Discussion Anyone else out there grow up motherless or with single parents? How did it affect you?

[Forever Sleep]

My Mum died when I was 3. I was lucky in that my Grandma and Grandpa took over and my Dad was still around and all were very loving.

Still- I think it does affect a person. I think maybe we become more independent and maybe even more resistant to accepting 'help' from others because we have learnt what it's like to lose that support and I guess we simply have to become more self reliant.

I think it also can make accepting your own identity hard because you have one less reference point to go from.

What do you think? Are there people out there who grew up minus one or both parents? How has it affected you? Do you feel like you ever got over it?

 

[SpiritualDeath]

It depends on your situation I guess.

In my case it's way better to grow up with a single parent than two parents in a toxic relationship, hating each other and fighting from time to time, and the endless drama taking place in a supposed "family". My life got way better after this "family" dissociated.

One of the reasons I've never been in relationships I guess. This kind of games with ppl is just not worth playing. I consider it to be a good influence actually bc I got to see the ugly truth and break free from the societal brainwashing (saying that you're a loser if you are not in relationships, are not married, etc.) very early. Way better than living in delusions and suffer later on bc of that.

Edit: Things were not so well for the closer relatives in my family as well. For example both my mother and her brother (my uncle) ended up having a shitty marriage and nasty divorce. My cousin and I are the only two children. I'll either ctb in a few years or focus on a few things I'm still willing to do in this world (and perhaps ctb after completing those), either case it's no relationship, no family and no children for me. My cousin doesn't seem so interested in family and children as well so perhaps this whole mess's gonna end with us. It's certainly a good thing to me as an AN lol

 

[ForgottenAgain]

My mother died of cancer when I was 14. It affected me a whole lot. I remember when my father told me she died and I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I then became sort of a mother to my younger sister and a mediator to try and set my father straight when he was bringing awful women into our house. My grandma came to live with us and she was a second mother to me but she also put pressure on me to put reasoning on my father.

The thing is, the family got irreparably destroyed since my mother died. She was the bread winner, she had "the pants" in the relationship. I've been thinking about earning money and living on my own since 14, earn enough money to get me out of that house and my sister. I never felt like I had help, I had to find my own psychologist at 14 and I decided to work at uni besides studying to get lower tuitions.

It does affect one forever I think, at least in my case where she was fine and then gone in 3 months. The world was never the same.