When we witness bad behavior from a person regardless of their age, some of us tend to blame it on poor parenting.
Whether it's a spoiled child causing a scene in public in response to not getting what they want or a grown adult acting out in a way that is cringeworthy, the indication of them lacking any sort of discipline in their lives can be obvious.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor sovereinete asked:
"What’s a sign that somebody wasn’t raised right?"
Not everyone can interact with others like mature adults.
Shifting Blame
"lack of personal accountability. they can never admit wrongdoing on their part. it's always someone else's fault."
– DFloydd
Learned Behavior
"Yes totally. And it’s often because immature parents don’t realize they should model this behavior by apologizing to their children when they (parent) do something wrong. When you don’t respect your kids they can become disrespectful d*cks."
– anon
With Intent
"Someone that does things to intentionally hurt another persons feelings after they’ve expressed that, that certain thing hurts their feelings."
– JadeM05
Perceiving Employees
"Disrespecting people for doing their job."
– indinicove
Some people are g.r.o.s.s.
The Thanks They Get
"You give them a lift and they leave rubbish in your car."
– kitjen
Chewed Gum Belongs Elsewhere
"Who are the guys who spit out their chewing gum into urinals? I see this all the time at work and I work in a high end corporate place. Do they think it disolves and goes down the pipe? The janitor has to pick that out."
– NealR2000
ExcreMental
"I had a guy sh*t on the floor in the bathroom at my work then apologize because I was working the shift not my coworker he hated. People are f'king weird dude."
It's The Right Thing To Do
"The concept of not flushing in a public place is crazy to me. Like... what happened in that person's life for them to feel that's appropriate?!"
– TheRealRoguePotato
Art Of Discipline
"How they act as a boss when their employee messes up."
"Yelling and belittling shouldn’t be your first option."
– EpicBlinkstrike187
Semantics
"This is how you be a leader, not a boss. A leader lends a helping hand and treats you like an equal, a boss treats you like a replaceable piece of meat."
– VividOperation48
A Good Example
"This was what made me respect the absolute hell out of my manager. I made a mistake on a job a while back, like a big f'kup that cost us a large sum of money. I was fully expecting to get chewed out and a 'You f'k up again, you're out the door,' because that's how previous managers had treated us (it's no wonder we had a horrific management and employee turnover rate for years)."
"But no, he came over to the car I was working on, looked at what happened, figured out how the mistake was made, and we talked about it for a couple minutes. I was pretty upset about it because I'm usually not the type of tech who is negligent and makes mistakes, so when I do, it profoundly bothers me. He saw that. He listened to what I said, and he went through the process of getting replacement parts ordered for what I messed up."
"The next morning he came to me again and said 'You know, I was thinking about you last night after I got home and thinking of what you could do to prevent this mistake from happening again in the future,' gave me a few suggestions for the future, and closed the conversation with a pat on the shoulder and a 'we won't need to have this conversation again, brother. I trust you.'"
"It was the most meaningful conversation I have ever had with a manager. I got the sense that he really wants to see his employees succeed and grow. It gave me confidence in a moment in which I had none left."
– AidynValo
Can we blame parents entirely for their children's disrespectful behavior?
I know of some exceptional parents who do the best they could without coddling or becoming too controlling, and yet, their kids remain out of control.
It's a delicate balance, disciplining a child without it being perceived publicly as abuse and consequently getting child protective services involved.
I've gotten the belt, slapped, and grounded frequently for being rotten. Those forms of punishment, I feel, might not fly as well today than they did back then.
I'd like to think I turned out all right, but it's difficult to say if it was because of such strict parenting.
But it can't be denied that, in spite of it all, there's only so much parents can do when they're raising an inherently bad seed.
You know they exist.
Right, Damien?
Image by my best in collections - see and press 👍🔖 from Pixabay |
Oftentimes when we make mistakes as a kid, it’s because we truly do not know better in that situation. Everything is a learning experience, whether we ask for it or not. But as an adult, there are some things we think about in our childhoods that make us cringe.
The mistakes we make as a child can be regrettable. Tiny222 asked:
What is the worst thing you did as a kid, and still feel guilty about?
It’s best to not beat yourself up about things you did in the past, but sometimes it’s hard not to.
Thank goodness he recovered.
“My friend and I discovered that a lighter and spray paint creates a flame thrower.
Anyway, I accidentally burned the side of my friend's face. He's recovered just fine but I'll never forget how loud my dad yelled at me when his mom came knocking on the door.”
She definitely knew.
season 3 hug GIF by Animal Kingdom on TNT Giphy“Stole a quartz rock from my grandmother. I had one very similar and was convinced it was mine and that I had left it there. She told me it wasn't mine, gave me a hug and a kiss. And, as a six year old, I just fixated that it was mine. And I'm 99% sure it wasn't. Nothing is ever 100% but yeah. My grandmother, who did nothing but love me and shower me with love, affection, and attention, did not deserve to get her knickknack stolen by me.
By the time I was a teenager, it totally ate me up. I never confessed and I wished I had. After she died, I had a dream where she came back to see me and the first thing I did was cry and apologize.”
I’m sure the pigeon forgives you.
“I once threw a rock at a pigeon. I didn't mean to hit him - I just wanted to see him fly off. He was pretty.
I hit the pigeon. I still feel bad about that.”
We don’t always understand as a kid.
“I have a mentally ill family member and as a kid I could never make sense of it or why my parents weren't doing more. It was difficult to deal with and I remember one day when I was like 7/8 years old I blamed my mom for it, raised my voice at her and everything.
Almost 15 years down the line I still feel very guilty about it. I don't remember exactly what I said but I can very clearly remember the look on my moms face.”
We all make mistakes when we’re young, and sometimes we think they are unforgivable.
Pickle head will be avenged.
pickle GIF Giphy“My siblings and I called the only other kid at our bus stop "pickle head" because he always wore a green beanie. We were relentless, too, and teased the f*ck out of him. One day he tried wearing a different beanie (red one) and we ramped things up calling him "tomato head".
It's been almost 2 decades and I still don't know what the poor kid's actual name was.”
This is heartbreaking.
“Wrote sh*t like ‘I hate you. You're the worst mummy ever and I hope you die. Have a terrible day’ etc. all over my birthday card to my mum because she said I couldn't go out to play on my bike before we went out for dinner. She died a month later from a sudden brain aneurysm.
8 year old me knew it wasn't my fault and I hadn't meant what I'd said in a temper but I felt bad for wishing it on her all the same and cursed the horrible timing. I feel sad that we never got the chance to talk about it as adults and laugh about it together.”
At least they learned their lesson.
“I shot a bird when I was 5. My mom forced me to watch it die. That had a lasting impression and I became a huge animal lover.”
“Reminds me of my cousin and I running around with a BB gun and we finally hit a bird and ran over excited to find it. It just suffocated slowly and we stood there bawling. Now he's killed humans so I guess it had a different effect on each of us.”
Luckily, usually when we mess up as a child, we almost immediately learn our lesson. Sometimes being an impressionable kid is a good thing.
At least it didn’t have money in it.
youtube kids GIF by Guava Juice Giphy“I stole from a friend of mine.
A while back Burger King had a line of toys with its meals and one of the "toys" was a wallet. I do not remember what the branding was, but I remember it being really really cool.
So one day I'm visiting a friend of mine and I see in his room that he has the wallet. I was insanely jealous so when he wasn't looking I took everything out of it, hid the contents around his room, and pocketed the wallet. I then spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing and at the end of the day left with my new prize.”
Poor Knight Rider.
“A poor large Irish family on my street gave one of their sons a black trans-am model car as his only present at Xmas. They told him it was from Knight Rider, his favourite show. It wasn't, but it was a cool model. Not a small one, but a decent sized effort with opening doors and the like. A good present basically.
We, although mainly me, then told him (on Xmas day) it wasn't Knight Rider. He was really young, like 7, while we were about 12. He got upset and insisted it was Knight Rider. We then told him to prove it. By throwing it, a lot, at the floor, wall etc. Knight Rider was bullet proof so it shouldn't get damaged...
In the end the model was scratched, dented, and doors and wheels were either hanging on by a thread or had fallen off. He was dead upset, and his family gave him hell. Always cringe and feel terrible for being a git at the time. I wasnt really a nasty kid but that was one time I deeply regretted being a bit of a sh*t just to get giggles from my friends.”
It’s kind of Lego’s fault, tbh.
'When I was 8 I studiously watched how my dad filled out checks. So, when the moment struck, I Stole a check from my parents check book, crossed off their names and wrote mine, wrote it out for 80 dollars to Lego, signed my name, and fired it off in the mail with a order form for a giant Lego semi complete with warthog fighter plane.
I forgot all about it until a few weeks later it actually showed up.
What's astounding is that they not only accepted this TOTALLY fraudulent check, but mailed the item off.
Of course my parents were furious. My mom found out when the bank called, laughing. So what did she do? She contacted the police and staged things, took me down there and scared the sh*t out of me. They talked to me about stuff like JV, theft. Then my mom took me to meet the bank manager and I learned about fraud and how it could put me in prison.
What's killer is that Lego customer service tried to laugh it off, but they refunded my mom obviously. But holy hell, the worst part was my dad and mom, for the next for months, to years, would frisk me in check out lines. It was pretty extreme but we'll, I'm no thief and I now work in the fraud department at a bank!"
If you’re like these people and have a memory from something you did as a child that makes you cringe, do your best to forgive yourself. Kids are dumb, and you were dumb too.
Luckily, as we grow up, we learn from our mistakes. That’s the beauty of becoming an adult.
The things children say can be adorable, and their parents often egg them on for further amusement.
But not everything they talk about conjures rainbows and unicorns and evokes feelings of pure joy.
But sometimes, our cherubic friends have the potential to say something completely unexpected that sends shivers down our spine.
Curious to hear of experiences from strangers, Redditor FiveDollar***jobs asked:
"[Serious] What is the creepiest thing a child has ever said to you?"
These kids had a staring problem. Maybe they were up to something as they dissected these Redditors' souls.
The Declaration
"I used to babysit this kid, who was overall very sweet, but when I would watch him overnight, he'd come into the room I was sleeping in and just stare at me, but he always listened when I told him to go back to bed."
"One time he asked me if I was asleep and when I said no, he said 'okay, I'll come back later' and left."
"I was scared at first, but then I remembered that he was 6 years old."
Demon Child
"When my sister was a kid, she used to sit up in the middle of the night and stare at me or the wall. I would wake up and she'd be staring in the dark. One night she was doing this and without turning to me she said 'I f'king see you' in a weird low voice and she laid back down and went to sleep."
Kid Vampire
"When my daughter was three, she told me to get out of bed or she'd peel my skin off with a knife."
"Also just before the pandemic hit, we were eating out and a man got up from another table to use the restroom. As he passed our table, she pointed at him and practically yelled 'hey mama, how much blood does that guy have?' He laughed nervously and walked a little faster."
"Both really threw me because she's typically a sweet kid- non-violent, gets concerned when people/animals are hurt, etc. and we monitor what she watches pretty diligently. She's five now, and hasn't said anything like that since."
How could kids possibly understand the concept of death? Maybe they know more than they let on.
God's Status
"Not directly at me, but I was there."
"Friend's 5 year old son. Sat playing happily with a toy, stopped dead, looked his father cold in the eye, asked 'why is God dead?' and then burst into tears."
Sixth Sense
"My daughter when she was like two, and not too long after my mother passed away, was fixated staring in the upper corner of our ceiling and we asked he what she was looking at and she said 'nana.'"
– kdubstep
Baby Survivor
"The little boy I babysit (5 years old) has told me that he died when he was a baby by falling off a cliff but his dad climbed down and saved him. It wouldn't normally be creepy if he hadn't told me this story on multiple separate occasions."
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
A Grave Prognosis
"My daughter told me that I wouldn't be alive for her high-school graduation, but that's okay because the blonde lady would be there with daddy. She also told me we lived in a wooden house in the snow with pheasants hanging from the roof and we all burnt to death. She was three. We live in Africa, she had never seen or heard of a pheasant. And when I asked her about it again later that night, she had no idea what I was talking about."
– JAMH2020
Something sinister may have been at play here.
Invisible Pursuer
"I worked at a summer camp and one kid had night terrors. In the dead of night he would scream dreadful things like 'Please just get the hell away from me!'"
– serioke
Creepy Kid Chant
"I was on a plane once and they had to power down. Still on the tarmac."
"When the emergency lights came on a kid started singing Ring Around the Rosey."
"I didn't even let them finish the first sentence and yelled, 'No, we've all seen this movie. Just no.'"
"There were a few uncomfortable laughs but the kid stopped."
The Nightly Visitor
"When I stayed at my sibling's place, my niece asked if she could sleep with me. Told her that she can sleep with her parents or brother, but she refuses."
"Me: Well, how come you don't want to sleep with your parents or older brother?"
"Niece: I don't want to sleep Aunty, because when I do I see the big scary monster in my room. You're the only one that it won't go near."
"Next day I asked my sibling about her sleeping problems, and they told me for the past several days my niece had been crying every night and won't remember ever crying in her sleep. She was afraid of sleeping in her bedroom (she shared with her brother) and her parent's bedroom because the scary monster was always following her."
Doll Murderer
"Years ago, a young girl that I was babysitting wanted to play baby dolls with me. She picked up doll and said, 'Let's play poison the baby.' I was shocked and told her that this was not a good game. She asked me why and I said, 'Because you can't feed poison to babies, it will make them very, very sick.' She paused for a moment, got up and started throwing her items around while laughing and giggling. Yes, I told her mother when she came home from work."
Gimme some skin takes on a whole other meaning here, and it might make your skin crawl.
Face Mask
"When my daughter was 3 she told me that when I died she would wear my face so she could always see my smile."
The Forever Suit
"I wish I could cut you open and wear you like a suit. Then you'd never leave me."
"Did not like hearing that."
Look, we know not everything kids say are not worth capturing on video and posting on social media, but it is jarring when the most innocent of faces have the potential to utter things like, "I f'king see you."
Yeah, sometimes, children should only be seen and not heard.
But only when they have murderous intentions.
We hope that when we all reach a certain age in life, we find that we've grown as people, and outgrown the behaviors displayed on the playground.
Alas, that is not always the case. Childhood antics can follow us all through decades. It's just a matter of how much and how dramatic.
We're all guilty of a few personality traits that are more adolescent than they should be, but if you're still sucking your thumb at 30... it's at least time for some form of adult pacifier.
Redditor u/Sentient-Sock wanted everyone to confess to behaviors they haven't outgrown by asking:
What "Childish" things do you still do now even as an adult?
I like to think that I'm an adult through and through. But every now and again I'm reminded that there are still a few traits I carry from when I was five. I love to throw a good tantrum when I don't get my way. But instead of tossing stuffed animals, I'm throwing pens or plates or knives. I'm a work in progress.
The Cracks
steppypants GIFGiphy"Try to not step on the tile lines when I'm walking on the street."
"No, it's "Step on a crack, break your mother's back", or that's how I've always heard it."
Rest Please
"I get angry if I don't get a nap."
"Now that I'm an adult, I realize my mom had a point about me being an a**hole if I didn't get enough sleep. She was absolutely right."
YUM!
Sorry Told You GIF by Janet JacksonGiphy"I still dance a bit in my seat when my food tastes good."
- trextine
That Game
"Pokémon."
"Do kids still care about Pokémon though? Everybody that I know who's into it is past mid-20s."
"Exactly. Real adults play Pokémon, fake ones play Call of Duty. He says, not playing Pokémon."
NEVER!!
Hillary Clinton Balloon GIF by Democratic National ConventionGiphy"The balloon must NEVER touch the ground."
I will never understand this Pokemon nonsense. I love balloons and I'll jig up anytime for food. But Pokemon? Y'all realize you're running into traffic for a fake cartoon? Yet another childish trait. Continue...
Hot Wheels
"I ride the back of shopping carts."
"I work in a supermarket and it's THE MOST amazing thing to do (only when there aren't colleagues or customers watching :D). I'll be like 'Oh yeah sure, I'll ride that cart with plastic and cardboard to the trash, no problem.' just to go wheeeeeee."
Aisle Clubbing
"Going down the kids aisle at the store and pressing all the toys that move or make sounds... Hehe!"
"My mother was an elementary school teacher. One day she saw a whole end cap of Sing and Snore Ernie's and activated them all, much to the amusement of her teenage kids. The next thing we hear is a shocked little kid's voice going "Mrs. _____?"
"Mom looked over, said hi to the kid, and then whispered to us to drop anything we had because we had to leave the store NOW. After we got to the car, she confessed that that afternoon she had to punish that same kid for constantly touching stuff that didn't belong to him."
Grabbers
"If it's dark and I'm alone, I still kind of hop into bed so the monsters don't grab my ankle. I'm 36."
"Same! I do this when I get in my car too, but I'm 27, and the monster is no longer the same kind of slimy, grotesque creature it was when I was 6. Now when I think about getting got by the monster in the dark, it plays out like a Criminal Minds episode intro."
The Scrap
Couch Potato Animation GIF by Alice SocalGiphy"I still have a kind of security blanket. It's basically just a scrap of a pillowcase now but I can't bring myself to get rid of it."
Any age beats...
"70 years old. Love playing two square with the little girl next door. We do about 30 minutes a day, sometimes longer. We bounce a basketball back and forth in the driveway. There is a line in the middle that divides us into two squares. Sometimes we toss it up or bounce it really high."
"Sometimes times we go low and speed it up. It is a joy to play with her. She's wild as the wind and makes me laugh so hard. Sometimes we will spin around and throw it behind our backs and never miss a beat."
There is nothing wrong with a security blanket. I should use mine more than my adult security, a bottle of vodka. That's a story for a different thread. And never stop running from the monsters.
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Hundreds of books on parenting are available for those seeking guidance and recognition for their efforts in successfully raising a child.
Yet, despite all the research available in helping a first-time parent – or even an experienced one – all parents slip up at one time or another before they becoming empty nesters.
But there are those slip-ups that end up having traumatic consequences a child will never forget long into adulthood.
Curious to hear about the residual effects of bad parenting, Redditor FernK21 asked:
"What was your parent's biggest mistake in raising you?"
Kids subjected to yelling and violence made for a traumatic upbringing.
The Unwilling Messenger
"The way they used to communicate through me because they wouldn't speak to each other after they seperated. when I had to deliver a message from one parent that the other one didn't like, I was the one who was yelled at, and both of them asked me to side with them instead of the other. there was no way to win, because I always either made mummy sad or daddy sad. good times."
Berating
"Violently screaming at me for bad grades or poor performance in sports."
"I think it had the opposite effect where I became afraid of making any mistakes, which would lead to more mistakes. Feel like if your kid is underperforming in any way, there's a way to talk to them without making them feel stupid for f'king up. There are better ways to motivate them."
The Silent And Complicit Mother
"My mom never stood up for herself or us, and let our father scream at us and take his anger out on us. She's still with him and won't apologize for letting him mistreat us."
Physical Abuse
"Spanking is up there at the top of the list. My parents weren't just spankers though, they would get physical objects and beat the living f'k out of us with it. My father almost always used his thick leather belt (a few times I caught the buckle and got cuts from it.) My mother preferred to use stuff like wooden spoons and those old vintage Tupperware spatulas and a soup ladle. She told us that she couldn't hit us hard enough with her hands to do any good. My brother and I got these beatings for every minor thing we did. Yelling too loudly while playing games, arguing, talking back, having a messy room, forgetting your homework at school, getting an F. It was the go-to punishment."
"A few years ago when my daughter was 2, she was having a tantrum over something or other while my mother was around and she started going on about how I needed to introduce spankings to control her and that if I didn't, my daughter would soon be walking all over me because she wasn't afraid of the consequences. My daughter is disabled by the way. My mother wanted me to beat my disabled child because she was upset about something. When I told her I didn't parent that way, she got really upset and started her bullsh*t 'OH I'm just the worst mother ever, you had it so bad, you were abused, cry me a river' and I had to tell her to leave my house."
Normazling Beatings
"beatings were totally normal for me. Being slapped in the face, on the head, one of my worst memories is the time my dad took that stuffed heating teddy bear (one of those you microwave that stay warm), and slapped me enough to rip off the leg, then made me clean up my room, since now the content of said teddy bear were thrown across the floor."
"The worst of all on that memory: he was angry because the vacuum cleaner in the hallway fell over, and they thought I did it. I was actually asleep."
Some parents seem to have a difficult time setting positive examples for their kids.
Neglecting Trauma
"They let their fear of dealing with their own trauma turn into causing and ignoring mine."
"So true. And due to that fear they pretended that they had dealt with their trauma which made it even harder to have any kind of meaningful conversations about it."
Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Self-Doubt
"Never admitting that they did something wrong. An example is that when I was in second grade my mom would literally yell and scold me because she thought that HAVE was spelled HAV, and that also confused me with the word HAD. Even though at school the teachers and everyone else spelled HAVE, when I got home she would scold me for spelling it correctly until I told her that that's how everyone else spelled it. She just looked at the paper and never said a word about it again."
"So now I always think that whatever I'm doing is wrong or if something did go wrong and was clearly out of my control I still get nervous."
Not Present
"Complete apathy."
"My parents basically never got involved in me or my siblings lives. Never attended things like school plays or parents evenings, never cared about how things were going or what was going on. So long as we didn't get into trouble and didn't cause them problems they didn't care and took no interest. 'Anything for peace and quiet' as my mother frequently said."
"As such, because they never tried to be a part of my life, they effectively aren't a part of my life anymore. We only speak out of obligation, and not very often at that."
– Nambot
Not Knowing How To Be Independent
"Never teaching me to be independent. My guardian was obsessed with keeping me way too close and I was always sheltered and now I'm alone and don't know how to function."
The Latchkey Kid
"My parents worked all the time so I understand why they did what they did, but I was left alone way too much as a kid. I think they thought I would pick up a lot of things by myself, and I sort of did, but there was a lot of other things that I think they could've personally taught or exposed me to (not having a car until I was in college, I was pretty limited on what I could really do by myself in my teens and I didn't want to keep calling in favors and stuff)."
Some parents were over-protective, while others were completely neglectful.
Living In A Bubble
"Wayyyyy too sheltered. I will definitely shelter my kids to an extent and raise them right but my parents took it to the extreme. I was only allowed to play with religious children and wasn't allowed to watch movies besides basically Disney movies until I was in High School. This led to a pretty rebellious phase when I was around 15 that I think could have been avoided if my parents weren't so strict."
Overly Protected
"Sheltering, trying to protect us from everything so once we got older we had to learn how to communicate and have relationships with people who already knew how to do all those things. Really messed my brother and I up mentally and I feel guilty for resenting my parents.."
– emetrn
Developing A Phobia
"My mom was always warning me to be careful whenever I'd pick up something sharp. Scissors, a knife, a razor, whatever. That's sensible, but she'd have this tone of voice that she was sure I would cut myself to the bone, every time. And she'd give those short sharp gasps whenever she actually saw me use something sharp. As a result I have a mild phobia of sharp things."
"Also, my parents did their best to steer me away from a career as any sort of artist, because not very many artists make enough to live on. Which is, again, true, but the way they said it kept me from learning how to draw, or from taking my music lessons seriously. I mean, if I'm not going to make a career of it, why bother? But now I want to draw or pain, and have no idea how, and who knows, maybe I'd have been one of the few that could make a living at it."
– Coygon
Poor Diet
"Taught me nothing about nutrition, let me eat junk, and made excuses for my obesity. Took me 10 years as an adult to finally take responsibility for myself and shed the weight."
– rawbface
Laziness
"Spoiling us and always doing the chores. We ended up being lazy mfers. I'm currently procrastinating writing this."
There is no doubt raising a child comes with a unique set of challenges, and even a well-reviewed self-help book can't offer a definitive method in overcoming those obstacles.
Extreme examples in this subReddit reflected a parent who was either woefully ignorant or constantly prone to anger.
But for the parent who has nothing but the best intentions for their child's well-being and aim to constantly try to do better, I tip my hat.