, but all of that is gone now. Saddly, it took her death to make me realize that she was just as worthy of forgiveness as anyone else.

[Lowky]

My mom passed away just before Easter in 2003. I think about her every day and miss her terribly.

Life wasn't always peachy with her, but life without her is a million times worse. I used to have a very similar attitude towards my mom that a lot of posters seem to have, one of indifference or mild hostility, but all of that is gone now. Saddly, it took her death to make me realize that she was just as worthy of forgiveness as anyone else.

I can understand that totally Squiddy. My mom passed away april 26th, 1999. for probably the 3-4 years before that i was her nurse. She had diabetes. in 1993 My Grandmother died, it took about 3.5 years for my mom to finally close on the sale of my grandmother's tool and die shop, due to a business partner that was being an asshat about the sale of the company, even though his partnership at that point consisted of owning shares of the company only. Good friday 1996 my dad slapped my mom with divorce papers. Between the divorce and finally being able to grieve for her own mother's death, My mom spiraled into depression pretty quickly, which meant she didn't always eat like she should etc often skipping noontime meals. I probably came home at least once every two weeks to her in the middle of an insulin reaction, slumped half in her fav chair and half on the floor. She wound up with leg ulcers that didn't heal etc. I was fucked up for a while after she died, because i felt so guilty for being relieved of the responsibility of being her caregiver. I still miss her, and am quick to tear up when thinking of her. Last year, I was totally fucked up on the 27th, cause I realized I hadn't thought about/done anything in memorial on anniversary of her death. It's hard for me cause she is buried about 1.5-2 hours drive south in ohio by her parents, because there was a plot there for her, and my parents had done nothing themselves about funeral arrangements. I definitely had some resentment of mom both before and after death, she was very over protective. I basically came home to having a curfew on graduating college. She also could lay a guilt trip on with the best of them.
Well I am rambling again while thinking of her, so gonna leave it at this:

My thoughts are with you Squiddy

[Nithos]

I don't think there's any way I can talk about my parents except in either extremely long form, or overly brief; so I'll err on the side of brief. I don't want this to turn in to a long one-sided therapy session on my part, airing all the family dirty laundry, but I suspect it may read that way anyway.

My father's a great guy, the perfect example of a mostly-happy, intelligent (though not an intellectual) blue collar sort of man who works a shitty job for the majority of his life to be able to better support his family. If I have any issue with him at all it's that I didn't get much time with him most of my life for various reasons (usually work, or avoiding home life when things got stressful - I guess I might throw that issue in, too, being a little more confrontational might do him some good, and by extension, my brother, sister, and I).

My mother's best described as a highly-functional neurotic. Despite this fact, she's an amazing person in her own right. Incredibly intelligent, strong willed, and responsible for an equal number of my best and worst traits. Considering the circumstances she grew up with, the fact that she's functional at all and not an absolute whack job, or simply fucked up and dead in a gutter is amazing. I was born much later than my brother and sister, apparently she's in many ways an entirely different person now than then (mostly for the better). That's one of the things that stands out about her, though... I never know what to expect at any given moment from her (manic depressive and all that). When my sister was growing up, she was openly crazy (telling your kids that if they don't succeed, you may as well kill yourself is probably not the best parenting method). By the time I came around, it was much more subtle guilt tripping. It's amazing talking about our mother with my sister... it sounds like we're talking about an entirely different person, but the differences are only a matter of extreme degree, not quantitativly different. I have no idea where our older brother fits in, neither my sister or I are on the closest terms with him. He's much closer to our parents, and far, far more conservative. I wouldn't mind keeping up with him despite the nearly exactly opposite political views... but honestly, I can't find much personality in him outside of his libertarianism, G.W. Bush worship, stupid jokes (ok, I kinda like those sometimes), and subserviance to my mother and his wife. However, he is a good father, and he's raising my adorable little nephew (which makes me an Uncle Tom, heh, I got my share of appreciation for stupid humor, too). I just hope that kid rebels hardcore when he hits his teens. I swear, when guts were being dished out in my family, my sister got a double helping, my brother moved on to the salad bar, plate empty, and I'm just now getting my serving.

In short... I didn't call my mother this Mother's Day. A bit of recent drama's put a strain on her relationship with my sister, which always trickles down to me, too, so they haven't been talking. While I don't mind talking to her that much, I'm not gonna pass on a convieniant excuse to avoid talking to her until the most recent shit's blown over.

[WangyJohn]

My dad, haven't seen him for a few years, five, if memory serves. He and my mom were never married. He was a poet/author of somesorts, teacher teascher these days. They split up when me and my brother were just little. We've been raied mostly by our mom, and our stepdad (who married my mom, had a kidwith her, and few years later, they divorced). When it comes to relationships, our mom has been a bit of a shit-magnet, though his current guy seems allright.

My mom, only child, a daughter of two trade-union actives and socialists, bit on the rebel side, parttook in protests, wore a keffiyeh, visited the soviet union and socialist East Germany, that kind of stuff. Got two kids at young age, and in my view, despite few fuckups at early times, she's done her best. My brother, though is more critical of her methods, and few times thearguments have gone to screaming wars, but all in all, I think we get by allright.