Things People Learned From Their Parents That They Didn't Realize Were F**ked Up Until Later In Life
It's always nice to think that parents are doing everything they can to raise their children, but as humans, they're all going to make mistakes.
But as many people will discover, their parents also taught them some terrible lessons when they were young.
Redditor timdood3 asked:
"What did your parents teach you as a kid that you didn't realize was actually f**ked up until you were older?"
What Is Self-Love?
"In an effort to teach me to be considerate, or not selfish, I guess, my dad said, 'Love yourself last' more than a few times to me. That’s a mess I’ve been untangling for about 35 years."
- Eauxddeaux
Guard Birds
"My mom told me that, on some buildings, there weren’t guard dogs but rather guard birds. These birds were trained to peck your eyes out if you trespassed. I believed this till I was 16 and have been afraid of birds ever since."
- GudatPickinUsernames
Desensitized
"My grandparents were morticians... I remember sitting on an embalming table, swinging my legs back and forth off the table, while watching my grandfather embalm someone and talk to me about what he was doing. I was seven."
"It's honestly a great memory and the many times I had with him like that taught me a lot about how to deal with death, how life is cherished, how different grief can be from person to person, and how to be emotionally strong for others."
"Good guy... Just was very desensitized to his work's more macabre parts."
"To add to this story, my grandparents were morticians for work, owning their own funeral home, but magicians as a hobby, frequently traveling with and training other magicians."
"When my grandfather passed away, we had a special service just for his magician friends. Some of the most famous magicians in the world showed up for the wand breaking, where my grandfather's wand was broken in two."
- Lord_Blackthorn
The Extensive Scapegoating
"For me, it was after they'd duped a child psychologist. I was in what? Second or third grade?"
"But I realized that they were so good at pretending to be the best people in the world that they could act as if I was the terrible one. They would always find a way to pass me as the monster instead of them."
"It didn't matter who I would have told."
- ThrownToDiscard
"As a former scapegoat child, I can tell you, unequivocally, that you were never the problem. They were the monsters."
- ResultJolly7112
The Truth Behind Child Protective Services
"My mom somehow convinced me that 'child protective services' were the bad guys."
"Finding out (well into adulthood) that they take children away from biological parents' care only as an extreme last resort was a bit of a shocker."
"It also makes me wonder just how much she was doing, that she knew was f**ked up, and I just didn't bother remembering because it had always been that way for me."
- DisposableTires
Don't Be a Burden
"Do not ever be a bother to anyone. Solve all your problems by yourself."
- Soobobaloula
"I feel this one. My parents paired it with 'always be accommodating to others.' Made it so I had very few boundaries and always tried to help others even when I didn't want to, but could never ask or accept help when offered. Not a great mix for the abusive relationships I faced as I got older."
- joyfall
"It really hit me when we were walking on a wide sidewalk. A group approached and my mom shoved me off onto the grass, even though the group had plenty of room. Your own kid gets body-checked so you don’t even have the appearance of slightly inconveniencing strangers."
- Soobobaloula
"My oldest kid asked me once, just out of curiosity, 'How come you always have to hop off the path when people are coming? But they never do?'"
"That hit me like a sack of bricks. That it was that noticeable for my kid to pick up. I never made him move, but I always do. Even now. Hard habit to break."
- ahalfdozen6
Intellectual Awareness
"They made me distrust my own intelligence. They talked down to me and treated me like an airhead, giving me a smirk every time I tried to be serious about anything."
"It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that I am intelligent and gained self-confidence despite the negative self-esteem they had instilled in me."
- Kelbel2525
Drinking and Driving
"My Dad told me he could drink beer in the car if he drank it while the car was stopped. It’s only drinking and driving if the car is in motion. I was like makes sense. I was around four."
- Diggler149
"My dad got me a job when I was 18, so I'd drive in with him. On the way home, he would beeline for the liquor store. He'd drink a half pint and two Budweisers on a 30-minute ride home, three to five times a week. I thought this was just what people did after work on the way home. Crazy."
- dolo_ran6er
Building Credit and Credit Debt
"I was told, 'Don’t get a credit card.'"
"No one ever told me there’s no interest if you pay on time."
"I could’ve built my credit earlier, but they just didn’t want me to spend money I didn’t have and fall into debt with interest."
"Student Loan Debt, however… yeah that was highly encouraged by every adult around me…"
- LetsJerkCircular
"My dad was 'teaching' me about credit cards and said you can just make the minimum payment every month. It blew my mind, and made it seem like free money. Thank god I didn’t take that advice. I pay my credit card off every month and he’s drowning in credit card debt."
- lilmrs-t
Grief is Unacceptable
"If you’re sad, that means the devil is inside you and you need to pray for forgiveness."
"I was six, and my cat had just died."
- AngstyRacc00n
Hold Grudges
"After arguing with a girlfriend and not speaking with her for a few days, BOTH my parents told me separately to hold onto my beef with her like a grudge and use it against her later."
"I've been married to the girlfriend now 25 years this year, never once took my parents' advice, and have NO IDEA how my parent's marriage survived, lol (laughing out loud)."
- mcbrian67
"I have a couple in my family like that. Any time I was at their house, without fail, they would be making passive-aggressive comments, sniping at each other, bringing up all sorts of past s**t, etc..."
"As a kid, I never looked forward to going to their place, because it was always incredibly awkward. Yet, they've been married for close to 50 years. It's like bitching at each other nonstop is their love language."
"My mom always said she was so happy the two of them found each other, if for nothing else than that it spared two other innocent people from having to put up with them."
- DisturbedNocturne
Exposure Therapy
"I always had anxiety as a child, and my mother said the only way to get over it is to deal with the situation head-on. Sounds great until I told her my fear of escalators and she pushed me down, and I fell and almost got my hair caught."
"Another thing she loved to teach me is how self-defense is necessary. Great! Where do I take lessons? There were no lessons.. she said being with my abusive ex was enough of a lesson. I should have learned then."
- throwrathebagelway
Debilitating Perfectionism
"My dad instilled crippling perfectionism in me, which I realized was insane when I got older and people told me to just 'do my best.'"
"When I was in grade school, I would come to my dad with A’s all super excited. But, if it was anything less than a 100%, he would ask for the missing percentage. So, when I had a 98%, he’d say, 'Well, where’s the 2%?' And now, if I do anything less than perfect, I beat myself up."
- Gremlin-o-Chaos
Make It Make Sense
"I was scolded for pouting, stomping my feet, and being sad. I ended up avoiding all of those when I grew up and became secretive about my emotions. Then, they would get mad at me for not opening up."
- sword_of_gibril
While we all like to think the best of our parents, many people have come to terms with the mistakes their parents made, including the false information they were given.
The problem with so much of this information is how hard it is to unlearn, and how deeply traumatizing it can be to discover we were traumatized.
People Share The Parenting Mistakes That Seem Harmless But Can Really Screw A Kid Up
Parenting is tough, and there is no such thing as a perfect parent.
Adults will always make honest mistakes when it comes to raising their children. Unfortunately, some of their misled beliefs about child raising can have lasting negative affects into their kid's adulthoods.
Redditor u/AlexDescendsIntoHell asked people to open up about how their parents unintentionally hurt them, by asking...
"What is a seemingly harmless parenting mistake that will mess up a child later in life?"
Not letting children be emotional
"Telling them to 'suck it up' because it give kids the thought that their feelings don't matter to anyone else and nobody will care for them if they tell people about their feelings. It gives children the thought that if they cry or even express their emotions, they're weak and nobody will care."
Parents acting like friends
"Being a friend instead of being a parent, or otherwise blurring those lines."
Pushing gender roles
"Being told that I couldn't have GI Joe's because 'I was a girl', or being referred to as a 'tomboy', because I didnt want to wear MAKEUP at the age of NINE... God forbid."
Ignoring a child's health issues
"I used to get routine stomach aches after bedtime, my parents thought I was crying wolf- I now have health anxiety and OCD issues stemmed from it"
Statements like these
"'Because I told you so.'"
"Saying anything to the effect of 'Do as I say, not as I do'"
Yelling at them for the little things
"Yelling at them for common mistakes. I once got yelled at off failing one class, and from that day on I would hide any sort of bad school grade. Yelling at your children only teaches them to hid mistakes, or stop making them."
Exaggerating how smart they are
"Saying 'You're so smart!' rather than 'You figured it out!' when they solve a problem or complete a task. Doing the latter praises the process of learning over their innate intelligence."
"Yup. Was told 'you're so smart! You're too smart for school' and I believed it until I painfully realized I am not as smart as the people around me made it seem."
"It really isn't good for kids."
Trying to control their futures
"Trying to engineer your child. Parent's are meant to guide their children. You don't get to decide who they are going to be."
Gossiping about your children
Giphy"Using your kids secrets as gossip matterial. My mom did this with my aunt, both behind my back and right in front of me. Literally giggling and laughing about it with my aunt in front of our families."
"Now she wonderes why i have issues trusting people and why i dont tell her very personal things or secrets anymore."
Forcing your opinion on them
"Not letting your children form their own opinions. It can absolutely hurt them mentally as you risk them going to a radical end of the political spectrum or end up turning psychotic in other instances."
Discouraging them from being curious.
"Discouraging them from asking questions. Yes it can be annoying to keep hearing "but why daddy/mummy?" but I've met far too many adults who admit they stopped asking questions because as a kid their parents would shut them up or be like "there he/she goes asking questions again." inquisitive minds need that fostered."
Telling them that cruelty is still love.
"Telling them that the family members who are mean to them or neglect them, love them."
"This is how it is in my house. My mother is the best mom i could have asked for but she refuses to see that my dad is mentally abusing and mocking all of his kids because he is always nice to her."
Lying about the fate of a pet.
"When I was four my parents adopted a kitten."
"Of course I had never seen anything quite so delightful before and I could barely keep my hands off the little fur ball."
"So about two or three days passed, I get up in the morning and walk out and ask "where is the kitten"? And my parents told me that he died - implying that my roughhousing had killed it. I was terrified to touch an animal for several years thereafter."
"In fact they had simply given the kitten back to the people they got it from."
Not giving them responsibilities.
Giphy"Not having them do chores."
"My parents pushed me to be academic - so doted on me hand and foot as a kid to make more room for study. When you're too young and stupid to know any better you think it's a blessing."
"When I moved out to uni I didn't really know how to clean, when to clean, what to clean with, how to wash clothes, how to get them dry etc. The only thing I could do is cook and binge drink."
Telling kids about "adult" problems.
"Getting them involved in problems they have no control over. My parents felt the need to keep me in the loop regarding our pending foreclosure and argue in front of me over which one was to blame when I was ten. What possible reason is there to share that with a kid? I barely slept for months. I was convinced the cops were gonna bust in at midnight and throw us all outside."
Children will remember how you made them feel.
"The belief that they won't remember because they're young. I remember."
"I don't quite remember all the words my mom said to me, or all the specific things she did to me when I was younger, but I remember how she made me feel. That doesn't go away."
Not respecting a child's personal space.
"Not stopping when your child says "stop." Whether it's teasing, or tickling, or wresting. Kids who have parents that don't respect their boundries always seem to end up being the biggest bullies because they've learned they don't have to respect other people's feelings."
Never saying "sorry" for your mistakes.
"Never telling your child that you were wrong and that you're sorry. Just never once occurred. My father never once said I'm sorry to me. He was human , there were plenty of times he should have. My kids have heard from me plenty."
Breaking a promise is like telling a lie.
"Not following through with your promises. If you told your child you were buying ice cream tomorrow in the hopes that they'd forget and the next day when they ask you tell them no they'll see you as unreliable. (Ice cream is just the first thing that came to my mind, I'm sure someone else can explain better what I'm trying to say here without sounding so ridiculous)"
"I taught my children at very young ages that outside of extreme circumstances failing to keep a promise made is the same as telling a lie."
Keeping a child from experiencing failures.
Giphy"Telling your kid they are always a winner. We love our kids and want them to feel special, but it's setting them up to be disappointed later in life when they find out not everyone can win. Let them feel the disappointments early on, and teach them it's ok. They'll grow up better able to handle the stresses of life."
Parenting is one of the most difficult jobs.
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Parenting is definitely not an easy task.
Parents are responsible for the wellbeing of a tiny human from the time they're born until they grow up and move out on their own.
They're bound to make a few mistakes along the way.
Some mistakes are definitely more hurtful than others, though.
Reddit user amklair asked:
"What are some of the worst parenting mistakes your 'well meaning parents' made while raising you?"
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!'
" And 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
Un-constructive 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
Punishments
"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
Abuse
"Always my dad:
"Forced us to SWALLOW a bottle of liquid soap when I said bad words."
"I thought this was what it meant to have your mouth washed out with soap until I was eighteen."
"Made us eat off dirty dishes when they weren't completely washed."
"Made us sit at the table till our plates were empty when we wouldn't eat."
"Sometimes we were there till past midnight or one in the morning."
"Told me that being bullied in school was just teasing and kids messing around, and that if it was bullying I obviously did something to start it."
"Threatened to kick my brother and I out of the house."
'When I told him about books I was writing he would criticize them to the point that they were no longer mine."
"Ignored the fact that my sister had a learning disability and refused to allow my mother to get her the help she needed."
"Yelled at me when I nearly broke my leg and had to have and x-ray, told me if my leg wasn't broken I was grounded because x-rays are expensive."
"When I had to get an echo-cardiogram because of a potential heart problem he told me I'd better hope I had one because of the cost."
"I could have been dying!"
"Refused to take my sister to a doctor after the treadmill fell on her, because 'she wasn't hurt that bad'."
"Her collar bone was broken."
"That's not all of it, but that's all I care to share so yeah."
"Not as bad as others, but it was traumatizing for me as a kid."- amfdiat
:Anyone else had their own wooden spoon with their name on it?"
"I can tell you, my mom spent a lot of money on wooden spoons because she broke so many on my butt."
"Now I got a butt of steal."- Hammertime400
"Being shamed, them being selfish, manipulated by both parents, things like that."
I"'ve been abused for years and my mom didn't figure it out until me and my sister moved out and into my dads."- oil_in_oil
Standards
"Maybe not so bad, but apparently only four year olds cry and teenagers aren't allowed to cry if they are panicking."- BiroAceDragon
Lack of Discipline
"My parents were both brought up by very strict parents."
"They didn't want my sister and I to feel so sheltered or restricted, so they, pretty much, let us do and get away with anything."
"We never had any real chores or schedules, and so we missed out on learning some critical skills."
"Things like time management, impulse control, procrastination, laziness are things I still struggle with to this day and I am 30."
"I also have a terribly hard time making decisions, even about simple sh*t."
"I have a deep fear of conflict and confrontation."
"My parents are amazing and I love them so much, but I wish they had been more demanding of us as kids."
"I would be a more successful adult if they had been."
"I have been working my ass off to fix these problems of mine."
"Getting a little better every day."
"Also am trying to do that with my 2 sons."
"I want them to have good work ethic, and self motivation so they can be as successful as possible."- Night_Samurai
Staying Silent.
"OH boy am I late, but this is very relevant to me."
"My sister was never the smartest academic wise."
"If social smarts were graded she'd be all A*s."
"She also never tried that hard and I could see why, her school was really sh*t."
"We went to different secondary schools."
"However, this pissed my parents off to no end, mainly my dad."
"They tried motivating her, mainly via threats, and when that didn't work they just gave up on her."
"No positive encouragement in my house."
"Then comes me, pretty smart academically, in one of the best all girls schools in the country."
"However, at the time, I was horribly depressed and had little to no friends."
"My parents saw me as a model child, so to keep me from going astray my dad would always say 'you don't want to end up like your sister, do you?'."
"As my grades were the only thing going for me, I agreed."
"Cut to 2017-19, I start to see my sister as a person, not a dumpster."
"She's moved to my school and thriving."
"Although my dad did manipulate her into taking chem instead of history, which she later failed but that's another story."
"My social life picks up but my grades droop a bit."
"Dad ain't happy."
"Cut to now, after a series of happenings, including my dad going all out verbally abusive to her, my dad and sister hardly speak, one convo in the last 5 months I think."
"My dad only cares about my physics predicted grade, C/B, my worst predicted, and not my very good ones, such as an A*/A** in history."
"So now I feel like my dad doesn't care about my successes, apart from the ones he can compare to my sister, which he still does a lot."
"Now you may be wondering, where's the mistake?"
"Well reader the fault lies in my mother."
"During this time, she did nothing to stop my dad."
"Thinking standing up for me or my sister would make things worse."
"Even when she says she will talk to him, she never does."
"And that sit hurts man."
"It hurts even more when she tries to make it about her feelings being hurt, when her oldest daughter, 18 at the time, is literally being verbally assaulted by her husband for wanting to get away from him."
"She had the best intentions but ended up breaking mine and my sisters trust in her almost completely."
"Not to say my dad did nothing wrong, he's a manipulative c*nt and I'm pretty sure he's aware of that."- ohdear11829
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.
People Reveal The Worst Ways They've Seen A Parent Mess Up A Child
Former child here. Parenting is hard, but being a kid is even harder. Everything parents do affects children for life, and little things like constant criticism add up.
itallwenttitsup asked: What's the worst thing you've seen a parent do that will f*ck their child up for life?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.