Profanity

Getting mad at me for saying "bad" words. Getting mad at me for swearing I can understand, but my dad once flipped out on me because he thought I said "penis." (I said pianist) But even if I had said penis, getting angry with a child for using the correct anatomical term for the male reproductive organ is f**king ridiculous.

-pmme_your_lbits

Perfection

They were pushing me to be "perfect". By "perfection" they meant the girl that:

never raises her voice, always does as she is told to, (is everyone's pushover)

has the best grades at school but never gets higher education or a job and goes straight to becoming a stay-at-home mom, (is smart but not feminist)

doesn't wear make up, doesn't go out with friends, (only women that don't care about their family do these)

spends all her life with her family as close as possible. (has social skills but only limited to relatives)

-DirladaDiraladada

Praise

My parents made a lot of mistakes but I think the one that really fits here is praising me for being really smart. As long as I could show that I was smart, I got praised.

Working hard didn't matter. Barely working at all didn't matter.

Once I got older and actually started to struggle with a few things, it was like someone took a hammer to a bottle inside me labeled "self worth."

My identity was based around being smart and just instantly understanding everything.

When that went wrong, I struggled. Working to understand something was an entirely foreign concept to me and just wasn't something I found myself capable of doing.

If I couldn't instantly get or do something, I dropped it. I also felt like crud.

I learned it was easier to just not try because trying and failing hurt a lot while not trying and failing didn't. I also managed to succeed in most things with barely any effort.

I dunno. It's stupid and hard to explain. Sorry.

-namenamesname

Forgetting

On my 4-year birthday, my parents decided to baptize my brother. They had a big party with everyone from my family and stuff, and no one wished me a happy birthday.

I know they didn't think about it at all, but it's something I remember very clearly, I cried myself to sleep that night...

-ketchupisasmoothie

Sheltered

Holy crap was I sheltered. I was super sheltered to the point where when I got to the "real world", I had no idea what to do.

Hell, I'm 28 & STILL don't know anything.

I never got to hang with friends thus affecting my social skills, my mom would constantly degrade me if I couldn't figure out a problem even she couldn't do (for example, one of her favorite insults was "C'mon Chad, we're not re-inventing the wheel!" & yes, I am a Chad I might as well say.

Everything that we would do, always had to revolve around what my mom liked. It makes me feel like my hobbies are garbage & aren't worth the light of day.

She constantly interrupts me when speaking just to talk to someone else, which makes my words feel like they're worthless, like something that holds no value.

It's made me feel......empty & to be honest, I hate talking about my feelings because I feel like I don't know how to describe them without sounding like an emo 16 year old.

-TheNekoMatta

Clean Plates

The clean plate rule and super strict diet. Now finish everything on my plate with compulsive relentlessness and have a really hard time moderating snacks.

A neighbor once felt so sorry for me that she gave me a small bag of chips for my birthday. I hid under my bed and ate them.

This does not lead to a healthy relationship with food.

-streamstroller

No Explanation

Never explaining their decisions and reasoning. "I'm the mom, that's why."

Never apologizing when they made mistakes.

Showing love with material things.

Teaching me to be so polite that I couldn't say no to anything or stand up for myself.

-egirl25

This. My mom's favorite was "because I'm the parent and you're the child". I swear I heard it at least once a day.

All it did was make me rebel more/ probably do more dangerous things than I normally would've because I thought she was saying no just to be mean instead of explaining that certain actions could hurt me.

-kvrnbrch

Unconstructive Criticism

Telling me I was a good writer, then when I asked her to read things I wrote, being told "that has plot holes big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through". No further detail, no help, no identification of what exactly the hole was.

Fifth grade writing contest, I had been writing ongoing stories in a world I had created. Was gonna write up a new bit or recycle an old one in that world.

Mom decided she'd write her own story in my world with my characters and make me turn that in. I didn't make it past the first round.

Gave her a story I wrote later on for her to look over. She gave it back, having rewritten it.

All my complex sentences were reduced to subject verb object. The flow was gone, the tone was gone, just choppy words left.

I hate everything I write now, but everybody tells me to keep doing it because I'm "good" at it.

-DraconicArcher

My grandparents had the philosophy that if one kid misbehaved, all the kids got the same punishment.

My mom has stories of coming home from some after school activity, having done absolutely nothing wrong, and getting spanked the minute she walked in the door, then sent to bed without dinner because her brother had done something that was completely unrelated to her.

How screwed up is that?

At best, it pits your children against each other and causes them to act out toward one another to avoid being punished.

Is that really what you want as a parent? A seven year old beating on his five year old brother to avoid having his own ass beaten?

-830_L

Expectations

Constantly upping the bar if I made B's then A's became the minimum. I watched my siblings once, oh then I got to watch them every week.

Nothing was ever good enough. I workout oh well your doing it wrong (I hated running).

I try to pray and be active in my faith, I'm "too into it." (Really wasn't they just didn't like anything that told them no).

All of this was to supposedly push me to achieve more and be stronger and instead I just gave up on trying because what's the point if getting B's which was really hard with my ADD wasn't good enough why bother trying for A's.

-gsp1991dog

My internal monologue: "why bother doing the best for a lot of effort, when I can do decently with a lot less effort, and get yelled at the exact same no matter the result?"

-just_a_random_dood

Bottle It Up

Sometimes a kid just needs to be upset and have a parent listen and sympathize/empathize instead of approaching feeling negative emotions like a problem that needs to be fixed.

My brother and I were never allowed to be upset or angry or sad without being just hounded to death about needing to just let things go and think positively.

-CamembertlyLegal

Superficial

I was one of those "model gorgeous" kids and my parents basically made my worth about my looks.

I now have an eating disorder and really low self esteem because I was taught my accomplishments didn't matter as long as I looked pretty.

-ThornyThong

As we grow older we tend to realize that parents we thought had all the answers were just figuring out as they went.

There are some things we can give a pass... but some we will have to discuss in therapy for years.

Maybe even group therapy.