These Parenting Mistakes Had Enormous Consequences
Some would say that parenting is the hardest job in the world and after seeing our fair share of obnoxious kids throwing tantrums, we might have to agree.
The financial burden, the perpetual responsibilities, and the loss of me-time are just a few of the sacrifices that parents endure. Some may even call them heroes... but not all parents are equal, and these stories prove it.
1. Smother Mother
My mom quit having her own life the moment my brother and I were born. She was an incredibly devoted and loving mother and was very kind to us, but when we were born, she stopped having friends.
She didn’t work, and was home every single day from when I was born to when I moved out in my early 20s.
She was very easy to upset because she had no other source of self-esteem and any time I screwed up - and I screwed up a lot, it was as if I had levied a very personal attack against her.
In the last five years or so before I left, I don't think we had a single conversation that didn't drive her to tears, and I promise I wasn't that bad. I constantly felt cornered and stressed and fell into depression as a defense mechanism. She took my resulting lack of performance very personally, creating a very treacherous cycle that was only broken when I enlisted and finally got away. To this day I often feel like I'm a bad person who failed to live up to her love.
2. Being There
I remember my parents didn’t come to most of my chorus concerts. It really sucked to see my classmates’ families cheer them on, while my parents were absent.
I brought home one of my chorus program papers to show my parents, and I found it in the trash the next day... I was sad because I wanted to keep it, but seeing it in the trash, I didn’t want it anymore.
I love my parents and I don’t blame them for not showing up. They are small business owners and it was hard for them to find people who could work for them whenever I had concerts or anything. It still hurt though.
3. Who Started It?
I grew up with friends whose siblings would target the one with the bad temper, provoke them into a rage, then cry and play victim when they got slapped. But no matter how many times this happened, the parents would always blame the kid who lashed out, saying "I don't care who started it!" Look, I get it: A parent has to make it clear that violence isn’t okay, but neither is provoking someone into said violence.
It doesn’t matter that said person never hit or kicked while their sibling did- they never would have gotten hurt in the first place if they didn’t encourage the aggression to begin with.
Children are clever and will find loopholes in their parents’ rules. Parents need to be better and snuff out that kind of stuff when it starts. If they don’t, they’ll raise a manipulator and a scapegoat.
The parents stuck to that one stupid rule so intensely that the siblings' relationship was almost ruined for life.
4. Peace and Quiet
My parents always told me that they "didn't care about justice, they cared about peace and quiet" and "life isn't fair." So, I believed them. Since life wasn't fair and all they cared about was peace and quiet, I didn't tell them things or ask for help. I was afraid to yell for help when I was stuck on the porch for hours. They like to tell this as a funny story now, but it's awful for me because I just remember being stuck and in pain and yet too scared of my own parents to call for help.
There was no point in telling them things either. Like being touched inappropriately. And now as an adult my parents are all like, "Oh, but we just wanted you to be quiet, we didn't mean it." No, they did mean it.
That is exactly what they meant and that's exactly what they said. They wanted me to be quiet no matter what. Quiet. That was the only thing that was important to them.
