Discussion Animosity towards parents

[Pulpit2018]

I have seen so many negative views about parents in this forum. I guess it is to be expected given the nature of the topics of this forum, its understandable.
I am anti-natalist too, however i do recognize that parents can make great efforts even if misguided and for wrong reasons.

I wanted to make a poll of how people here view their parents. Do some users recognize that parents might not be at fault despite the harsh realities of the world, or do they take a harsher anti-natalist view that straight away condemns parents simply for bringing new life into a world where it can end in suicide?
Lets see. Your vote is not publicly visible.

 

[mirko]

I wasn't sure to go with the Neutral option or the "They should have thought...." option since they were pretty emotionally and materially negligent since the day I was born. I resented them in my early teens but eventually, I came to realize they were ignorant people and can you really blame someone because they don't know any better? They tried, in their own way, but it was never enough.

 

[Mistake of Nature]

I’m incredibly lucky to have wonderful parents who have done everything possible to give me a good life. I love them tremendously, but I’m also a pretty strict anti-natalist and resent them for bringing me into existence. They imposed a lifetime of suffering on me for no good reason and are the ones who indirectly caused all the pain I’ll ever experience.

I know it’s shitty of me to be angry with them for having me and to blame it all on them. I hate myself for thinking and feeling these things and I know I don’t deserve such great parents. Just another reason why I should CTB, I guess.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

can you really blame someone because they don't know any better?

There's a difference between blaming someone and holding them accountable. It's not like there aren't resources, or that internal knowing that says one is crossing a line or needs help. I think of my parents and how whenever someone tried to intervene, they got angry and defensive and just doubled down. I think about all the resources that were available to them if only they were willing to try. I think about how they could have asked for advice from others to support me rather than support them to try to control me, to abuse me more effectively. I think about how they didn't connect with their backbones to face their stuff so that they didn't perpetuate the abuse they came from. They didn't even try. When I finally held them accountable, they chose to shun me...and then chose to lie to friends and extended family that we are still in loving contact when they haven't known where I am or anything about my life for years. I think about how their public personas are more important to them than me. I think about how they wouldn't want anyone to know what happened behind closed doors and yet think it was moral and justified. I don't blame them for what caused them to be that way, but I hold them accountable that they didn't listen to their moral compasses nor intervention.

 

[NumbItAll]

I hate that they had me but am grateful for all the stuff they've done since then.

 

[demuic]

My dad I hate. My mother, mixed feelings. I'm thankful that she loves and cares for me, but I resent her for several things she has done, for allowing my dad to control her, for the circumstances we live in, and for supporting an abusive family member.

 

[Mer]

I hate my father for psychologically and physically abusing my elder brother and I when we were kids/teens. Even after 15 years, I'm still bitter about it, and I've already seen my brother treat his oldest child the same way our father once did; continuing on the cycle of abuse. The abuse I suffered at my fathers hands is one of the main reasons why I'm child-free and have chronic depression.

My feels towards my mother is a mixture of love and frustration. Like many Gen X parents, she is simply a product of her time; if you were in your early 20's, you got married and had kids. It's just what was expected. I don't think my mother expected her kids to have such a shitty upbringing. She stuck with my father (her husband) because she was scared and didn't have the money to raise two kids on her own. Are there times I wish she had taken us to a shelter? Yea, absolutely. But I also understand why she didn't, and I don't hold that against her anymore.

I do think it's much easier to be child-free today than just three decades ago. Those of us who are anti-natalist can now easily find other adults who are like-minded, and form connects over not wanting to bring my humans into this shitty world.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Like many Gen X parents, she is simply a product of her time; if you were in your early 20's, you got married and had kids. It's just what was expected.

I'm curious, what region was your mother from? Asking as a white, middle class GenXer from the US who did not have that experience. In my socioeconomic strata, even in the Bible belt, college was expected to come first, and then hurry up and get married and have them babies! Thought there were plenty who still got married young and did that, they just weren't the norm, getting married in the mid twenties was the norm, early thirties at the latest. Our generation had a lot of pressure to be the first to go through college in our families, and we needed it to compete for the better jobs, now you practically need a degree to work at fast food, or at least at a front desk, both jobs I did in high school. But I definitely caught flak and confusion until my late thirties from a variety of people for not wanting children, I was often negatingly told I had plenty of time to change my mind. The younger generations are fortunate that they don't have as much pressure to procreate, it was obnoxious.

 

[Mer]

Asking as a white, middle class GenXer from the US who did not have that experience. In my socioeconomic strata, even in the Bible belt, college was expected to come first, and then hurry up and get married and have them babies!

Ah I forgot to mention both my parents were in the Air Force when they were in their early 20's. All their friends, most of whom were also in the military as well got married around the same ages. Neither of my parents ever went to college. I did but dropped out.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Ah I forgot to mention both my parents were in the Air Force when they were in their early 20's. All their friends, most of whom were also in the military as well got married around the same ages.

That makes a lot of sense!

 

[Mer]

That makes a lot of sense!

Yea, I think getting married early and popping out babies is still in fashion for the military today; I've got a few friends who went down that path. Nothing but misery, divorces and broken families.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Yea, I think getting married early and popping out babies is still in fashion for the military today; I've got a few friends who went down that path. Nothing but misery, divorces and broken families.

Murica.

 

[_Kaira_]

Would've picked between the last and second to last option. If I ignored the bad sh*t they did, and how flawed their choices were in life, I'd still dislike them for having me. They wanted kids for very selfish reasons. Kept having sons, despite the fact they were passing on lethal genetics, just because they wanted a daughter oh so badly.. then proceeded to be child abusers. I can't say they ruined 'everything', but pretty close to it...

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I don't resent my parents for creating me, since I don't believe it's fair to expect anyone to just go against natural biological instincts like that. Even my dad's abusive behavior while I don't condone it, is just the way he was raised and supposedly he suffered just as much if not more growing up in complete poverty. I do however resent my dad for marrying too late (37) and with a woman exactly ten years younger than him because it caused so many problems for the marriage and for me and my siblings growing up. I also believe that I'm headed down a similar road as my dad which is why I feel I must ctb for sure if I'm not married by 30 (now 28 because I'm getting frustrated with waiting).

When I was in 5th grade, my mom left the house. I do not resent her for abandoning us no matter how much my dad wanted us to feel that way because I never saw it like that. In fact, we eventually moved and did not tell her where we were at all. It wasn't until later when my mom finally found out where we were and made divorce proceedings such as visitation official. Eventually my dad screwed up badly enough that my mom earned primary custody of my sisters and I. For the first few years while I was living with my mom, I'll admit I felt some degree of resentment towards her. Not because she divorced, no that was definitely the right thing to do. See, my mom, as sweet as she is, has always been kind of an airhead though she can have deep stuff to say about emotional matters. She and I are very much alike in that we'd both prefer to just spend all day binging tv or hanging out with friends and anything that seems like it's too hard is something we'd rather procrastinate on. For a while I did in fact resent her for passing those habits onto me because it was the very cause of my dad's frustration with both of us. He never directly said I got it from her but I think he implied it a lot.

Anyway, I voted neutral because while I've since decided to completely ignore my dad entirely, I still live with my mom and as naive as she seems sometimes, I do respect that she's still really trying sometimes and manages to maintain a positive outlook with the cards she was given (though that's probably the heavy Christianity talking).

 

[Good4Nothing]

My dad I hate. My mother, mixed feelings. I'm thankful that she loves and cares for me, but I resent her for several things she has done, for allowing my dad to control her, for the circumstances we live in, and for supporting an abusive family member.

Ditto.

 

[DetachedDreamer97]

I don’t have any negative feelings for my dad, despite what he did in the past (leaving me), but he made up by being back in my life and while I’m not with him, he’s done well as a parent for the other kids he later had.

Mom however, yeah... she’s a poor excuse of a mother. Selfish, uncaring, incompetent, and an alcoholic, and probably emotionally abusive and controlling. She acts like she did everything for me and my brothers when she went off fucking and drinking and having more kids. Sadly, I’m with her after my fight with my maternal grandfather who gaslights me all the time, and she does the same.

 

[BlankUser]

My parents were absolutely unfit to raise a kid. I wasn't a priority for them. They were always fighting in front of me. Or not speaking to each other for months. They did so many wrong things, they traumatized me so much it still affects me to this day. Of course there were good things and I have good memories, but the bad things were brutal. My mother was a better parent than my father tough. People like my father should never procreate.

 

[FuneralCry]

I know many people have been through some awful things, but I mostly have a good relationship with my parents. I may find it exhausting being around them most of the time but that is due to my personality. However they are responsible for the fact that I exist in the first place and I honestly wish I was never born.