The older you get the more you realize that parents are just grown 'kids' who decided to have kids and are figuring it out as they go. If we look at it that way, it's easier to accept that the adults we've looked up to all our lives aren't perfect and will make mistakes. I guess then, it's our job as their children to give them a break.
For more stories, you can find the original thread at the end of the article.
‘My Mother Fought Me Over Pictionary’
“When I was 19 and home from college for winter break my mom wanted us to play Pictionary. I hate Pictionary, so I said ‘No, thanks. I’m good’. She begged to say ‘Oh, come on, it will be fun’.
Eventually, I said, ‘Ok, fine’. Fast forward 45 minutes and my mom’s team is just about to win. They got every ‘drawing’ correct and my team is still at the start. It was my turn to draw, I think ‘screw this game’ and just write the word on the paper. My brother and sister kinda laugh and my mom was furious.
She was exploding, yelling ‘If I didn’t want to play I should have told her (although I did) and I ruined game night’. She demanded my phone, computer, Xbox, T.V, car keys. She said I lost all those things for the entire winter break.
Without saying a word I get up and start packing my car. My mom asked what I was doing and I say ‘going to live with dad. I’m 19 and have no obligation to live with you. If you’re going to fly off the handle over a board game, I’m out’. And I just left and went to live with dad (he was cool with my choice).
A few months later my mom told me, out of the blue, ‘I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around you. Remember the Pictionary incident when you spontaneously ran away in a storm of rage?’
Ya, I remember the incident, but I don’t think you remember it at all.’
‘My Father Maxed Out My Credit Card’
“When my dad asked to use my full $1000 credit limit of my brand new credit card with a promise to pay me back.
He didn’t.
He said, ‘just pay it off over time, that’ll help me build credit.’
Needless to say, that failed miserably and I never respected his advice ever again.”
‘My Parents Use Me As Ammunition To Hurt Each Other’
“My parents are divorced but have some weird emotional affair going on where they yell at each other on the phone every night but then end the call by using the pet names they had for each other. My mom is remarried, and she hides the calls from her husband. That’s one thing.
Then there’s this weird power struggle where they get upset if the other finds something out first. They are constantly taking meaningless bits of information from conversations with me and running to share with the other. I told my dad during a casual conversation that I was thinking about moving, just kind of entertaining the thought, and that evening I had an angry text from my mom saying. ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE MOVING? WHY DID YOUR DAD HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO TELL ME?’ I don’t feel comfortable talking to my parents anymore. I’ve lost respect for them because when they talk to me, it’s at least partially to find ammunition to hurt the other parent with.”
‘My Parents Don’t Respect Me’
“Where do I even start? I caught on pretty quickly when I was young, how full of it my parents were. I was grounded for a couple weeks at 5-years-old when I called my mom out for talking trash on a neighbors behavior and told her she was the same.
My Mom has pretty severe addiction issues, only when she gets in deep water does she attempt to fix it, only to turn around and find a new addiction. Luckily, none have been narcotics but she was a severe alcoholic when I was really young. She replaced that with her gambling addiction which led to her openly boasting at home of how much money she was stealing from her job to help fuel it. That ended when a neighbor tipped off social services to the fact that I was always home alone and our house was visibly falling apart. I was taken to foster care at 11, my parents were actually featured on the news that night due to the state of our living conditions. The city condemned the house and forced her into gamblers anonymous and parenting classes.
I don’t want to run on forever but basically, they didn’t have much respect from me most of my life. Don’t get me wrong, there are good things about them and I’m still in contact but I have boundaries and I demand they respect them.”
‘My Parents are Trump Supporters’
“My parents love Trump, and whenever I ask them why they parrot whatever talking points Fox news has been airing recently.
They don’t seem to think for themselves anymore. When they talk from their hearts, they seem normal. For example, based on observation and personal experience, my dad acknowledges that black people and women are treated differently than white men in the U.S. But bring up Black Lives Matter and all of a sudden all black people want special treatment and think they’re superior to everyone else.
During the primaries, my mom pleaded with me to not vote for Trump, but now he can do no wrong.
I mean, I don’t immediately believe every bad thing written about Trump in the news – but there sure is an awful lot of real stuff to despise him for. My parents have no idea about his faux university, that he’s making money off his presidency, about his faux foundation, loans from Russia, etc. And if I bring any of it up, they say ‘what about Hillary’s foundation?’ I reply, what about it – it’s a highly rated charity that gives half the world’s AIDS patients free medication. I know people who’ve worked with the Clinton Foundation and have come to learn it’s highly regarded. And yeah, the foundation has made mistakes – they probably shouldn’t have accepted up to $25 million from a Saudi prince decades ago for the stated purpose of building a presidential library, but crap – that’s nothing compared to the myriad ways in which Trump is defiling our institutions, failing to take responsibility for any errors, and fomenting nationalistic authoritarianism.
Last night – I asked my mom what she likes about Trump. She replied ‘I like that the stock market is way up.’
Mom, why do you care about the stock market? You have hardly any money in it. You should be concerned about the solvency of the government – since all of your money – your pensions and your social security come from the U.S federal government.
Add on that – they regularly punch down – blaming people who are lower in society – blaming them for all of society’s ills. They won’t consider the people with real power above them, who create the news they watch, and who buy the politicians they love.
My dad forwarded a video about whiny snowflake millennials that he thought was hilarious. To me – it was gross. It made me sad because my dad is rooting for the bullies and picking on the young.
For the record – in my opinion, the privately funded two party system is disastrous. I’m neither democrat or republican. I’m critical of both major parties, and I’m an unaffiliated voter.
To sum up, it’s hard for me to scare up even a shred of respect for my parents anymore. My main tactic is to remember who they once were. They were once respectable. I just hold on to those memories. Because I still love them but they make it really hard sometimes.”
‘My Parents Are Hoarders’
“The fact that they are not willing to tidy their house up and would rather have a messy house than see the grandchildren.
They have always been hoarders but it got much worse after we kids moved out, I moved quite a long way away and used to go back for the odd weekend but would end up crashing at mates places. Since I’ve got a family that’s no longer possible and while we could stay in a hotel it’s not the point. They still come for the odd visit but are getting older and soon it will get to a point where they won’t be able to visit at all.
Last time I was back, there was a narrow path through the house and that was over 7 years ago. They keep making excuses for why it hasn’t happened but I suspect there is just so much crap lying around that they are overwhelmed and would rather let it continue building than do anything about it.
I’m really dreading when they pass away and we will have to sort it all out.”
‘My Mother Lied To An Elderly Lady’
“This happened just a couple days ago.
I go to my mom’s house in the country and listen to her talk about a now very skinny Great Dane momma dog that had apparently been dropped off on her road (no sign of the puppies.) This dog has been seen hanging out on the side of the road in various spots for several days.
My mom says she went to her neighbor’s house to ask her if she could keep the dog in her fenced-in backyard until she could get in touch with the humane society. The neighbor said, ‘No. I’m not going to get involved.’ My mother was pretty disgusted and I could see her gearing up to go on a full rant about her 80-year-old neighbor who is so disabled, she can’t even stand up straight.
So I interrupt and say, ‘Mom. Do you not have a fenced-in backyard yourself? Why don’t you put the dog in YOUR yard?”
“I CAN’T PUT A DOG BACK THERE! I HAVE A DOG! I HAVE MY CATS!”
(Her animals are kept in the house. Just saying.)
Anyways, I left soon after and looked for the dog, but did not see her anywhere.”
‘My Parent Wanted To Take From My Charity’
‘I do charity work, collecting video game consoles and games, then cleaning them, wiping hard drives etc, then redistributing them to hospitals.
My parent expected me to give them a console to use as a DVD player because ‘well mine broke so it makes sense they pay you with it’.
So it was the work I was doing, from a donation somebody had given, to benefit them. At no point were they contributing to the process, but fully expected to benefit from it and went into a three-day sulk that I refused and sent the console out to a hospital.
I was very disappointed by that.”
‘I Just Wanted My Chips’
“My dad once told me that if I raked the leafs off the backyard, he’d buy me some chips. So I did, but he was at work so I waited until the next day to cash in on my chips. When I asked he told me that I did that yesterday, a different day, and that I needed to rake them again today if I wanted the chips. I went to my mom crying because of chips and I felt cheated, and my dad was legitimately confused when my mom sided with me.”
‘My Mom Guilt Trips My Brother For Moving Away’
“My brother got an amazing job offer out of state. He was looking at 6 figures and finally getting a chance to just fly and be free to figure himself out and find who he was.
My mom threw a huge fit. She said a lot of heartless stuff to try and get him to stay. She’s gotten over it but 3 years later she still sends him guilt tripping texts.
Although, the kid is making bank, has an amazing career and has flourished. He’s no longer depressed and is the happiest I have ever seen him.”
‘My Parents Lied To Me’
“My parents both drink and smoke. I’ve always known about the former, and don’t really care if people do either, but I abstain from both. Anyway, my parents hid their smoking habit from my brothers and myself. Originally they made excuses that it was their friends who smoked and left smoke butts everywhere (also I don’t like how they leave smoke butts everywhere).
Eventually, they just pretended like there weren’t dozens upon dozens of smoke butts in our driveway, and I looked the other way whenever they asked me to look in the car consoles for something and I stumbled upon a pack of smokes.
I guess at one point I was kind of upset at this ‘dirty secret’ they kept from us and confronted them about it. And, they lied to me. This devastated me. I never had the best relationship with my parents but I always considered us to have an honest one. I never snuck out or lied to them. Whenever I broke a rule I admitted it to them. I wasn’t a perfect kid, because obviously, but I was an honest one. I thought that integrity went both ways. Finding out it didn’t still bother me to this day.”
‘My Father Blew Up On A Stranger’
“I love my father greatly and still respect him a lot. However, about a year or two ago, he blew up with anger at a woman taking our drive-thru order because they were out of something (I cannot recall what exactly). It was like watching a full grown man throw a temper tantrum, and I have never seen him do that before or since. It was so bizarre and out of character for him as he is normally pretty quiet and friendly with strangers.
I think it I just general old age-ness but stil unaccptable.”
‘My Father Throws Tantrums’
“I lost respect for my dad because he has a habit of getting angry and yelling at people for no reason. He would mostly yell at my mom and call her useless because she didn’t work. He’s a big part of why I have an anxiety disorder and can’t stand people yelling at me. He also use to throw tantrums when he felt like he is was not being appreciated enough. I love him very much but he’s a pain to live with even at an old age.”
‘My Mother Lied About My Father’
“My mom lied about who my dad was. The fact that she didn’t plan on me finding out, or think that far ahead into her lie makes me have a certain feeling towards her. Even now if I’m going to lie I make sure I won’t get the rug pulled out from under me. This really keeps me from lying. I found out who my dad was in a cliché moment when my older sister got mad and said, ‘he isn’t your dad anyway.’
Needless to say, now I have my own baby and her dad had three other girls before my girl. My mom wanted me to tell her she didn’t have any siblings. And I was like ‘you didn’t learn a DANG THING’.”
“My Parents Lack Showing Affection’
“A mixture of stuff that took a long time to join together and make me just give up on them. Lack of normal parent-child affection, because emotions weren’t to be acknowledged. Homophobia, racism, sexism – the whole works and not in an overt way…just casual day to say nastiness. They did a lot of down talking and the final straw was a recent attempted grown-up conversation about eco-energy and my point of view was actually met with fingers in ears and ‘la la la la I’m not listening.’
At that point, I realized it’ll be easier just to steer clear of issues that may cause issues between us. Strangely enough that realization that I’d didn’t respect my parents lifted a great weight off my shoulders. It’s sad, but hey such is life.”
‘My Mother Didn’t Like That I Spent Time With My Father’
“When, days after my paternal grandfather’s funeral, my mother called me in tears because I hadn’t paid enough attention to her at the ceremony. Sh complained because I had chosen to sit with my father and step mother (who had given him hospice care within their home and taken care of him for the last year before he died, not to mention the fact that he was my FATHER’S FATHER) instead of with her.”
Learned It The Hard Way
“My dad needed help with a $5000 down payment for buying my mom a car so he asked me to pay the $5000 and he would pay me back. When I asked when he got defensive and said he would. It’s been over 2 years and I haven’t seen that money again. I learned the lesson the hard way not to lend family members money if you expect to see it back.”
That’ll Definitely Change Your Opinion Of Her…
When my mom cheated on my dad with at least 2 other men.
Then during the divorce, her and her lawyer kept dragging it out until my brother’s and my college fund were depleted. It hurt our family a lot, and we’ve ever really recovered from the pain and hurt of that sad, sad truth.
I think a lot of people go through a period where they look at their parents in a different light, and it can hurt.
Points are edited for clarity.