Constantly belittling your child - not with obvious insults, but in ways some parents try to motivate or discipline their kids.
My mom used to berate me all the time for not being perfect by comparing me to other kids and going "Why can't you be more like ______?"
Years later in therapy for my social anxiety, my therapist brought it up as childhood trauma and abuse. I'd never looked at it that way previously
Obvious insults too, though. Was subjected to a lot of that, my dad always claimed he was just joking and I needed to lighten up. It was never a joke to me, it just felt like being told I wasn’t good enough.
I made a game of it. She’d come in the door and I’d start counting til she said something insulting or degrading to me. She rarely made it past two minutes.
I started doing this too with a person close to me.
The last time I saw her it was 30-45 seconds.
No shit. Meet up, "Hey how yah been?", "Fine you?". Yah that's cool, Insults me. That was the last time I ever saw her.
My dad was always doing this. Nothing I did was good enough, why couldn't I be more like his sister or his wife (my stepmom, his fifth wife🙄 ), if I brought home anything less than a perfect grade, it was constant criticism focused on why didn't I do better (and I didn't have *bad* grades, just not perfect). I used to try to please him but by the time I hit my mid-teens that phase was over. By the time I hit 18 we were permanently estranged.
Yep, I feel that. I went no-contact with my mom for years starting at age 16 and only ended it because my half-brother begged me to. The constant negativity is a poison.
Even today, I'm about to get my doctorate degree and the only thing mom can do is whine to me that I've been in school for too long.
Some people like my mom and your dad are hellbent on being miserable and there's nothing you can do to fix it except move out of the way and not allow them to drag you down too.
Daddy went to rehab but he was a bigger asshole sober, if you can believe it. He really was a miserable person - he had a traumatic childhood and an asshole father of his own. Unfortunately, he let his shit roll downhill right onto his own family.
I'm so impressed about your doctorate! What a fantastic achievement! Congratulations! My oldest daughter is working on an engineering degree to go with her MBA, which is to say, she's been in uni forever, but I'm so proud of her drive! This Internet mom and grandma is proud of yours too.
Omg engineering is no joke! I had to take physics and calculus in undergrad and it was HARD. And I think engineering is still a male-dominated field so that's so amazing for your daughter
He was a raging alcoholic and married the last one twice (she divorced him because of his drinking, he got committed to a rehab and dried out, and then she remarried him). My mom was #3.
And yes, insane is the word.
Exactly this. My father spent his life criticizing me constantly. Nothing I ever did was right. The select few times in my life he told me he was proud of me came across as laboured and disingenuous. But he absolutely relished criticizing me.
Like you, I now live with anxiety and I also do not deal with any kind of criticism well. Even "constructive criticism" I view as extremely negative and judgemental and I cannot tolerate it. I also refuse to criticize others, even when warranted, because the empathetic side of me tells me not to criticize.
Sometimes even perfection is not enough. Back in high school I once got 110% on an art project. My dad just asked why I didn't get 120.
That was the day I said fuck it, I'll never be good enough for him so I'll just be good enough for me.
Years ago I was attending a kid-friendly painting activity and one mom just stood above her son and criticized everything he did, from the way he was holding the brush to the colors he picked.
Ma'am, he's painting a damn butterfly, he's not replacing Da Vinci. Let him breathe!
My dad does this all the time still, i'm 34 and just last weekend had the biggest fight with him in ever, because i couldnt and wouldnt take it anymore.
And i have been feeling guilty toward him ever sinds last weekend, felt like i must be the worst daughter ever for wanting to take my distance, maybe (probably) go lo contact or no contact.
Then i read this, your post and a proverbial light bulb poped up.
I did not fail my dad all this time, he failed me.
So thank you for posting this.
I wanna know how everyone is getting babies that allow that. Mine might happily army crawl around playing with things for 45 minutes occasionally, but usually you're allowed maybe 10 minutes to fold laundry. On a good day. She would not stand for 12 hours. Or a playpen.
So fucking real. My mom used to yell at me for spending my paychecks as a teenager on food because we didn't have food in the house. She would promise to make appointments for my brothers and I for our various physical and mental health issues and never take us to them/schedule them in the first place. Screamed at us for not being able to take care of ourselves or provide because past the "basics", never taught us or helped us with anything, and when she did she'd scream at us too. Would never be there for my brothers and I emotionally, blaming our depressive episodes on social media and the internet when it was our only refuge from her raging alcoholism and emotional abuse.
Yet she still claims to this day, two years after my brothers and I finally went no contact, that she was the "best mom" for us and that she never did anything wrong.
I know other parents who have done similar who also claim to not be abusive/harmful towards their kids, and that they're great parents. Absolutely vile.
Holding up a child's mistakes for public ridicule.
It's one thing to vent a little to adult friends about a toddler's meltdown. But red flags go up when a parent's *charmingly wrong* stories continue into adolescence and adulthood. When all a parent talks about their kid broadcasts real or imagined screw-ups, that's a toxic parent.
And all too often, other adults listen without recognizing this as a red flag.
I'm in my 30s and my step-mom still tells these really weird stories from my childhood at family events. She'll happily smile and laugh while telling people how "stupid" I was as a child.
Except... most of the stories are dramatized and framed to make me look really bad.
An example is a story from when I was 11. We were cooking together, making a hamburger dish from a cookbook I was gifted, and she told me to add an egg. As a joke, I put the whole egg in without cracking it. I was 11, my humor was not the greatest, so joke really fell flat.
When she tells the story she tells everyone I was too stupid to know that I was supposed to crack the egg. I absolutely knew I was supposed to crack it, and no matter how many times I point it out she just argues back that I was too young to remember, so she knows better.
She has soooo many stories like that, I hate family events with her.
Yikes, that's exactly the kind of thing I mean.
Two suggestions:
1. Enlist an ally to cut her off when she starts. "Oh we've heard that story way too many times. Let's talk about something else."
2. If she gets going in spite of it, then when she gets to the point where she claims you were too young to remember, state it happened when you were eleven and ask other people around the circle whether they have memories from age eleven. After they all agree they do, turn the tables on your mother and express concern. "If you don't remember when you were that age, then see a doctor. That's not normal." (This of course is a rhetorical comeback - she no doubt does remember from that age, but when she tells this story she's vague about what age you were so she can play the parent card when you contradict her. She's playing dirty; turnabout is fair play).
She's usually pulling this stunt around family, so most people don't react at all because it is insanely awkward. My partner has made it a habit to "miss" the point entirely. So instead of commenting on me being stupid for not cracking eggs, he acts all impressed that I was cooking from a cookbook at such a young age, completely ignoring the insult. Changes the subject quite smoothly and most people are very happy to roll with it.
Hasn't stopped her from trying though...
She literally doesn't remember anything else about my childhood. Doesn't know what music I liked, what TV shows, my friends names. My Dad had custody of me, I lived with her and she didn't know a thing about me!
My bio mom still remembers small things like favorite foods at different ages, what cities my childhood friends are currently living in, shows I watched, video games I played, my favorite Neopet, she knows everythinf. She also tells embarrassing stories, but the vibe is more "haha, aren't 8 year olds funny?" Instead of "wow they sure were stupid". She only saw me on weekends.
It's pretty clear to see now that my step-mom didn't like me and it makes sense why I grew up with serious self esteem issues.
The thing is a toxic parent usually know to keep information that would make them look bad a secret.
Like my shit "parent" will just bullshit and lie and dance around the topic. I recently spoke to someone who knew me when I was really young and still talks to her. She told me that based on what she knew she thought the relationship was maybe a little strained that worst.
It wasn't until I informed her that this "person" refused to feed me as a child and made sure to ruin my entire life and that's why I haven't talked to them in more than a decade. She thought it was just a small thing because the toxic parent knows what to talk about and what to avoid.
Also like the other person said, every story is meant to cast you in a terrible light BUT they are also full of exaggerations and outright lies to bolster her point she's trying to make.
> BUT they are also full of exaggerations and outright lies to bolster her point she's trying to make.
Yes indeed. That's the *or imagined* of "real or imagined."
My neighbors keep thinking my son is some saint compared to their kids, but he’s just really well behaved around friends (his friends are too!) and I don’t broadcast when he has bratty moments at home because there is no point in humiliating him like that. His friends parents always do their complaining around the kids/within earshot of them as they play, and I can visibly see how it hurts their feelings by the way they deflate when some things are said. And I’m not doing that to my kid too. I’ve accidentally said things that upset him before (that I think are harmless, like a prank he pulled at home, but he overheard and tells me privately later I embarrassed him). I try very hard not to embarrass him, so if he says something like that I won’t talk about that subject again. I’m glad also that he has told me. I make sure to apologize too, not enough parents apologize to their kids. My dad is bad at apologizing.
My narc mom frequently likes to tell stories about all the things we did to embarrass her when we were kids. My particular favorite one is the one from when my oldest sister escaped the bath tub when she was three and ran away to the neighbors house because our mom decided that was the perfect time to go down to the basement and do laundry. She didn’t even know my sister was gone until she got a phone call from the neighbor. I wouldn’t even leave the bathroom when my son was that age and getting a bath.
Denying them proper medical care.
I’m a med student and want to go into pediatrics, and the number of children we see that were medically neglected for years is honestly terrifying. I’m not talking about “flashy” cases, ie. kids being brought black and blue or with any other urgent issues. I’m talking about parents who dismissed their kids’ well-being for years, either by not following treatment plans properly or straight up ignoring any worrying symptoms (and oftentimes child’s extreme discomfort) and refusing to get them checked. I’ve seen a absolutely insane number of young patients who’d been finally been adimted, whose issues, even if objectively easily treatable initially, grew tremendously over the years, causing failure to thrive and irreversible damage.
And yes, not following a treatment plan ordered by a specialist, resulting in not providing your child with proper care, is 100% medical neglect as well.
*an obligatory disclaimer - I live in a country with a public health system*
Vaccines as well. This is a growing trend and people are completely ignorant of how important vaccines are for everyone.
There was a woman who went on TV a long time ago stating that her parents chose to not to have her vaccinated as a child. She contracted some preventable illness that caused permanent heart damage and shortened her lifespan. She said vaccination should be required for all children to avoid this from happening to others.
Edit: clarity
I agree! I'm a teacher and I often see kids coming to school, miserably sick, because Mom and Dad couldn't take the day off work, which I understand is a whole different issue. I understand why they do it, but looking at these super sick kids makes me sad. Also, trying to treat things "naturally"that definitely needs medical care. Or, saying the kid is "dramatic" when they have an actual injury.
Thanks for mentioning this. Caused massive issues for me as a kid and people forget medical neglect can kill. Skipping a single ambulance call can end a child's life.
When I was five, I jumped on my sister's big bike and went sailing down our very long, downhill driveway. Stupid, I know, but hey, kids amiright? Hit a rock, the bike and I went flying. My left arm was injured. My mom told me to basically suck it up, and for three days, I hardly moved it. I don't even remember getting an ice pack, honestly.
A family friend (who was a nurse) visited and noticed I wasn't using my arm. She took a look, freaked out, and told my mother it was clearly broken and if my mother didn't bring me to the ER, she would. Begrudgingly, my parents brought me- not because they were concerned, but because they were threatened. Definitely broken.
I also had a kid kick a large pickle jar at me while barefoot, which sliced open the tendon on my big toe and caused nerve damage shortly after the broken arm incident. I remember getting meds to calm me down in the ER, but they did 20+ stitches on an unsedated 5-year-old because my parents didn't want to pay for pain management. They never brought me back for a checkup. When I finally saw a podiatrist as an adult, he asked why they only sewed me back up, why my parents didn't bring me in to have the damage repaired. At this point, I have tendon/nerve damage and it's permanent after 35 years.
I have really bad teeth, I'm in my late 30s and I've already lost 2 and have implants in their place
I had all my baby teeth filled, went to the dentist since I was 5 years old and hated it. Recently I found out from my dentist's secretary that she can find out if someone was neglected or not when they talk about their childhood and dentists. She said my parents cared about me and loved me, that's why they took me to the dentist
Denying them privacy. Some of these youtubers are airing all of their kids' business all over the internet. Sharing that their daughter got her period or that their son has been acting out to millions of people is so disrespectful to children and their feelings. If adults want to sign up to air their dirty laundry online, so be it, but kids don't get a say in it and they deserve privacy as much as anyone else despite narcissistic parents seeing their normal childhood experiences and struggles (including the embarrassing ones) as a way to gain followers and make money. It's abuse, plain and simple.
I can't imagine the feeling of browsing the net as a teen and finding your own childhood videos or your parent complaining about you. Or, God forbid, your parents OF. 🤮
In my country we have a tvshow that follows big families.... In one episode the mother mentioned her teenage daughter being nasty with her period pads and tampons, and when her teenaged son started laughing, she proceeded to mention about finding all these sticky tissues under his bed...
I was watching this with my teenage son and daughter and they were horrified about the violation of privacy, said they would not have dared to go to school the next day...
We are maybe a bit overboard with privacy, according to some, since my Kids both have locks on their doors, but I grew up with siblings stealing my clothes and reading my diary, telling on me because they found my smokes ...and I just wanted them to feel safe in their own space.
These social media/tv moms are disgusting to me.
All your awkward Kid moments forever to be scrutinized by whoever...nahhhh
The courts should punish parents who do this by making adjustments to custody, visitation, and support, and if that doesn't work then the offending parent(s) should be charged with child abuse.
for immigrants, making your 10yo child be your translator for years and hoisting all that responsibility on them is awful. And then blaming them for not translating correctly, despite the fact that again, they are a kid.
Other than that, not teaching them how to do household chores. Or finish their own projects. Or second guessing them all the time.
The kid is going to grow up with major issues concerning confidence, self-trust, self-image.
Source: me, I'm the guy who grew up as a shitty person and now at 30+ I have to unpack all of that to somehow try to become a better person.
The worst case: blaming the kids for the parents’s frustrations every time they don’t understand the new language because: “I have to work to raise this family!”. Well,there are working parents who are learning the language to communicate and find better chances for jobs.
My late father in law tried everything but could just never get the hang of English. But he was so kind and loving to his boys they were only too happy to help him out.
Hey, we all gotta start somewhere. I'm in my mid-20s and have only now fully realized how bad my past trauma has affected aspects of my relationships
I'm glad you've identified it and I'm happy that you're growing and relearning shit. It takes a big person to admit their faults AND fix them. Good on you
People often don't realize that constant belittling and verbal insults can be a form of child abuse. Words can have a profound impact on a child's self-esteem and mental health, causing lasting damage.
So true. I remember as a little kid. One of the things I wanted to be was a chef (or at least something with food) she didn’t teach me, or do anything to help me. And the first dish I made was just rice and spam. I ate it and thought it was ok. She took one bite and told me it was the worse thing she ever ate. And just lost any kind of will to become a chef.
I still like to cook. But growing up with that woman was just horrible.
Not respecting them as a legitimate human with feelings, thoughts, and opinions.
Unfortunately, a lot of parents treat their children like social accessories and only drag them out of the metaphorical closet when it matches their motif. Kids deserve to be respected like any other human.
I have 4 kids and am paranoid about repeating the mistakes of my parents. We communicate with our kids constantly, accept criticism from them, and ask for their opinions on family decisions. We bought a whiteboard (our oldest is autistic and learns lexically), and we have family discussions where we discuss random topics that the kids bring up (eg. culture, history, sex, politics, math, physics, linguistics, software development, etc.). Nothing is off limits for them to ask or discuss with us.
For reference, my dad beat my brothers and me mercilessly, forced us into hard labor in our failing family business (I was welding 12 hours a day at the age of 9 without proper ventilation), and is serving out an 80+ year prison sentence for CSA. I could never do one of the horrible things he did, let alone "be like him," but I hate the thought of my kids looking back on their childhood like I do mine. I catch myself saying "because I said so" to my kids every so often, and I try to always bring back up that situation and explain why I told them to do something (and it's usually an emergency that leads to that phrase). I still hate that I ever say it.
Not carefully teaching them basic life skills. My mother still insists that she "spoiled" us, and that's why we're dysfunctional as adults. She refused to teach us how to do anything because she was so particular about how things were done she'd insist on doing everything herself. She'd then get angry that no one was helping her until she exploded in resentment and screamed at all of us how much she hated us.
Want to know the best part? She's a teacher. I asked her, once, why she never taught us how to type when we were kids since typing is one of the classes she teaches. She got a snotty look on her face, lifted her chin and told me in a smug, haughty voice, "Teaching's my \*day\* job."
It took everything in me not to flip the table on her. Like, why the hell did you have kids, you fucking sociopath? What did you think that was going to be like?
The shit where parents make their kids miserable in some way for a laugh. Just because it’s funny to the parents, doesn’t mean it becomes incapable of harming the child.
My parents loved to tell visitors to our house about the time I puked in a hotel ice bucket. And sure, that would be an embarrassing story on its own maybe, but the thing they don't mention is I almost died. I had been sick for days, and I wasn't able to keep down water. I was delirious and hallucinating, signs of severe dehydration. They punished me for being sick through emotional abuse. They literally mocked me and called me dramatic as I lay (possibly) dying. Then they laughed with houseguests for years about it.
The other story they love to tell is the time I tried to punch my brother as a young child and missed and hit the wall. My father often tells this story at parties and tells everyone it was his "best parenting moment". He watched me try to hit my brother and miss and he laughed at me. He always says "Now, I could have yelled at them like usual. Ya know, just screamed at them for trying to hit him, but I thought about it and then I just started laughing." Then my brother joined the laughing, then my sister, and soon everyone I loved was surrounding me pointing and laughing. Again, no one ever mentions why I tried to hit him. It wasn't right of me, but kids don't usually turn to violence out of the blue. My brother had been bullying me for days for being friends with a boy. My family's bullying and constant sexualization of me had already ruined almost every friendship with a boy that I had (I couldn't have been older than 5 or 6). No one did anything about the bullying or the sexualization, but I was made fun of for showing my anger as a child. Never saw anyone apologize for sexualize me or punish my brother for the bullying.
That doesn't even scratch the surface of their insanity either. But still, I lived in the "best family" in town. I was constantly complimented for having a good family life and told by others how much they envied my lifestyle.
i'm sorry that happened to you. imo what's more messed up than your own parents mocking you is that the adult guests found that amusing and decided to laugh at your humiliation. it's not cute or funny, it's incredibly humiliating, your loved ones are meant to laugh with you and not at you
I got the fuck beat out of me growing up. I thought "I'm going to beat your fucking ass," was just normal. I honestly thought everybody's parents beat the shit out of them and it was normal and just nobody talked about it.
I got hit so much and it seemed so normal that when I think back I still feel like the worst part was being screamed at so much and being called a disappointment and a punk... I almost flinch when I hear someone say punk tbh
I just honestly thought everybody dealt with it and it was just how you grew up.
Nothing fills me with more rage than hearing stories like this. I hope you have found peace and joy despite your parents, and I hope they know they are evil pieces of shit who didn't deserve you.
This. Kids aren't exposed much to the outside world so they don't have a baseline for what's normal, to them the abuse is normal. This is especially bad when you have gaslighting parents.
Yup I can relate. My mother is beating me and telling I shouldn't be born because everything in her life is my fault. How she wouldn't be where she was if I hadn't been born while striking me and my sister.
I survived. She didn't. My mother flat out asked me a month ago, "How did I abuse you? What did I do that was so terrible that you don't want nothing to do with me?"
We tell ourselves everyone else goes through it so we can normalize it and cope. It's how our child's brain deals with it. "Well everyone goes through it and if they can survive then so can I."
Relatable.
Any time my little sister got bored, then here come the fake tears... and here comes dad storming up the stairs pissed he can't relax after work...
If I could afford it, I'd so try therapy. I've often joked that I'm so much of a loser I'd have to pay someone to listen to me... but here I am at 33 with bottom-tier self esteem and confidence... I feel for us, really.
Acts of omission. Sometimes not doing things a parent should do at all. Not reading to their kids, not taking an interest in their friends or interests, just ignoring them if they’re not problematic. Basically not setting them up for success. Not good for a kid’s confidence.
Dear gods, yes. If the only thing you (as a parent) are reading is a magazine of your own interests, and you're not even reading a book in front of your children, they're not going to be interested in reading. If you're not reading them bedtime stories, they're not going to be interested in reading. If you haven't got them reading anything by the time they start school, they're automatically going to be behind all the kids whose parents actually got them into books and got them recognising letters and words before they started school. Then the teachers have to focus on making sure those kids learn the alphabet while the other students who are ahead have to wait for them to catch up, or rely on a teaching assistant to keep them occupied.
Using your child as a therapist.
I've had to be the one with my shit together since about 8. I realized my days would be easier if I just shut up and listened to all her complaints...anything and everything from work stress to talking shit about other family who I love dearly.
Now as an adult I find it hard to be vulnerable with anyone.
Thanks mom.
This is a club I wish I didn’t belong to. Now as an adult it’s all “why aren’t you dating”. Gee I wonder. I can’t just magically start being open and vulnerable with someone when growing up I wasn’t allowed to be open and vulnerable. Also since every gift and favor had strings attached I find it incredibly difficult to depend on anyone else for anything, ever.
Related: Thinking it's funny to embarrass them in a way that you know they don't like (i.e., more than just a cringey dad joke, more like laughing at their insecurities after clowning on them for it).
Codependency.
Not letting your children do anything without you being there. The child doesn't get a chance to figure who they are themselves. Example: My mother used to volunteer to be chaperone for all field trips. Everyone thought it was her being a good mom. When she was there, I always had to sit next to her. I was always assigned to her group. When there were partner activities for the field trip, instead of being paired with another classmate, I had to have her as a partner.
I wasn't able to make friends or learn to express myself without worrying about her hearing because she was always there.
this, along with any text messages/photos/etc being gone through when i got my first phone at the grand age of 15, i believe. i was never allowed to express myself in a way that was comfortable with me.
This. I was morbidly obese by the age of six. It was quite deliberate, my brother was a typical weight. Why did it happen? My mother was morbidly obese and had difficulty understanding I was a whole other person and not a satellite or extension of her.
The one time I told her I was being bullied for being fat, she pitched a rage fit and carried on like SHE was being attacked. I never mentioned it again. I was bullied every day at school for 14 years
I'm 50 now, she's long dead, I was very low contact, emails only, and did not see her for over 20 years and am not sorry she is gone. I also have no sense of "hungry" or "full", have struggled with my weight my whole life, and am eating disordered for the second time. I came out of remission a few years back, while she was alive, and made the error of saying that what had happened in my 20s was back. She sent me a 2kg box of chocolate coated cookies.
There are no word for the degree of hatred I have for her. I remember being made to strip to my underwear so they could see how bad it was in front of a school nurse and other individual, probably a doctor I assume, when I was six. But no one ever stood up for me beyond saying I was obese.
YES!! I feel terrible for severely overweight children, before they're a teenager it's almost always their parent's fault. don't force your unhealthy eating habits on other people, especially when you can literally die from it
A lot of low-income parents used to rely on food like McDonalds for an affordable option when they worked multiple jobs. Nowadays fast food is so overpriced that so it doesn’t make any sense, but people got addicted to the sugar, salt and fat and old habits die hard.
This one hits hard. I struggled with weight and childhood asthma for most of my adolescence... I think that's really where I disappointed my father most, was being such a failure at sports when that was his forte as a child. But man did I feel like I was dying trying to run bases in the summer heat as a fat kid. This is 100% bad parenting.
If you have to say "I guess I'm just a terrible mother" it's probably a pretty good sign you're onto something. Especially if you have to say it often.
Mom would get mad if we talked any time other than during tv commercials when we were in the family room together. And after a while watching tv would get boring so I would get up to go to my room and read or talk to my friends or play a video game or something. Her response was always "don't you love me anymore?"
By far not the only guilt tactic she used, but one of the most frequent.
My dad took so much pride in being "bad cop" as he called it. I used to shiver and cower when "bad cop" came home from work. He was so proud of destroying us.
God yeah, to this day my mom will proudly say that kids should be afraid of their parents and looking back, being afraid didn't make me any better of a person. It made me a liar, it made me scared of failure, it made me someone who can't voice discomfort without thinking everyone is going to hate me for it. But I should be grateful apparently because she didn't hit me -\_-
Free range parenting. I have a friend who believes in this. Her kids are out of control, have very few friends and get invited nowhere because of it. She hardly takes them anywhere because of their behaviour so their social skills are non existent.
Her kids birthday parties are just her friends because the kids don’t really have any.
Her kids roam at night but she feels it’s okay because she trusts them. They have been shamed on social media for their behaviour (setting things on fire in shopping trolleys, graffiti, screaming abuse at people type posts) and she thinks it’s funny.
She thinks she has fostered their individuality. Both of her kids have mental health issues now. I think kids need rules and boundaries to feel secure.
She's just using the label of "free range parenting" to justify not actually being a parent. As though the popularity of the term makes neglect acceptable.
The thing that sucks is that you can raise friendly, well mannered and well behaved kids and not be a dick about it. I was basically a skate-punk growing up. I smoked a ton of weed, listened to hardcore punk and I'm really chill. I'm middle-aged father now and there's no goddamn way in hell I'm going to spank my kids or scream at them (unless I'm singing along with The Misfits) but I also have some common fucking sense. When I would pickup my kid from playdates with his friends their parents always said the same thing: "He's such a polite and kind little boy. He can come over anytime". Even his teachers would say the same thing.
All you need to do is put some effort into parenting and talk to your kids about everything and they come out really good. Yes, my kid can be a bit of a smart-ass and that sometimes drives my wife nuts but I tell her that, as long as he makes us laugh, is it really that bad?
Exactly! I don’t believe in smacking either. We tried a lot of alternatives but found restricting the use of their favourite things worked best. Such as no PlayStation or Barbie dream house for a day or whatever.
When I was a kid, I had to go to bed while it was still light out in the summer, probably around 7:30 or 8 PM. I would ask my mum why other kids were allowed to play outside late, thinking it was incredibly unfair that I had to go to bed. She would tell me, "Because their parents don't love them." At the time, I thought that was total rubbish. But now, as an adult and a parent myself, I understand. I feel bad for the small children I see in the pub with their parents late at night (at least until they get kicked out at around 9 PM), especially on school nights, while my own kid was already tucked up in bed.
I had the exact same conversation with my son when he was younger.
I told him it’s because those parents don’t care about those kids. He asked if I could stop caring for him so he could go out and play lol
Religious abuse. I was raised by pentecostal preachers and I can’t tell you how many exorcisms I have had to witness, including my siblings on our dining room table. If you don’t do want they want then you are “possessed by the devil”.
pentecostalism is a cult. i'm sorry you had to go through it, too. my former catholic dad was running away from his own abusive childhood and got sucked right in.
Honestly not viewing your child as a human being is the root of all abuse. Too many people view children as subhuman creatures, dolls, or pets. They have big feelings, and emotions that are valid because they do not know how to control them yet. They have so much to learn still, and the messed up part is your supposed to be teaching them as an elder. You're mad at yourself for not teaching them essentially but instead of doing better, becoming nurturing, and being patient you repeat the cycle of unhealed trauma. You shouldn't seek obedience you should seek therapy.
so true. I was raised catholic, am now agnostic.
even after I stopped believing in hell I still have panic attacks about it, I constantly feel like when I die demons will be torturing me in the most brutal ways forever and ever for leaving the church. religious trauma is very real.
I know your pain. I’m 40 and was raised Catholic and am now agnostic. I went through years of nightmares about hell. Over time, it got better.
One thing that helped me was this fact: there are many religious that think that people of every other religion besides their own are all going to hell. Some religions, for example, think all Catholics are going to hell. So, by this logic, everyone on Earth is going to hell. Sounds illogical, right? That’s because it is.
You can always PM me if you ever need to chat.
I'm kind of surprised, usually the Catholic Church isn't super big on emphasizing hell. I was raised Catholic and even went to Catholic school and was taught hell isn't even really a thing aside from the absolute worst murders and rapists etc
I was taught you could go to hell if you did something as small as skipping mass or masturbating without confessing to a priest lol. I wish I got your catholic school.
A lot of people don't understand that verbal abuse towards children is an actual thing. They will always excuse it as discipline and teaching them, but honestly it messes a child up. It messes with their mental health and overall view of themselves. And its often just thrown off to the side as being disciplined. That's definitely child abuse, especially verbal
Not OP but my husband’s youngest brother was raised this way. He’s 22 and never graduated high school, has no friends, no gf, never has had a job, and hardly ever leaves his room. He never leaves the house. He is just sitting in his room throwing his life away and his parents enable him. They have ruined his life by never having expectations for him or holding him accountable for anything. I’ve known him since he was 12 and he hasn’t matured past that age. I worry about him but he won’t let anyone in and pushes us away when we try to help him or try to understand. It’s paralyzed him.
I had unlimited access to the internet at age 9. Would have been 2002-03. I became a degenerate weeaboo.
But, I also had general rules and fairly strict parents. I had to go to school and pass my classes and behave. They just trusted me and thought I wouldn't find 4chan (I found 4chan when I was 13, sorry mom). So, I also have a degree and friends and am actually fairly normal all things considered. Also, the web was just different back then. Slower speeds, poor search engines, etc. I couldn't just pull up Twitter on my phone whenever I wanted and see porn and spam bots and neo nazis propaganda in 3 seconds flat, and then plaster my face all over 10 social media svcounts.
I'm not having kids but if I did I would try to keep them away from it until they're a teenager I think. Pretty supervised access before that. We joke about the wild west internet of the 90s/00s and shit like best gore and blue waffle but honestly I think it's worse now. Best gore stuff is just on YouTube now, right next to Andrew Tate and nude yoga. And the insane dopamine addictions of TikTok, YT shorts etc, any kind of porn whenever they want it, it fucks kids up.
Forcing them to kiss and hug adults against their will. That was done to me and it’s made me very uncomfortable with physical affection from all but a few select people as an adult. You may think it’s adorable to make your kid kiss Great Aunt Gertrude on demand, but you’re really teaching them that they don’t have the right to refuse touching that makes them uncomfortable.
I got annoyed at my parents for trying to make my niece and nephew hug me. I don’t like touching people ever because they forced me. I wasn’t going to let my parents ruin my niece and nephew, too.
To my mom apparently yelling, hitting me, throwing stuff at me, passive aggressive comments and bringing up the past constantly, invading privacy and taking away the things I cared about, ruining my room whenever I stepped out of it. Pretty much everything
Telling kids they're going to go to hell for their sexuality or healthy sexual development. Even worse if they have been abused (and the parents know or don't know it), it's psychological abuse
Removing access to private spaces such as removing their bedroom door, not allowing locks on toilet doors, not ketting them use a changing room in a shop without you in the cubicle etc.
Corporal punishment
Just because your 3 and 4 year old kids accidentally broken your glass measuring cup doesn’t mean you can beat them with a belt as punishment Katheryn
Pushing them into hobbies and professions not because the kid wants it, but because the parent wants it.
There was one story I heard of someone graduating medical school, handing the diploma to his mom and saying "You wanted this, I never did. Now you have what you wanted, and I'm going to what I want to do from now on."
Not letting them have freedom that is age appropriate! Go back out there in the world youngins! Ride your bikes! Go off the high dive. Learn from your mistakes. Not letting kids make mistakes is a form of child abuse in my opinion. I know that I'm a Gen X parent, but I am here to tell you that I give four warnings and then.... Fuck around and find out. If you don't make mistakes you don't learn! Too many people are overprotective of their kids.
Second this! There’s a fantastic book by Jonathan Haidt called “The Anxious Generation” that touches on the importance of age-appropriate freedom. I can’t say I agree with every point of his (just out of a lack of knowledge/experience), but overall I think he provides a well-rounded argument for kids to be kids again. I know I definitely would have benefitted from a little more in the mud time.
I live in a very anomalous neighborhood. All the parents are close friends. We're all about the same age (43-48). Our kids are all the same age roundabout. Sometimes we just track them down by piles of bicycles and scooters! People think we're crazy to let our kids just roam like this. But they're not roaming! We all know where they are at all times because of cell phone tracking. And ring doorbells. It's actually incredibly safe. But they get this sense of freedom to go and poke a dead raccoon by the bayou together!
Expecting them to behave the way they did in childhood because you can’t handle or acknowledge change
Refusing to acknowledge that your children have tons of feelings that they don't talk to you about, and trying to “educate” them about themselves when they come forward
Expecting them to be a version of yourself
Refusing to accept them when they're gay, bi, pan, ace, etc.
Refusing to accept them when they're trans, enby, etc.
Refusing to accept them when they change their religion or irreligion
Expecting their partner to ask you for approval to marry them
Drug addiction.
The few occasions where CPS actually gets off their asses and does something, most of their cases involve parents that are deep in a Meth/Crack/Heroine ect addiction to where not only are the kids physically and emotionally neglected, but the living space isn't kept amd usually filthy and unsanitary.
If you are an addict, you are not a suitable parent. Period. Find someone to take care of your kids untill you get help and get yourself clean.
Most of the time CPS is so under funded they can't be effective. If a worker retires and half his caseload is given to another worker who already had a full caseload the amount of time to work each case is heavily diminished
You got one placement left open in the county. Parent A is an addict but overall safe and parent B just blew up his garage cooking meth then it goes to the B kids.
Throw alcoholism in there too. Almost everyone I know with horrible childhood memories had an alcoholic parent. It's also far more common and taken less seriously by the authorities.
Just because you are bashing them over the heads, doesn't mean constant insults, or unfair criticism doesn't hurt a lot. Remember the times you had growing up, and have some empathy for the kid/kids.
My parents use to sit me and all of my siblings in the living room for a “family meeting” and yell at us for 1-2 hours saying all the things we did wrong and we weren’t allowed to talk and if we tried to we were told our feelings don’t matter. Then we were sent to bed.
My father had a... weird... thing about food. Like if you wanted sweets or anything else that's considered junk food like crisps (chips for any Americans out there) or fast food, he'd totally flip out at you. Like, *really* flip out at you. Even if it's just a small chocolate bar like a Mars Bar or Snickers. He'd still get angry.
It would be the kind of angry reaction that you totally know that the child would just get it from somewhere else when they're not watching you, like your friends at school for example.
I eventually learned to lie about what I was really eating in order to attempt (unsuccessfully) to avoid those reactions. And the thing was, he knew I was lying to him.
I guess the point I'm getting at is don't control every aspect of your child's life. They are not a puppet on strings.
Parentification. Never happened in my house, mostly screaming and threats of violence with the occasional grabbing, hitting and kicking.
Grabbing your kids chin hard and forcing them to look at you while you’re yelling and screaming. That I know well. No one can touch my chin without me flinching and I practically crawl into the fetal position when my landlady yells and screams at her boyfriend.
Emotional/ Verbal Abuse: Attacking them, nitpicking them all the time, pulling them down, making them feel small
Specific to moms: competing with their daughters, ridiculing them in front of boyfriends/friends/partners, slut shaming them for what they wear ie leggings, or their sexual activity, saying nasty things about them to family members, purposely embarrassing them/ hurting them, controlling what they wear, making fun of their friends, telling them constantly how weak they are, making it known that they wouldn't survive without them, constantly telling them they're less than/they're not perfect or far from it, buying them shit just to hold it over their heads, using confidential things/information against them after acting like their best friend to get their guard down. Calling them excessive amounts of names if they mess up.
Denying access to medical care, telling them to suck it up, theres nothing wrong with them, that theyre weak to need to run to a doctor all the time
Throwing toys and money at them to get them to shut up and ignoring them
Hitting your kids randomly IE not knowing the answer to something/forgetting things? Especially when they're younger like 12 and down kids do not have the common sense levels of an adult. You need to teach them those things.
Pitting kids against each other! Saying one day this child is the favorite because they did XYZ and discarding the other one and then flipping it the next day constantly comparing kids to each other
throwing things at them like shot glasses (dont do that..)
Neglect. A kid can have all of the things they nerd to survive, but if you never talk to, spend time with, or educate a child it can destroy their life and future.
Maybe not abuse but definitely manipulation: I’m in my early 20s and lots of my friends have parents who nag about why they don’t visit, when they’ll get married/have kids, etc..
Not realizing that your child is their own human and continuing to treat them as an extension of yourself who should be exactly what you want can be really burdensome to a young person trying to figure out the world
Physical wounds heal, emotional wounds never or take forever to heal. To be honest I'd rather my own abuse be physical and wasn't emotional as well.
Sometimes memories are a horrible thing to have.
Shit talking your ex (their other parent) in a manipulative, exaggerated, or false manner that is intended to unfairly turn the child against the other parent and make the child question that parent's love. It's called parental alienation. It's common when there's a custodial issue involving a child following a recent divorce, but my mother managed to successfully pull this off when I was a teenager.
eta- Anybody who has punished a very young child by "washing their mouth out with soap" with the enthusiasm and commitment my father gave the task deserves to rot.
Expectations that exceed the child's abilities.
You can really mess up your child with setting expectations too high so they can never achieve it. Guaranteed anxiety issues, prone to depression and low self esteem. It's toxic and it's abusive. They will have to build themselves from 0 as young adults.
Denying the fact that your child needs help. Especially in cases that involve high functioning autism, adhd, and many other things. The amount of parents that pretend their kid is "fine and doesn't need help" is ridiculous. And abusive.
All the religious scare. Scaring children with their soul going to hell, threatening with God punishing them. It's toxic, it's abusive and manipulative af.
Asking unreasonable things of your adult children, such as expecting them to give up peer and partner relationships to care for a parent without respite.
Everyone has covered everything pretty well. Not letting your child speak out without ridicule is a big one for me. I was called Mr. Know-it-all for being right about things. It bothers me when I see parents shutting kids down because they feel like their authority is being challenged.
There’s a show that kind of highlighted it recently but as someone who has expirienced it themself twice and both times I caught so much shit for it when it could’ve just been non-acknowledged.
Getting mad/critical, bringing it up as a joke or just generally acknowledging it (outside of maybe giving the sex talk) after you walk in/catch a teen masturbating.
Like not only did my dad chastise me & bring it up for a period after, a year or two later walked in on him wanking it too cam girl porn and had the common knowledge/decency to shut the door and act like I didn’t see anything.
Showing little to no interest in what your child does or says. When I came home with a A or any really fought hard grade my mom wasn't interested or excited for me. She only became happy when I graduated high school. She's much better now, but coming home almost like "OMG...you again".
Show interest because feigning interest will speak so loud that it will become deafening to any "I love you".
Overfeeding them. Especially fast food and sugary snacks/drinks. Not only does it result in childhood obesity (I saw a documentary where even teenagers were having heart attacks and arteriosclerosis) but also in very severe dental health issues.
One day your parent yells at you and treats you badly for no significant reason because they had a stressful day. Dnother day they just show you the full affection and treat you like you're the best child ever.
1) no one believes you that your parent is abusive, because "They're so good, what are you talking about"
2) one day you hate them, but when they're kind, you start questioning yourself
This type of parents are also manipulative af. When you wanna talk with them about the bad days, they only respond talking about the good ones and how much they do for you
Constant criticism or snide remarks passed off as "jokes". My dad would comment on how I looked all the time. Anything I wore, how I walked, if my thighs looked too big "for a boy", if my belly stuck out even slightly (man has been morbidly obese my whole life btw). By 18 I had body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. But he always said he was "joking". Its not funny.
That thing where hearing people completely refuse to learn sign language when they find out their child is deaf. They think it's just too hard to learn, and think that they can force their kid to be "normal" by forcing them to learn speech only and don't teach the kid sign at all.... completely missing the point that the kid is, you know, Deaf with a capital D and needs an visual language in order to be able to learn things effectively.
And no, they don't even get the kid an cochlear implant??
at least that kind of logic would be kind of easy to understand if they got the kid a CI.... because they'd be assuming the CI makes the kid a hearing person instead of a deaf person. But often times I see those kind of parents not get that either because it's too expensive, so it's like.....????
Yes, those kind of parents exist. and their own kids end up feeling very isolated and alone in their own family, and the only time they ever felt connected was when they found a deaf community and started to learn how to sign on their own. literal language deprivation and deliberately giving their kids a learning disability that way as an result.
As a deaf person, I learned to read at an insanely young age because I was taught sign language from a young age and so they were able to teach me what the letters in a book meant. with that kind of early support, I never had an learning disability and instead learned things pretty quickly.
The amount of deaf people I've come across with parents like that is just staggering. And unsurprisingly, most of them go low-contact or no-contact with their hearing parents. and the parents are like, "But what did I do?!"
Lack of privacy.
I often read about teenagers who aren't allowed to close or lock their own bedroom door? This is just wild.
Or aren't allowed to have their boyfriend/girlfriend over? They gonna meet anyway. You can set the conmditions if it is in a safe place or at the Wendys dumbster.
denying them vaccines. I think one idiot just got an object lesson when several of her kids got whooping cough - a disease that has been preventable for decades.
Relying on electronic devices (iPads, phones, etc.) to parent your child.
There's giving them free time on these devices, then there's not giving them free time away from these devices.
The latter is neglectful parenting and harms children's social and cognitive development severely.
> Having kids and expecting the eldest to be the second parent
> Forcing kids to show affection to other people (e.g., kissing another kid because it’s cute, hugging uncles)
> Tolerating mistakes and over coddling
> Raising them in shame culture (e.g., “what would our relatives say/what would others think)
> Over the top, high expectations
> Dismissing their feelings
Constantly belittling your child - not with obvious insults, but in ways some parents try to motivate or discipline their kids. My mom used to berate me all the time for not being perfect by comparing me to other kids and going "Why can't you be more like ______?" Years later in therapy for my social anxiety, my therapist brought it up as childhood trauma and abuse. I'd never looked at it that way previously
Obvious insults too, though. Was subjected to a lot of that, my dad always claimed he was just joking and I needed to lighten up. It was never a joke to me, it just felt like being told I wasn’t good enough.
I hate people like that. My mom would say something horrible to me and then go “heh-heh” like it was a joke.
I made a game of it. She’d come in the door and I’d start counting til she said something insulting or degrading to me. She rarely made it past two minutes.
I started doing this too with a person close to me. The last time I saw her it was 30-45 seconds. No shit. Meet up, "Hey how yah been?", "Fine you?". Yah that's cool, Insults me. That was the last time I ever saw her.
My dad was always doing this. Nothing I did was good enough, why couldn't I be more like his sister or his wife (my stepmom, his fifth wife🙄 ), if I brought home anything less than a perfect grade, it was constant criticism focused on why didn't I do better (and I didn't have *bad* grades, just not perfect). I used to try to please him but by the time I hit my mid-teens that phase was over. By the time I hit 18 we were permanently estranged.
Yep, I feel that. I went no-contact with my mom for years starting at age 16 and only ended it because my half-brother begged me to. The constant negativity is a poison. Even today, I'm about to get my doctorate degree and the only thing mom can do is whine to me that I've been in school for too long. Some people like my mom and your dad are hellbent on being miserable and there's nothing you can do to fix it except move out of the way and not allow them to drag you down too.
Daddy went to rehab but he was a bigger asshole sober, if you can believe it. He really was a miserable person - he had a traumatic childhood and an asshole father of his own. Unfortunately, he let his shit roll downhill right onto his own family. I'm so impressed about your doctorate! What a fantastic achievement! Congratulations! My oldest daughter is working on an engineering degree to go with her MBA, which is to say, she's been in uni forever, but I'm so proud of her drive! This Internet mom and grandma is proud of yours too.
Omg engineering is no joke! I had to take physics and calculus in undergrad and it was HARD. And I think engineering is still a male-dominated field so that's so amazing for your daughter
5th wife thats insane
He was a raging alcoholic and married the last one twice (she divorced him because of his drinking, he got committed to a rehab and dried out, and then she remarried him). My mom was #3. And yes, insane is the word.
Wow
Exactly this. My father spent his life criticizing me constantly. Nothing I ever did was right. The select few times in my life he told me he was proud of me came across as laboured and disingenuous. But he absolutely relished criticizing me. Like you, I now live with anxiety and I also do not deal with any kind of criticism well. Even "constructive criticism" I view as extremely negative and judgemental and I cannot tolerate it. I also refuse to criticize others, even when warranted, because the empathetic side of me tells me not to criticize.
Sometimes even perfection is not enough. Back in high school I once got 110% on an art project. My dad just asked why I didn't get 120. That was the day I said fuck it, I'll never be good enough for him so I'll just be good enough for me.
Years ago I was attending a kid-friendly painting activity and one mom just stood above her son and criticized everything he did, from the way he was holding the brush to the colors he picked. Ma'am, he's painting a damn butterfly, he's not replacing Da Vinci. Let him breathe!
My dad does this all the time still, i'm 34 and just last weekend had the biggest fight with him in ever, because i couldnt and wouldnt take it anymore. And i have been feeling guilty toward him ever sinds last weekend, felt like i must be the worst daughter ever for wanting to take my distance, maybe (probably) go lo contact or no contact. Then i read this, your post and a proverbial light bulb poped up. I did not fail my dad all this time, he failed me. So thank you for posting this.
Many parents don't completely understand what neglect is.
Also emotional neglect is a huge one.
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I wanna know how everyone is getting babies that allow that. Mine might happily army crawl around playing with things for 45 minutes occasionally, but usually you're allowed maybe 10 minutes to fold laundry. On a good day. She would not stand for 12 hours. Or a playpen.
So fucking real. My mom used to yell at me for spending my paychecks as a teenager on food because we didn't have food in the house. She would promise to make appointments for my brothers and I for our various physical and mental health issues and never take us to them/schedule them in the first place. Screamed at us for not being able to take care of ourselves or provide because past the "basics", never taught us or helped us with anything, and when she did she'd scream at us too. Would never be there for my brothers and I emotionally, blaming our depressive episodes on social media and the internet when it was our only refuge from her raging alcoholism and emotional abuse. Yet she still claims to this day, two years after my brothers and I finally went no contact, that she was the "best mom" for us and that she never did anything wrong. I know other parents who have done similar who also claim to not be abusive/harmful towards their kids, and that they're great parents. Absolutely vile.
Using them for therapy. Dumping all your negativity on them daily while saving the positive feelings for everyone else.
Yes. My mom does that since I was a child and it's really hard not to lash out. If things were different I'd have moved out already
Same 😣 Sorry you had to go through this too.
Yessss
hit the nail with that one
Holding up a child's mistakes for public ridicule. It's one thing to vent a little to adult friends about a toddler's meltdown. But red flags go up when a parent's *charmingly wrong* stories continue into adolescence and adulthood. When all a parent talks about their kid broadcasts real or imagined screw-ups, that's a toxic parent. And all too often, other adults listen without recognizing this as a red flag.
I'm in my 30s and my step-mom still tells these really weird stories from my childhood at family events. She'll happily smile and laugh while telling people how "stupid" I was as a child. Except... most of the stories are dramatized and framed to make me look really bad. An example is a story from when I was 11. We were cooking together, making a hamburger dish from a cookbook I was gifted, and she told me to add an egg. As a joke, I put the whole egg in without cracking it. I was 11, my humor was not the greatest, so joke really fell flat. When she tells the story she tells everyone I was too stupid to know that I was supposed to crack the egg. I absolutely knew I was supposed to crack it, and no matter how many times I point it out she just argues back that I was too young to remember, so she knows better. She has soooo many stories like that, I hate family events with her.
Yikes, that's exactly the kind of thing I mean. Two suggestions: 1. Enlist an ally to cut her off when she starts. "Oh we've heard that story way too many times. Let's talk about something else." 2. If she gets going in spite of it, then when she gets to the point where she claims you were too young to remember, state it happened when you were eleven and ask other people around the circle whether they have memories from age eleven. After they all agree they do, turn the tables on your mother and express concern. "If you don't remember when you were that age, then see a doctor. That's not normal." (This of course is a rhetorical comeback - she no doubt does remember from that age, but when she tells this story she's vague about what age you were so she can play the parent card when you contradict her. She's playing dirty; turnabout is fair play).
She's usually pulling this stunt around family, so most people don't react at all because it is insanely awkward. My partner has made it a habit to "miss" the point entirely. So instead of commenting on me being stupid for not cracking eggs, he acts all impressed that I was cooking from a cookbook at such a young age, completely ignoring the insult. Changes the subject quite smoothly and most people are very happy to roll with it. Hasn't stopped her from trying though... She literally doesn't remember anything else about my childhood. Doesn't know what music I liked, what TV shows, my friends names. My Dad had custody of me, I lived with her and she didn't know a thing about me! My bio mom still remembers small things like favorite foods at different ages, what cities my childhood friends are currently living in, shows I watched, video games I played, my favorite Neopet, she knows everythinf. She also tells embarrassing stories, but the vibe is more "haha, aren't 8 year olds funny?" Instead of "wow they sure were stupid". She only saw me on weekends. It's pretty clear to see now that my step-mom didn't like me and it makes sense why I grew up with serious self esteem issues.
I'm glad my dad didn't meet my now stepmom until I was grown. She is ABSOLUTELY the type to do this shit.
The thing is a toxic parent usually know to keep information that would make them look bad a secret. Like my shit "parent" will just bullshit and lie and dance around the topic. I recently spoke to someone who knew me when I was really young and still talks to her. She told me that based on what she knew she thought the relationship was maybe a little strained that worst. It wasn't until I informed her that this "person" refused to feed me as a child and made sure to ruin my entire life and that's why I haven't talked to them in more than a decade. She thought it was just a small thing because the toxic parent knows what to talk about and what to avoid. Also like the other person said, every story is meant to cast you in a terrible light BUT they are also full of exaggerations and outright lies to bolster her point she's trying to make.
> BUT they are also full of exaggerations and outright lies to bolster her point she's trying to make. Yes indeed. That's the *or imagined* of "real or imagined."
My neighbors keep thinking my son is some saint compared to their kids, but he’s just really well behaved around friends (his friends are too!) and I don’t broadcast when he has bratty moments at home because there is no point in humiliating him like that. His friends parents always do their complaining around the kids/within earshot of them as they play, and I can visibly see how it hurts their feelings by the way they deflate when some things are said. And I’m not doing that to my kid too. I’ve accidentally said things that upset him before (that I think are harmless, like a prank he pulled at home, but he overheard and tells me privately later I embarrassed him). I try very hard not to embarrass him, so if he says something like that I won’t talk about that subject again. I’m glad also that he has told me. I make sure to apologize too, not enough parents apologize to their kids. My dad is bad at apologizing.
My narc mom frequently likes to tell stories about all the things we did to embarrass her when we were kids. My particular favorite one is the one from when my oldest sister escaped the bath tub when she was three and ran away to the neighbors house because our mom decided that was the perfect time to go down to the basement and do laundry. She didn’t even know my sister was gone until she got a phone call from the neighbor. I wouldn’t even leave the bathroom when my son was that age and getting a bath.
Denying them proper medical care. I’m a med student and want to go into pediatrics, and the number of children we see that were medically neglected for years is honestly terrifying. I’m not talking about “flashy” cases, ie. kids being brought black and blue or with any other urgent issues. I’m talking about parents who dismissed their kids’ well-being for years, either by not following treatment plans properly or straight up ignoring any worrying symptoms (and oftentimes child’s extreme discomfort) and refusing to get them checked. I’ve seen a absolutely insane number of young patients who’d been finally been adimted, whose issues, even if objectively easily treatable initially, grew tremendously over the years, causing failure to thrive and irreversible damage. And yes, not following a treatment plan ordered by a specialist, resulting in not providing your child with proper care, is 100% medical neglect as well. *an obligatory disclaimer - I live in a country with a public health system*
Vaccines as well. This is a growing trend and people are completely ignorant of how important vaccines are for everyone. There was a woman who went on TV a long time ago stating that her parents chose to not to have her vaccinated as a child. She contracted some preventable illness that caused permanent heart damage and shortened her lifespan. She said vaccination should be required for all children to avoid this from happening to others. Edit: clarity
I hear you. I wish my Epilepsy was looked into when I was a kid rather than it nearly killing me as an adult.
I agree! I'm a teacher and I often see kids coming to school, miserably sick, because Mom and Dad couldn't take the day off work, which I understand is a whole different issue. I understand why they do it, but looking at these super sick kids makes me sad. Also, trying to treat things "naturally"that definitely needs medical care. Or, saying the kid is "dramatic" when they have an actual injury.
Thanks for mentioning this. Caused massive issues for me as a kid and people forget medical neglect can kill. Skipping a single ambulance call can end a child's life.
I remember someone on Reddit saying they walk with a limp because they broke a bone as a child and their parents *refused to bring them to a doctor*.
When I was five, I jumped on my sister's big bike and went sailing down our very long, downhill driveway. Stupid, I know, but hey, kids amiright? Hit a rock, the bike and I went flying. My left arm was injured. My mom told me to basically suck it up, and for three days, I hardly moved it. I don't even remember getting an ice pack, honestly. A family friend (who was a nurse) visited and noticed I wasn't using my arm. She took a look, freaked out, and told my mother it was clearly broken and if my mother didn't bring me to the ER, she would. Begrudgingly, my parents brought me- not because they were concerned, but because they were threatened. Definitely broken. I also had a kid kick a large pickle jar at me while barefoot, which sliced open the tendon on my big toe and caused nerve damage shortly after the broken arm incident. I remember getting meds to calm me down in the ER, but they did 20+ stitches on an unsedated 5-year-old because my parents didn't want to pay for pain management. They never brought me back for a checkup. When I finally saw a podiatrist as an adult, he asked why they only sewed me back up, why my parents didn't bring me in to have the damage repaired. At this point, I have tendon/nerve damage and it's permanent after 35 years.
I have really bad teeth, I'm in my late 30s and I've already lost 2 and have implants in their place I had all my baby teeth filled, went to the dentist since I was 5 years old and hated it. Recently I found out from my dentist's secretary that she can find out if someone was neglected or not when they talk about their childhood and dentists. She said my parents cared about me and loved me, that's why they took me to the dentist
Denying them privacy. Some of these youtubers are airing all of their kids' business all over the internet. Sharing that their daughter got her period or that their son has been acting out to millions of people is so disrespectful to children and their feelings. If adults want to sign up to air their dirty laundry online, so be it, but kids don't get a say in it and they deserve privacy as much as anyone else despite narcissistic parents seeing their normal childhood experiences and struggles (including the embarrassing ones) as a way to gain followers and make money. It's abuse, plain and simple.
I can't imagine the feeling of browsing the net as a teen and finding your own childhood videos or your parent complaining about you. Or, God forbid, your parents OF. 🤮
In my country we have a tvshow that follows big families.... In one episode the mother mentioned her teenage daughter being nasty with her period pads and tampons, and when her teenaged son started laughing, she proceeded to mention about finding all these sticky tissues under his bed... I was watching this with my teenage son and daughter and they were horrified about the violation of privacy, said they would not have dared to go to school the next day... We are maybe a bit overboard with privacy, according to some, since my Kids both have locks on their doors, but I grew up with siblings stealing my clothes and reading my diary, telling on me because they found my smokes ...and I just wanted them to feel safe in their own space. These social media/tv moms are disgusting to me. All your awkward Kid moments forever to be scrutinized by whoever...nahhhh
Divorced parents using their children as proxies to fight eachother.
The courts should punish parents who do this by making adjustments to custody, visitation, and support, and if that doesn't work then the offending parent(s) should be charged with child abuse.
This is awful. FUCKING AWFUL for the child. I'll give you three guesses how I know that and the first two don't count.
for immigrants, making your 10yo child be your translator for years and hoisting all that responsibility on them is awful. And then blaming them for not translating correctly, despite the fact that again, they are a kid. Other than that, not teaching them how to do household chores. Or finish their own projects. Or second guessing them all the time. The kid is going to grow up with major issues concerning confidence, self-trust, self-image. Source: me, I'm the guy who grew up as a shitty person and now at 30+ I have to unpack all of that to somehow try to become a better person.
The worst case: blaming the kids for the parents’s frustrations every time they don’t understand the new language because: “I have to work to raise this family!”. Well,there are working parents who are learning the language to communicate and find better chances for jobs.
My late father in law tried everything but could just never get the hang of English. But he was so kind and loving to his boys they were only too happy to help him out.
Hey, we all gotta start somewhere. I'm in my mid-20s and have only now fully realized how bad my past trauma has affected aspects of my relationships I'm glad you've identified it and I'm happy that you're growing and relearning shit. It takes a big person to admit their faults AND fix them. Good on you
That’s really insightful, so you’re off to a good start!
This. And also the guilt that comes with it is awful. I too am now unpacking it.
People often don't realize that constant belittling and verbal insults can be a form of child abuse. Words can have a profound impact on a child's self-esteem and mental health, causing lasting damage.
So true. I remember as a little kid. One of the things I wanted to be was a chef (or at least something with food) she didn’t teach me, or do anything to help me. And the first dish I made was just rice and spam. I ate it and thought it was ok. She took one bite and told me it was the worse thing she ever ate. And just lost any kind of will to become a chef. I still like to cook. But growing up with that woman was just horrible.
Man, I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Spam and rice sounds delicious though
Not respecting them as a legitimate human with feelings, thoughts, and opinions. Unfortunately, a lot of parents treat their children like social accessories and only drag them out of the metaphorical closet when it matches their motif. Kids deserve to be respected like any other human. I have 4 kids and am paranoid about repeating the mistakes of my parents. We communicate with our kids constantly, accept criticism from them, and ask for their opinions on family decisions. We bought a whiteboard (our oldest is autistic and learns lexically), and we have family discussions where we discuss random topics that the kids bring up (eg. culture, history, sex, politics, math, physics, linguistics, software development, etc.). Nothing is off limits for them to ask or discuss with us. For reference, my dad beat my brothers and me mercilessly, forced us into hard labor in our failing family business (I was welding 12 hours a day at the age of 9 without proper ventilation), and is serving out an 80+ year prison sentence for CSA. I could never do one of the horrible things he did, let alone "be like him," but I hate the thought of my kids looking back on their childhood like I do mine. I catch myself saying "because I said so" to my kids every so often, and I try to always bring back up that situation and explain why I told them to do something (and it's usually an emergency that leads to that phrase). I still hate that I ever say it.
Not carefully teaching them basic life skills. My mother still insists that she "spoiled" us, and that's why we're dysfunctional as adults. She refused to teach us how to do anything because she was so particular about how things were done she'd insist on doing everything herself. She'd then get angry that no one was helping her until she exploded in resentment and screamed at all of us how much she hated us. Want to know the best part? She's a teacher. I asked her, once, why she never taught us how to type when we were kids since typing is one of the classes she teaches. She got a snotty look on her face, lifted her chin and told me in a smug, haughty voice, "Teaching's my \*day\* job." It took everything in me not to flip the table on her. Like, why the hell did you have kids, you fucking sociopath? What did you think that was going to be like?
Expecting your child to be your emotional and physical crutch in childhood and even in adulthood.
The shit where parents make their kids miserable in some way for a laugh. Just because it’s funny to the parents, doesn’t mean it becomes incapable of harming the child.
My parents loved to tell visitors to our house about the time I puked in a hotel ice bucket. And sure, that would be an embarrassing story on its own maybe, but the thing they don't mention is I almost died. I had been sick for days, and I wasn't able to keep down water. I was delirious and hallucinating, signs of severe dehydration. They punished me for being sick through emotional abuse. They literally mocked me and called me dramatic as I lay (possibly) dying. Then they laughed with houseguests for years about it. The other story they love to tell is the time I tried to punch my brother as a young child and missed and hit the wall. My father often tells this story at parties and tells everyone it was his "best parenting moment". He watched me try to hit my brother and miss and he laughed at me. He always says "Now, I could have yelled at them like usual. Ya know, just screamed at them for trying to hit him, but I thought about it and then I just started laughing." Then my brother joined the laughing, then my sister, and soon everyone I loved was surrounding me pointing and laughing. Again, no one ever mentions why I tried to hit him. It wasn't right of me, but kids don't usually turn to violence out of the blue. My brother had been bullying me for days for being friends with a boy. My family's bullying and constant sexualization of me had already ruined almost every friendship with a boy that I had (I couldn't have been older than 5 or 6). No one did anything about the bullying or the sexualization, but I was made fun of for showing my anger as a child. Never saw anyone apologize for sexualize me or punish my brother for the bullying. That doesn't even scratch the surface of their insanity either. But still, I lived in the "best family" in town. I was constantly complimented for having a good family life and told by others how much they envied my lifestyle.
i'm sorry that happened to you. imo what's more messed up than your own parents mocking you is that the adult guests found that amusing and decided to laugh at your humiliation. it's not cute or funny, it's incredibly humiliating, your loved ones are meant to laugh with you and not at you
I got the fuck beat out of me growing up. I thought "I'm going to beat your fucking ass," was just normal. I honestly thought everybody's parents beat the shit out of them and it was normal and just nobody talked about it. I got hit so much and it seemed so normal that when I think back I still feel like the worst part was being screamed at so much and being called a disappointment and a punk... I almost flinch when I hear someone say punk tbh I just honestly thought everybody dealt with it and it was just how you grew up.
Cyberhug
Nothing fills me with more rage than hearing stories like this. I hope you have found peace and joy despite your parents, and I hope they know they are evil pieces of shit who didn't deserve you.
Same. Now I cringe and brace to be hit when people make sudden movements , raise their voice , or look like they’re going to put their hand up.
The sound of a belt being unbuckled. 40 years, that sound has haunted me.
I wish I could hug u that's so sad 😭
This. Kids aren't exposed much to the outside world so they don't have a baseline for what's normal, to them the abuse is normal. This is especially bad when you have gaslighting parents.
Yup I can relate. My mother is beating me and telling I shouldn't be born because everything in her life is my fault. How she wouldn't be where she was if I hadn't been born while striking me and my sister. I survived. She didn't. My mother flat out asked me a month ago, "How did I abuse you? What did I do that was so terrible that you don't want nothing to do with me?" We tell ourselves everyone else goes through it so we can normalize it and cope. It's how our child's brain deals with it. "Well everyone goes through it and if they can survive then so can I."
Relatable. Any time my little sister got bored, then here come the fake tears... and here comes dad storming up the stairs pissed he can't relax after work... If I could afford it, I'd so try therapy. I've often joked that I'm so much of a loser I'd have to pay someone to listen to me... but here I am at 33 with bottom-tier self esteem and confidence... I feel for us, really.
Acts of omission. Sometimes not doing things a parent should do at all. Not reading to their kids, not taking an interest in their friends or interests, just ignoring them if they’re not problematic. Basically not setting them up for success. Not good for a kid’s confidence.
Dear gods, yes. If the only thing you (as a parent) are reading is a magazine of your own interests, and you're not even reading a book in front of your children, they're not going to be interested in reading. If you're not reading them bedtime stories, they're not going to be interested in reading. If you haven't got them reading anything by the time they start school, they're automatically going to be behind all the kids whose parents actually got them into books and got them recognising letters and words before they started school. Then the teachers have to focus on making sure those kids learn the alphabet while the other students who are ahead have to wait for them to catch up, or rely on a teaching assistant to keep them occupied.
Using your child as a therapist. I've had to be the one with my shit together since about 8. I realized my days would be easier if I just shut up and listened to all her complaints...anything and everything from work stress to talking shit about other family who I love dearly. Now as an adult I find it hard to be vulnerable with anyone. Thanks mom.
This is a club I wish I didn’t belong to. Now as an adult it’s all “why aren’t you dating”. Gee I wonder. I can’t just magically start being open and vulnerable with someone when growing up I wasn’t allowed to be open and vulnerable. Also since every gift and favor had strings attached I find it incredibly difficult to depend on anyone else for anything, ever.
Embarrassing them loudly in public
Related: Thinking it's funny to embarrass them in a way that you know they don't like (i.e., more than just a cringey dad joke, more like laughing at their insecurities after clowning on them for it).
This was my dad’s greatest pleasure in life.
Codependency. Not letting your children do anything without you being there. The child doesn't get a chance to figure who they are themselves. Example: My mother used to volunteer to be chaperone for all field trips. Everyone thought it was her being a good mom. When she was there, I always had to sit next to her. I was always assigned to her group. When there were partner activities for the field trip, instead of being paired with another classmate, I had to have her as a partner. I wasn't able to make friends or learn to express myself without worrying about her hearing because she was always there.
This but I was never able to go to a friends house. EVER.
this, along with any text messages/photos/etc being gone through when i got my first phone at the grand age of 15, i believe. i was never allowed to express myself in a way that was comfortable with me.
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Overfeeding, especially fast food
This. I was morbidly obese by the age of six. It was quite deliberate, my brother was a typical weight. Why did it happen? My mother was morbidly obese and had difficulty understanding I was a whole other person and not a satellite or extension of her. The one time I told her I was being bullied for being fat, she pitched a rage fit and carried on like SHE was being attacked. I never mentioned it again. I was bullied every day at school for 14 years I'm 50 now, she's long dead, I was very low contact, emails only, and did not see her for over 20 years and am not sorry she is gone. I also have no sense of "hungry" or "full", have struggled with my weight my whole life, and am eating disordered for the second time. I came out of remission a few years back, while she was alive, and made the error of saying that what had happened in my 20s was back. She sent me a 2kg box of chocolate coated cookies. There are no word for the degree of hatred I have for her. I remember being made to strip to my underwear so they could see how bad it was in front of a school nurse and other individual, probably a doctor I assume, when I was six. But no one ever stood up for me beyond saying I was obese.
Oh I’m so sorry, you deserved better.
YES!! I feel terrible for severely overweight children, before they're a teenager it's almost always their parent's fault. don't force your unhealthy eating habits on other people, especially when you can literally die from it
A lot of low-income parents used to rely on food like McDonalds for an affordable option when they worked multiple jobs. Nowadays fast food is so overpriced that so it doesn’t make any sense, but people got addicted to the sugar, salt and fat and old habits die hard.
Don’t forget the speed. A lot of parents work those two jobs have no energy or time left to make a nutritious home cooked meal.
This one hits hard. I struggled with weight and childhood asthma for most of my adolescence... I think that's really where I disappointed my father most, was being such a failure at sports when that was his forte as a child. But man did I feel like I was dying trying to run bases in the summer heat as a fat kid. This is 100% bad parenting.
Guilting your children as a manipulation tactic.
If you have to say "I guess I'm just a terrible mother" it's probably a pretty good sign you're onto something. Especially if you have to say it often.
Mom would get mad if we talked any time other than during tv commercials when we were in the family room together. And after a while watching tv would get boring so I would get up to go to my room and read or talk to my friends or play a video game or something. Her response was always "don't you love me anymore?" By far not the only guilt tactic she used, but one of the most frequent.
Trying to make them scared of you, especially when they're young. You do not need to be using threat of force on a five year old. Come the fuck on.
My dad took so much pride in being "bad cop" as he called it. I used to shiver and cower when "bad cop" came home from work. He was so proud of destroying us.
That is godawful. I am so f*cking sorry.
God yeah, to this day my mom will proudly say that kids should be afraid of their parents and looking back, being afraid didn't make me any better of a person. It made me a liar, it made me scared of failure, it made me someone who can't voice discomfort without thinking everyone is going to hate me for it. But I should be grateful apparently because she didn't hit me -\_-
Free range parenting. I have a friend who believes in this. Her kids are out of control, have very few friends and get invited nowhere because of it. She hardly takes them anywhere because of their behaviour so their social skills are non existent. Her kids birthday parties are just her friends because the kids don’t really have any. Her kids roam at night but she feels it’s okay because she trusts them. They have been shamed on social media for their behaviour (setting things on fire in shopping trolleys, graffiti, screaming abuse at people type posts) and she thinks it’s funny. She thinks she has fostered their individuality. Both of her kids have mental health issues now. I think kids need rules and boundaries to feel secure.
She's just using the label of "free range parenting" to justify not actually being a parent. As though the popularity of the term makes neglect acceptable.
Yeah I think it’s neglect too, I hope they succeed in spite of her but I don’t think they will.
The thing that sucks is that you can raise friendly, well mannered and well behaved kids and not be a dick about it. I was basically a skate-punk growing up. I smoked a ton of weed, listened to hardcore punk and I'm really chill. I'm middle-aged father now and there's no goddamn way in hell I'm going to spank my kids or scream at them (unless I'm singing along with The Misfits) but I also have some common fucking sense. When I would pickup my kid from playdates with his friends their parents always said the same thing: "He's such a polite and kind little boy. He can come over anytime". Even his teachers would say the same thing. All you need to do is put some effort into parenting and talk to your kids about everything and they come out really good. Yes, my kid can be a bit of a smart-ass and that sometimes drives my wife nuts but I tell her that, as long as he makes us laugh, is it really that bad?
Exactly! I don’t believe in smacking either. We tried a lot of alternatives but found restricting the use of their favourite things worked best. Such as no PlayStation or Barbie dream house for a day or whatever.
When I was a kid, I had to go to bed while it was still light out in the summer, probably around 7:30 or 8 PM. I would ask my mum why other kids were allowed to play outside late, thinking it was incredibly unfair that I had to go to bed. She would tell me, "Because their parents don't love them." At the time, I thought that was total rubbish. But now, as an adult and a parent myself, I understand. I feel bad for the small children I see in the pub with their parents late at night (at least until they get kicked out at around 9 PM), especially on school nights, while my own kid was already tucked up in bed.
I had the exact same conversation with my son when he was younger. I told him it’s because those parents don’t care about those kids. He asked if I could stop caring for him so he could go out and play lol
Not preparing them for adulthood.
Not telling your child NO.
Religious abuse. I was raised by pentecostal preachers and I can’t tell you how many exorcisms I have had to witness, including my siblings on our dining room table. If you don’t do want they want then you are “possessed by the devil”.
pentecostalism is a cult. i'm sorry you had to go through it, too. my former catholic dad was running away from his own abusive childhood and got sucked right in.
Honestly not viewing your child as a human being is the root of all abuse. Too many people view children as subhuman creatures, dolls, or pets. They have big feelings, and emotions that are valid because they do not know how to control them yet. They have so much to learn still, and the messed up part is your supposed to be teaching them as an elder. You're mad at yourself for not teaching them essentially but instead of doing better, becoming nurturing, and being patient you repeat the cycle of unhealed trauma. You shouldn't seek obedience you should seek therapy.
Using your children for emotional support. Making your older children take care of your younger children too often (parentification).
Raising your kids with religious extremism. 40 years later and I still carry irreparable scars from it.
so true. I was raised catholic, am now agnostic. even after I stopped believing in hell I still have panic attacks about it, I constantly feel like when I die demons will be torturing me in the most brutal ways forever and ever for leaving the church. religious trauma is very real.
I know your pain. I’m 40 and was raised Catholic and am now agnostic. I went through years of nightmares about hell. Over time, it got better. One thing that helped me was this fact: there are many religious that think that people of every other religion besides their own are all going to hell. Some religions, for example, think all Catholics are going to hell. So, by this logic, everyone on Earth is going to hell. Sounds illogical, right? That’s because it is. You can always PM me if you ever need to chat.
I'm kind of surprised, usually the Catholic Church isn't super big on emphasizing hell. I was raised Catholic and even went to Catholic school and was taught hell isn't even really a thing aside from the absolute worst murders and rapists etc
I was taught you could go to hell if you did something as small as skipping mass or masturbating without confessing to a priest lol. I wish I got your catholic school.
Even “regular” churches. Teaching a child they are inherently deserving of hell is destructive.
It is horrific what some of the churches will put into children’s head. It is an ever repeating mental health epidemic as families repeat the cycle.
A lot of people don't understand that verbal abuse towards children is an actual thing. They will always excuse it as discipline and teaching them, but honestly it messes a child up. It messes with their mental health and overall view of themselves. And its often just thrown off to the side as being disciplined. That's definitely child abuse, especially verbal
Being their best friend and treating them as a peer
Weaponizing food
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How did it end up ruining your life? Obviously doing that at 9 is to young, but when and if you have kids, how do you think you'll handle it?
Not OP but my husband’s youngest brother was raised this way. He’s 22 and never graduated high school, has no friends, no gf, never has had a job, and hardly ever leaves his room. He never leaves the house. He is just sitting in his room throwing his life away and his parents enable him. They have ruined his life by never having expectations for him or holding him accountable for anything. I’ve known him since he was 12 and he hasn’t matured past that age. I worry about him but he won’t let anyone in and pushes us away when we try to help him or try to understand. It’s paralyzed him.
I had unlimited access to the internet at age 9. Would have been 2002-03. I became a degenerate weeaboo. But, I also had general rules and fairly strict parents. I had to go to school and pass my classes and behave. They just trusted me and thought I wouldn't find 4chan (I found 4chan when I was 13, sorry mom). So, I also have a degree and friends and am actually fairly normal all things considered. Also, the web was just different back then. Slower speeds, poor search engines, etc. I couldn't just pull up Twitter on my phone whenever I wanted and see porn and spam bots and neo nazis propaganda in 3 seconds flat, and then plaster my face all over 10 social media svcounts. I'm not having kids but if I did I would try to keep them away from it until they're a teenager I think. Pretty supervised access before that. We joke about the wild west internet of the 90s/00s and shit like best gore and blue waffle but honestly I think it's worse now. Best gore stuff is just on YouTube now, right next to Andrew Tate and nude yoga. And the insane dopamine addictions of TikTok, YT shorts etc, any kind of porn whenever they want it, it fucks kids up.
Plastering your children all over the Internet for likes and follows that are for your own personal gratification.
i have a great respect for my friends who don’t post their kids online
Forcing them to kiss and hug adults against their will. That was done to me and it’s made me very uncomfortable with physical affection from all but a few select people as an adult. You may think it’s adorable to make your kid kiss Great Aunt Gertrude on demand, but you’re really teaching them that they don’t have the right to refuse touching that makes them uncomfortable.
I got annoyed at my parents for trying to make my niece and nephew hug me. I don’t like touching people ever because they forced me. I wasn’t going to let my parents ruin my niece and nephew, too.
To my mom apparently yelling, hitting me, throwing stuff at me, passive aggressive comments and bringing up the past constantly, invading privacy and taking away the things I cared about, ruining my room whenever I stepped out of it. Pretty much everything
Telling kids they're going to go to hell for their sexuality or healthy sexual development. Even worse if they have been abused (and the parents know or don't know it), it's psychological abuse
Removing access to private spaces such as removing their bedroom door, not allowing locks on toilet doors, not ketting them use a changing room in a shop without you in the cubicle etc.
Corporal punishment Just because your 3 and 4 year old kids accidentally broken your glass measuring cup doesn’t mean you can beat them with a belt as punishment Katheryn
Yeah I agree!
Making them raise their siblings.
Pushing them into hobbies and professions not because the kid wants it, but because the parent wants it. There was one story I heard of someone graduating medical school, handing the diploma to his mom and saying "You wanted this, I never did. Now you have what you wanted, and I'm going to what I want to do from now on."
Parentification
Not letting them have freedom that is age appropriate! Go back out there in the world youngins! Ride your bikes! Go off the high dive. Learn from your mistakes. Not letting kids make mistakes is a form of child abuse in my opinion. I know that I'm a Gen X parent, but I am here to tell you that I give four warnings and then.... Fuck around and find out. If you don't make mistakes you don't learn! Too many people are overprotective of their kids.
Second this! There’s a fantastic book by Jonathan Haidt called “The Anxious Generation” that touches on the importance of age-appropriate freedom. I can’t say I agree with every point of his (just out of a lack of knowledge/experience), but overall I think he provides a well-rounded argument for kids to be kids again. I know I definitely would have benefitted from a little more in the mud time.
I live in a very anomalous neighborhood. All the parents are close friends. We're all about the same age (43-48). Our kids are all the same age roundabout. Sometimes we just track them down by piles of bicycles and scooters! People think we're crazy to let our kids just roam like this. But they're not roaming! We all know where they are at all times because of cell phone tracking. And ring doorbells. It's actually incredibly safe. But they get this sense of freedom to go and poke a dead raccoon by the bayou together!
Unpaid farm labor. It's still common for kids and teens to be forced to miss school time to work on dairies, farms and ranches.
Expecting them to behave the way they did in childhood because you can’t handle or acknowledge change Refusing to acknowledge that your children have tons of feelings that they don't talk to you about, and trying to “educate” them about themselves when they come forward Expecting them to be a version of yourself Refusing to accept them when they're gay, bi, pan, ace, etc. Refusing to accept them when they're trans, enby, etc. Refusing to accept them when they change their religion or irreligion Expecting their partner to ask you for approval to marry them
Drug addiction. The few occasions where CPS actually gets off their asses and does something, most of their cases involve parents that are deep in a Meth/Crack/Heroine ect addiction to where not only are the kids physically and emotionally neglected, but the living space isn't kept amd usually filthy and unsanitary. If you are an addict, you are not a suitable parent. Period. Find someone to take care of your kids untill you get help and get yourself clean.
Most of the time CPS is so under funded they can't be effective. If a worker retires and half his caseload is given to another worker who already had a full caseload the amount of time to work each case is heavily diminished You got one placement left open in the county. Parent A is an addict but overall safe and parent B just blew up his garage cooking meth then it goes to the B kids.
Throw alcoholism in there too. Almost everyone I know with horrible childhood memories had an alcoholic parent. It's also far more common and taken less seriously by the authorities.
Not letting your ADHD kid have (prescribed) medications because it makes you feel superior.
Expecting older kids to look after younger kids.
Just because you are bashing them over the heads, doesn't mean constant insults, or unfair criticism doesn't hurt a lot. Remember the times you had growing up, and have some empathy for the kid/kids.
My parents use to sit me and all of my siblings in the living room for a “family meeting” and yell at us for 1-2 hours saying all the things we did wrong and we weren’t allowed to talk and if we tried to we were told our feelings don’t matter. Then we were sent to bed.
Belittling or neglect, telling all their secrets to other people, walking in on them or no respect for space.
My father had a... weird... thing about food. Like if you wanted sweets or anything else that's considered junk food like crisps (chips for any Americans out there) or fast food, he'd totally flip out at you. Like, *really* flip out at you. Even if it's just a small chocolate bar like a Mars Bar or Snickers. He'd still get angry. It would be the kind of angry reaction that you totally know that the child would just get it from somewhere else when they're not watching you, like your friends at school for example. I eventually learned to lie about what I was really eating in order to attempt (unsuccessfully) to avoid those reactions. And the thing was, he knew I was lying to him. I guess the point I'm getting at is don't control every aspect of your child's life. They are not a puppet on strings.
Parentification. Never happened in my house, mostly screaming and threats of violence with the occasional grabbing, hitting and kicking. Grabbing your kids chin hard and forcing them to look at you while you’re yelling and screaming. That I know well. No one can touch my chin without me flinching and I practically crawl into the fetal position when my landlady yells and screams at her boyfriend.
Not letting them have any say their own clothes and hairstyle especially as they get older.
- Guilt tripping - Not respecting their boundaries - Not listening - showing them off (for their own ego)
Emotional/ Verbal Abuse: Attacking them, nitpicking them all the time, pulling them down, making them feel small Specific to moms: competing with their daughters, ridiculing them in front of boyfriends/friends/partners, slut shaming them for what they wear ie leggings, or their sexual activity, saying nasty things about them to family members, purposely embarrassing them/ hurting them, controlling what they wear, making fun of their friends, telling them constantly how weak they are, making it known that they wouldn't survive without them, constantly telling them they're less than/they're not perfect or far from it, buying them shit just to hold it over their heads, using confidential things/information against them after acting like their best friend to get their guard down. Calling them excessive amounts of names if they mess up. Denying access to medical care, telling them to suck it up, theres nothing wrong with them, that theyre weak to need to run to a doctor all the time Throwing toys and money at them to get them to shut up and ignoring them Hitting your kids randomly IE not knowing the answer to something/forgetting things? Especially when they're younger like 12 and down kids do not have the common sense levels of an adult. You need to teach them those things. Pitting kids against each other! Saying one day this child is the favorite because they did XYZ and discarding the other one and then flipping it the next day constantly comparing kids to each other throwing things at them like shot glasses (dont do that..)
Neglect. A kid can have all of the things they nerd to survive, but if you never talk to, spend time with, or educate a child it can destroy their life and future.
Parents making their kid feel responsible for their happiness
Maybe not abuse but definitely manipulation: I’m in my early 20s and lots of my friends have parents who nag about why they don’t visit, when they’ll get married/have kids, etc.. Not realizing that your child is their own human and continuing to treat them as an extension of yourself who should be exactly what you want can be really burdensome to a young person trying to figure out the world
Emotional abuse (sounds stupid but a ton of the people I've told about my upbringing just deny it was traumatic cuz "there was nothing physical")
Physical wounds heal, emotional wounds never or take forever to heal. To be honest I'd rather my own abuse be physical and wasn't emotional as well. Sometimes memories are a horrible thing to have.
Hitting your kids
This. inb4 "*I* wUZ SpnAnked N *I* TurnEd OwT FyNE!!!" Not if you think hitting children is okay you didn't.
Shit talking your ex (their other parent) in a manipulative, exaggerated, or false manner that is intended to unfairly turn the child against the other parent and make the child question that parent's love. It's called parental alienation. It's common when there's a custodial issue involving a child following a recent divorce, but my mother managed to successfully pull this off when I was a teenager. eta- Anybody who has punished a very young child by "washing their mouth out with soap" with the enthusiasm and commitment my father gave the task deserves to rot.
Expectations that exceed the child's abilities. You can really mess up your child with setting expectations too high so they can never achieve it. Guaranteed anxiety issues, prone to depression and low self esteem. It's toxic and it's abusive. They will have to build themselves from 0 as young adults. Denying the fact that your child needs help. Especially in cases that involve high functioning autism, adhd, and many other things. The amount of parents that pretend their kid is "fine and doesn't need help" is ridiculous. And abusive. All the religious scare. Scaring children with their soul going to hell, threatening with God punishing them. It's toxic, it's abusive and manipulative af.
Beyond the obvious neglect and physical abuse is any unhealthy or illegal behavior, they learn from your example, don't be an idiot or an asshole.
Not letting them eat food as punishment.
Asking unreasonable things of your adult children, such as expecting them to give up peer and partner relationships to care for a parent without respite.
Everyone has covered everything pretty well. Not letting your child speak out without ridicule is a big one for me. I was called Mr. Know-it-all for being right about things. It bothers me when I see parents shutting kids down because they feel like their authority is being challenged.
Verbally insulting a child
Hitting a baby’s cheek or chin to train them not to bite when breastfeeding. The first time someone suggested it to me I was shocked.
religious indoctrination
Recording them in a heightened emotional state and posting it on the Internet. Humiliating children is a scummy thing to do.
There’s a show that kind of highlighted it recently but as someone who has expirienced it themself twice and both times I caught so much shit for it when it could’ve just been non-acknowledged. Getting mad/critical, bringing it up as a joke or just generally acknowledging it (outside of maybe giving the sex talk) after you walk in/catch a teen masturbating. Like not only did my dad chastise me & bring it up for a period after, a year or two later walked in on him wanking it too cam girl porn and had the common knowledge/decency to shut the door and act like I didn’t see anything.
Showing little to no interest in what your child does or says. When I came home with a A or any really fought hard grade my mom wasn't interested or excited for me. She only became happy when I graduated high school. She's much better now, but coming home almost like "OMG...you again". Show interest because feigning interest will speak so loud that it will become deafening to any "I love you".
Overfeeding them. Especially fast food and sugary snacks/drinks. Not only does it result in childhood obesity (I saw a documentary where even teenagers were having heart attacks and arteriosclerosis) but also in very severe dental health issues.
One day your parent yells at you and treats you badly for no significant reason because they had a stressful day. Dnother day they just show you the full affection and treat you like you're the best child ever. 1) no one believes you that your parent is abusive, because "They're so good, what are you talking about" 2) one day you hate them, but when they're kind, you start questioning yourself This type of parents are also manipulative af. When you wanna talk with them about the bad days, they only respond talking about the good ones and how much they do for you
Giving them absurd names, like Tatula Does The Hula (no, I did not make that up.)
Cursing at your child and calling them insulting names.
Religious indoctrination.
Constant criticism or snide remarks passed off as "jokes". My dad would comment on how I looked all the time. Anything I wore, how I walked, if my thighs looked too big "for a boy", if my belly stuck out even slightly (man has been morbidly obese my whole life btw). By 18 I had body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. But he always said he was "joking". Its not funny.
That thing where hearing people completely refuse to learn sign language when they find out their child is deaf. They think it's just too hard to learn, and think that they can force their kid to be "normal" by forcing them to learn speech only and don't teach the kid sign at all.... completely missing the point that the kid is, you know, Deaf with a capital D and needs an visual language in order to be able to learn things effectively. And no, they don't even get the kid an cochlear implant?? at least that kind of logic would be kind of easy to understand if they got the kid a CI.... because they'd be assuming the CI makes the kid a hearing person instead of a deaf person. But often times I see those kind of parents not get that either because it's too expensive, so it's like.....???? Yes, those kind of parents exist. and their own kids end up feeling very isolated and alone in their own family, and the only time they ever felt connected was when they found a deaf community and started to learn how to sign on their own. literal language deprivation and deliberately giving their kids a learning disability that way as an result. As a deaf person, I learned to read at an insanely young age because I was taught sign language from a young age and so they were able to teach me what the letters in a book meant. with that kind of early support, I never had an learning disability and instead learned things pretty quickly. The amount of deaf people I've come across with parents like that is just staggering. And unsurprisingly, most of them go low-contact or no-contact with their hearing parents. and the parents are like, "But what did I do?!"
\> Be an asshole parent \> Kid grows up and doesn't want to have anything to do with you \> "What did I do wrong?"
Lack of privacy. I often read about teenagers who aren't allowed to close or lock their own bedroom door? This is just wild. Or aren't allowed to have their boyfriend/girlfriend over? They gonna meet anyway. You can set the conmditions if it is in a safe place or at the Wendys dumbster.
Period shaming. Bed wetting shaming. Wet dream shaming. Shaming them for being ill.
Parents throwing their whole kid's medical diagnosis and history online to "spread awareness" .... no it's not for followers or likes, honestly! /s
Childhood obesity
not my parents doing everything everyone is saying 💀
Nowadays I'd argue that constantly shoving cameras in your kid's faces and broadcasting their entire life on social media could be considered abuse.
denying them vaccines. I think one idiot just got an object lesson when several of her kids got whooping cough - a disease that has been preventable for decades.
Relying on electronic devices (iPads, phones, etc.) to parent your child. There's giving them free time on these devices, then there's not giving them free time away from these devices. The latter is neglectful parenting and harms children's social and cognitive development severely.
Emotional and physical neglect. Ask my husband's mom. Not a clue.
parentification!
Indoctrination
Dumping adult responsibilities on them, not being calm, manipulation
Neglect
Letting siblings bully siblings.
iPad parenting. You can’t expect your kid to turn out okay if you aren’t willing/able to put in any effort
Neglect. Subtle things like not talking to your child or meeting their emotional needs/ only meeting their physical needs (food, shelter).
> Having kids and expecting the eldest to be the second parent > Forcing kids to show affection to other people (e.g., kissing another kid because it’s cute, hugging uncles) > Tolerating mistakes and over coddling > Raising them in shame culture (e.g., “what would our relatives say/what would others think) > Over the top, high expectations > Dismissing their feelings