Venting People forget that parenting is more that just providing money food and shelter

[fatpigiee]

I hate that I can't really complain because I'm lucky to have a house and food.
I want to be selfish and talk about it.
My parents work all the time. Literally, they're at work 9 hours a day, both of them, and even at home they're always busy with work and calls or they're just really tired.
We're not even poor
It's always been like this my whole life and i wish things wasn't like this
As a parent, the first thing that should be important to you is raising your children and that does not mean to just randomly get mad when they do something wrong that they did a hundred times before but you didn't notice/care this is not parenting. Your reactions are unpredictable and based primarily on your own mood, you've only caused your children to fear you not to be better.
I hate that they always bring it up when they're upset with me: "I wasted my whole life for you to be happy." Who said I wanted you to waste your life for me? I'd rather go days without food and have you here(in the right mood), I don't want the money that kept you away all the time
I don't mean that im ungrateful, iam really grateful and very thankful for everything they did and do for me
But it makes me feel even worse
I don't want to be spoiled
I hate it so much
I hate being like this too
It was your job to raise me its so hard to correct myself suddenly
On their days off, they just explode with anger and become violent. Why? Because they want to "fix everything they left messed up." Like yeah you can't do that in one day. You just hurt me and made me hate and fear your presence.
In everything nice I'd like us to do together or just spend some time together, they are either busy or tired if not mad.
I can't have a conversation with them because they're tired of all the talk around them, or the conversation would be them ranting about me complaining about their job or about me Infront of me
I hate it when they say I'm spoiled now and that when I grow up and life will shock me with how bad everything is, because I know they're right. But its your job to prepare me for it?? They are very protective and they never let me leave the house. On top of that, I'm stuck at home because iam homeschooled. How am I supposed to learn about life at all?I just won't live till that time.

 

[aufrechtm7]

These feelings are justified…people end up intentionally and unintentionally turning their own suffering and other's into a competition when it isn't, and it's saddening.

rather go days without food and have you here(in the right mood), I don't want the money that kept you away all the time

I resonate with this so much to the point where I'll probably include something near identical in a note honestly. My ex girlfriend would often weaponize the success of my family during arguments against me, she didn't have a great upbringing and her family lives in assisted housing but her mom and step dad cared about her a lot and vocalized it often.

 

[DownwardSpiral]

You are absolutely correct. Many parents treat their kids like mini versions of themselves and spoil them with everything they wish they had as kids, meanwhile they ignore that their child is an actual independent person with unique emotional needs. My parents cared more about their "image" of being good parents than actually being good parents. They told me so many nice things, bought me nice things (that I never asked for), and paraded themselves around as great parents, but if I "talked back" or raised any kind of opposition to them (giving my opinion), they would lash out and threaten to take their love away from me, also labeling me as "ungrateful" or an otherwise bad child to other people which made me feel terrible and guilty and embarrassed. It's gaslighting, love bombing, and emotional manipulation, which is wrong to do to children obviously.

But you're right that it's confusing. Speaking up about my needs feels selfish. When I try to explain this to friends or therapists, they frame it like I am doing something wrong and not that I am a victim "you need to be more grateful, other people have it worse." I should be grateful, I am grateful for somethings, but also I am so angry. I was spoiled in many ways, but that left me unprepared to deal with real world struggles, and now when I make mistakes as an adult, they put all of the blame on me. They made me completely dependent on them. It's abuse. There is no other way to put it. But because they look like good parents from the outside, and they see themselves as doing nothing wrong, they will never change, never face any justice, and I have to do all the work to save myself.

There are a couple books that talk about "emotional neglect": Running on Empty by Jonice Webb, and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson. You can read them free online on Anna's Archive if you want. Also a podcast I listened to once on Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) by Back From the Borderline. They explain things much better than me. But I won't pretend these books solved my problems, I just feel more angry, and I feel just as helpless as I was before.

 

[SASU-KE]

You got to nurture every facet of your children's growth and development. That includes showering them with love and affection. Providing for them and giving them a good education.

If your children have special needs, be that either mental or physical then you should be able to help them with that as well.

Parents got to go above and beyond for their children and if they can't do that, they needn't have kids. Simple.