• Hey Guest,

    If you want to donate, we have a thread with updated donation options here at this link: About Donations

How do you view your parents?

  • Absolutely love them! Cannot imagine how it would be without them

    Votes: 2 4.2%
  • I like them. They are not perfect but they tried.

    Votes: 15 31.3%
  • Neutral. I do not hate them ( i guess) , but they do not mean much to me.

    Votes: 4 8.3%
  • They should have thought better before doing this. They are unfit to properly raise a person.

    Votes: 15 31.3%
  • Horrible. They ruined everything.

    Votes: 12 25.0%

  • Total voters
    48
Pulpit2018

Pulpit2018

Experienced
Oct 8, 2018
287
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.
 
Last edited:
mirko

mirko

ah
Nov 19, 2020
232
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

Mistake of Nature

A shadow suspended on dust
Mar 30, 2020
160
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NumbItAll
GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,728
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.
 
demuic

demuic

Life was a mistake
Sep 12, 2020
1,382
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

Mer

Insert Witty Comment Here
Dec 2, 2020
66
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.
 
  • Love
Reactions: demuic
GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,728
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

Mer

Insert Witty Comment Here
Dec 2, 2020
66
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.
 
  • Love
Reactions: GoodPersonEffed
GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,728
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!
 
GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,728
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_

_Kaira_

This Isn't Fine
Oct 2, 2020
826
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

Dr Iron Arc

Into the Unknown
Feb 10, 2020
18,436
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).
 
Last edited:
Good4Nothing

Good4Nothing

Unlovable
May 8, 2020
1,865
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.
 
  • Hugs
Reactions: demuic
DetachedDreamer97

DetachedDreamer97

Enlightened
Mar 17, 2018
1,402
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.
 
Last edited:
B

BlankUser

Mage
Apr 24, 2021
501
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

FuneralCry

She wished that she never existed...
Sep 24, 2020
33,379
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.
 
  • Hugs
Reactions: demuic

Similar threads

T
  • Poll
Discussion Views on abortion?
Replies
11
Views
262
Politics & Philosophy
MindFrog
MindFrog
G
Replies
10
Views
316
Suicide Discussion
onbekend
onbekend
RainAndSadness
Replies
23
Views
2K
Suicide Discussion
Kit1
K
A
Replies
6
Views
238
Suicide Discussion
Whatever♡
Whatever♡