What's the one thing you would ask your parents to do differently?

[Blue Elephant]

@huphup What? To me it doesn't look like your parents did their best.

But you.. you sure learned what's best even without their guidance.

 

[huphup]

@huphup What? To me it doesn't look like your parents did their best.

But you.. you sure learned what's best even without their guidance.

Yeah, I guess compared to other parents they could've done better. They've been through their own trauma and have their own difficult situations so I guess that's where I come from.

Also, I have been blamed for the majority of their problems so I have learned not to blame other people cause I know the pain it causes and give them the benefit. Of course, then I never stand up for myself and tell myself my problems are not valid. Probably not the best haha

 

[Blue Elephant]

Yeah, I guess compared to other parents they could've done better. They've been through their own trauma and have their own difficult situations so I guess that's where I come from.

They could always do better (mine are not without fault either), they have no excuse not to do better! This is the way I see it. If I would have a kid I would do my best for them.

Also, I have been blamed for the majority of their problems so I have learned not to blame other people cause I know the pain it causes and give them the benefit. Of course, then I never stand up for myself and tell myself my problems are not valid. Probably not the best haha

No one ever blames me for anything, but then again I am alone as a wolf. : ) This might or might not be a good thing though, if I never get blamed for anything then how do I know if I'm doing things right or wrong!?

But yeah, like I said: I think you see things pretty clearly.

 

[Kit1]

My parents had a very toxic relationship, mum had mental health issues that no one wanted to talk about or acknowledge, finances were a major challenge, a war amongst other challenges between them. Mum was stuck in an abusive relationship and I suspect that I might have been a result of rape (though rape within marriage was not considered rape in those days and she wouldn't have spoken up anyway). First mistake - not given birth to me when they in such a toxic relationship.

2. Pretty much handed me over to another relative to bring me up soon after I was born - this couple already had six children and did not have the time to look after me. I was targeted by paedophiles throughout my life till my early teens. Just wish my parents had put me in an orphanage - perhaps I might been adopted by a moving couple who would have kept me safe (wishful thinking).

3. Took me back aged 6 and I spent 5.5 years with birth family to be beaten up, screamed and worse. And still men were involved ad paedophiles can spot a vulnerable.cjild.pretrt quickly. Wish they had not taken me back.

4. Anyway just wish I had parents who genuinely loved me and kept me safe - and provided me with a "safe home".

You had asked an important question here and I am glad that your son was able to have a direct conversation with you. I also have children and kept that channel of.communixation open. If our children can trust us, feel safe with us and talk to us knowing that they will be heard and supported, I honestly think that as parents, we are on the right pathway..,

 

[Asingletwig]

Never meet. That would have been epic

 

[DeadHead]

Nothing. Thank you for adopting me and saving me from a crazy bitch whore. Sorry I never said it enough when you were alive.

 

[push]

I would ask my mom to get therapy and seriously consider if she wants kids before having them

 

[S like suicide]

Never meet. That would have been epic

I feel the same about my toxic parents.

 

[N33dT0D13]

My dad: To have his heel-face turn a lot sooner and be more present
My mom: To fuck off honestly and let someone else raise me or else not have me in the first place, "bleh I brought you into this world bleh", literally no one asked you to, I sure didn't, you did that for yourself you selfish jerk, I'm glad I'm not the kid you wanted

 

[oddetoad]

I wouldnt ask them anything I would punch them in the faces so hard so nobody would ever wanna see them again.
No, but seriously I would ask them if they thought it was a moral thing to sacfirice an innocent child for a lifetime of slavery.. now they probably wouldn't listen so I'd be forced to resort to the above anyway ..

 

[GhostKing714]

I would tell them to ask me for forgiveness, especially my mum. For all the terrible things they did, like hitting me when I was younger and keeping me under their control to the point that it stunted my psychosocial development. The thing that hurts me the most, and why I'll never forgive them no matter how much time passes and how much she claims to change, is that I once asked her for this, to say sorry for going through my phone, and she said that she'd do it again. Even after telling her that this was the reason why I did not share anything with her and why I had no friends, as after this I disconnected from most of my friends, and how much it hurt me, she said that as my mum she could do what she wanted with me.
Thanks a lot mum, hope all your bullshit was worth it.

 

[Slow_Farewell]

Wear protection, aside from that, maybe to remember that they brought the child in, the child didn't ask to be born.

 

[cold_severance]

get sterilized.

 

[sadwriter]

Would ask my mom to recognize that other people's wants & needs are as important as her own, not throw tantrums or belittle me for having needs & expressing them/ making my own decisions, recognize that alone time/ downtime is just as important to children as activities & not criticize me for "doing nothing" every time I took a moment to breathe, and to take it easy with her academic expectations for me in high school so that I didn't feel the need to hide my mental health issues & hide in my room whenever she came home, terrified of her finding out that I wasn't spending every waking second studying.

Or, to make things simpler, I'd just ask her to go the fuck to therapy and take care of her own emotional issues before having children, lol.

As for my dad, I'd ask him not to enable my mother's bad behavior, or else not have kids with her in the first place.

 

[MyLuckyStars]

be less mean, as dumb as that sounds. more positive reinforcement. being berated all the time is horrible. i also wish they didnt instill into me that any degree of interest in your appearance makes you a shallow worthless sheep or whatever. it lead to me not caring at all about how i looked in 6th-10th grade, which had severe consequences on my social development. in todays world, you need to stay on top of that stuff to have a fighting chance. nobody gives you brownie points for being above it all and not giving a fuck.

 

[HighFlight]

BUMP

I've notice that with a new wave of members, parents often come up in chat and threads. Accordingly, I'm curious to know what you would ask your parents to do differently if you could go back to your pre-teen / early teen self (say 10 - 15 yo).

I'm a parent of a young adult (over 21) who suffers from mental health issues, and often blame myself. What can parents do differently to support their children?

BTW - I get a lot of "get an abortion" or "never have children". If it helps you by venting this way, by all means... But I'm assuming we're past that point for discussion purposes.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read (and respond).

 

[brxy7]

I've noticed that parents come up in discussions quite frequently on this site. As a parent myself, I like to think that we try to do our best and protect our children. But also realize I have failed at this to some degree - my oldest opened up and told me about his suicidal ideation and how he would have gone through with it if he wasn't so afraid.

I also know that not all parents share that same sense of responsibility. And all sorts of abuse takes place by the very people responsible for keeping a child safe.

Thinking back to when you were younger (maybe 12 - 18 yo), what would you want your parents to do differently that might have helped avoid you going down a ctb path?

My parents never let me have choices. My mom always made decisions for me. She always judged and judges me for choices i make for myself. I think my mom is 50% of the reason of my suicide. She truely ruined my life from the start. But don't worry. I can tell you aren't like that

 

[Rogue Proxy]

The breeders should have either gotten sterilized, aborted me, or best-case scenario, died. Both shit bags have abused and neglected me countless times throughout my life, especially that manipulative sperm bag, until I permanently cut them out my life like the malignment tumors that they were.

 

[TheShadowKing]

• Use condoms.
• Have a vasectomy.
• Abort me.

This honestly some people just shouldn't be parents my mom has a lot of problems she ended up just passing on to me and continuing my family's fucked up cycle

 

[BlackMoon]

I could say the same to all parents in the world. Stop giving birth to children if your only expectation is to have a living doll. Stop thinking they're less humans than you. Stop feeling you have a right to abuse them just because they're so-called "yours". Stop thinking they're "yours" like they're fucking furnitures.

Your role is to give them support, love, critical thinking and the basic necessities (food, roof, etc). Not trying to shape them until you broke them.

You broke me. You abused me, physically, emotionally. I will never forgive you. Now that you lost me I hope you will live in shame for the rest of your life.

 

[not-2-b-the-answer]

Double Bag it !!!!

 

[Rogue Proxy]

I could say the same to all parents in the world. Stop giving birth to children if your only expectation is to have a living doll. Stop thinking they're less humans than you. Stop feeling you have a right to abuse them just because they're so-called "yours". Stop thinking they're "yours" like they're fucking furnitures.

Your role is to give them support, love, critical thinking and the basic necessities (food, roof, etc). Not trying to shape them until you broke them.

You broke me. You abused me, physically, emotionally. I will never forgive you. Now that you lost me I hope you will live in shame for the rest of your life.

Your post reminded me of Seraphobe's video titled "Children are Not Human Beings."

 

[Kasumi]

Well, seeing that u still want more answers on this, here's what I've got to say.

My therapist recently told me about how hard it can be to help children that come to therapy, cause who she actually would need to help are the parents.
Parents come in and be like "there's something wrong with my child, please fix them", while usually it's them that are causing the problems.
Children are 100% dependant of their parents, and if a child has psychological problems they are usually not their own fault, but a fault of their environment, which to a big part includes their family.

Personally I'd say try to look at your children like they're an adult, not a child. They're their own person with their own thoughts, needs and problems which should be respected.
Children aren't things, and they aren't "just children". They might even know things you don't or be better at things than you are, don't belittle them just for being "children".

I think the biggest flaw with not just my parents but my entire family is that they're incredibly selfish and refuse to even consider any opinion that's not their own. It's impossible to discuss with them, and because of their attitude it's also impossible to trust them, since they don't see you as another person, they only see themselves.

Though I would've been happy if they had just did their goddamn job and teached me the things parents are supposed to teach their children, even while not giving a damn about anything else, the things about life school doesn't teach you, really that would've been enough that I could've just helped myself.
Cause yes, now I can use the internet to learn about anything my parents missed ot teach me, but there was a point when I didn't even know enough to know what I needed to learn.

I know that the only person that will help us are we ourselves, but it's goddamn hard when you don't even know how to help yourself or can't even tell what's wrong because no one teached you a thing.
Even when I was 18 I didn't go to doctors cause I didn't know what I was supposed to do / tell them.
I mean those things, teach them how to go to the doctor, how to find out what doctor you need.
Teaching someone that they only go to psychiatrist when they're "not normal" or "crazy" doesn't exactly help them find help when they need it.

 

[HighFlight]

Well, seeing that u still want more answers on this, here's what I've got to say.

Thank you for your thoughts on the subject. And thank you to all who have contributed so far.

For my own children, you're correct and they're adults now, and absolutely know things and can do things I can't do. But I'm not completely obsolete. My role has shifted from taking care of them, to supporting them as they learn to fly on their own.

However, I will continue to seek other's thoughts, not just for myself but also for other current and future parents. If the information in this thread can help someone else, then it was well worth the effort.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

There's nothing that I can realistically ask them to do that they'll listen to. Of course they'll go against the idea of me getting aborted because of their religious and pro life views. Alternatively, I'd ask them for the same thing that post #2 here said though I'd probably specify to let me learn more life skills in the process.
Nonetheless, it's too late

 

[oblivion_handmade]

Be in a postilion to raise a child. Financially, emotionally, etc. Don't just get pregnant and think your good intentions are sufficient. It helps if you actually have something going for you in your own life first.

 

[silent.desperation]

Don't answer the door, it's the Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Asking them to do anything to prevent me from being born would be pointless since I was very well-planned and very appreciated simply because I was the firstborn and a son in an Asian family.

I would hope maybe I could ask them not to have their second child so soon after me though, because my sister ended up being severely autistic and otherwise mentally disabled and that's just caused so much misery for me in my adult life where I had to waste so much time taking care of her. Even though my mom is trying to pick up the slack now that I have another job, it's not enough.

I would hope that even though my first younger sister is never born, my other younger sister who was born three years after me turned out to be very normal and I'm very close with her so I really hope she stays in this new timeline where our middle sibling doesn't exist.

Either that or I'd simply wish my parents would have just taught me at some point how to actually talk to girls and with better advice than just "get a masters degree and they'll come to you without you needing to do anything else on your part". Yes that's actually what both my parents have said to me.

 

[cryvinglightning]

their whole divorce. goddamnit, never seen a messier break-up than theirs.

 

[Blue Elephant]

Well, seeing that u still want more answers on this, here's what I've got to say.

My therapist recently told me about how hard it can be to help children that come to therapy, cause who she actually would need to help are the parents.
Parents come in and be like "there's something wrong with my child, please fix them", while usually it's them that are causing the problems.
Children are 100% dependant of their parents, and if a child has psychological problems they are usually not their own fault, but a fault of their environment, which to a big part includes their family.

Personally I'd say try to look at your children like they're an adult, not a child. They're their own person with their own thoughts, needs and problems which should be respected.
Children aren't things, and they aren't "just children". They might even know things you don't or be better at things than you are, don't belittle them just for being "children".

I think the biggest flaw with not just my parents but my entire family is that they're incredibly selfish and refuse to even consider any opinion that's not their own. It's impossible to discuss with them, and because of their attitude it's also impossible to trust them, since they don't see you as another person, they only see themselves.

Though I would've been happy if they had just did their goddamn job and teached me the things parents are supposed to teach their children, even while not giving a damn about anything else, the things about life school doesn't teach you, really that would've been enough that I could've just helped myself.
Cause yes, now I can use the internet to learn about anything my parents missed ot teach me, but there was a point when I didn't even know enough to know what I needed to learn.

I know that the only person that will help us are we ourselves, but it's goddamn hard when you don't even know how to help yourself or can't even tell what's wrong because no one teached you a thing.
Even when I was 18 I didn't go to doctors cause I didn't know what I was supposed to do / tell them.
I mean those things, teach them how to go to the doctor, how to find out what doctor you need.
Teaching someone that they only go to psychiatrist when they're "not normal" or "crazy" doesn't exactly help them find help when they need it.

Hmm.. your therapist is correct. I didn't think about this. But now that I do..

I think that life is about knowledge and potential. Children have potential, they are curious and willing to learn, they ask questions like "why?" or "how?", this is their nature, this is who they are.

But this curiosity, asking questions, this would be detrimental for the system. The system needs humans to be obedient and docile and to do so it needs to kill the curiosity, it needs to kill the child. They do this by transforming them .. wait for it! .. into an Adult! Adults think they know it all (or that they're suppose to know it all) (because that's what the system told them that being an "adult" is) and they act like it, and in thinking so they lose the curiosity, and the potential. They stop asking questions because they either really think they know it all, or because they tell themselves that certain knowledge is useless or because they are simply ashamed that they might look dumb in front of other others and so they stay dumb or become dumber and dumber with each moment and generation. Esentially, adults are failed humans.

Children do need guidance (they need at least one person who should be there for them in the preliminary stages of their life) and this is how the system exploits them, through their parents. Parents force their children into certain ways of life. It's all fine when the kid is dumb but no so much when they have intelligence (and willingness to fight) because that's when they realize that something is wrong, something is evil, sick, corrupted .. and then they fight it! It's instinctual, to fight the rot! But since the system controls everything, it's literally you against the world, and because of so much pressure, at some point, you break.

And then they take you to see the psychologist to be "fixed" (read: pacified, broken in).

--

And if you don't do what they say, if you don't think what they tell to think then you suffer, they make you suffer, your parents will make you suffer, your friends will make you suffer, society will make you suffer.

And then you decide (that enough is enough) to kill yourself.

So the questions is: who actually killed you?