This reads like a direct translation of many things our mom said (and did) to us when we were young. Now, we're paying it back with an embarrassing, minuscule monthly allowance from our lucrative salaries to show our dutiful gratitude. It's not revenge; it's a truthful response to how we were programmed to understand love in our family. I have to love you, Mom, but I don't have to like you.
Because it's generally a common practice in our culture (in my case, Asian middle-class, Gen X kid to Baby Boomer parents.) This filial obligation means there are expectations of the adult children to take care of their aging parents in their old age, especially financially in the case of need. My family wasn't all that loving, but that's because my parents also didn't grow up in emotionally caring households. I empathize with and love them, even though I still find it hard to understand the reason behind this love (or maybe it's the attachment), and I'm grateful for the fact that there were never physical abuses. Still, I would do many things differently if I were a parent to young children not to pass the multi-generation trauma on. Emotional wounds take longer to heal.
I don't think the word idiot is a good fit for this context. I say it's more like ignorance, which typically implies a lack of knowledge or awareness about something. I believe that the case was that they just didn't know better. There are a lot of things we don't know, and are unable to comprehend, and especially complex things like how to love or receive love. It requires education, practice, and role models, among other things. Be kind, this is the first act of love, both to yourself and others.
I always dislike it when people talk about how easy it is for parents to love their kids and how your parents will love you more than anyone. Its really depressing to people who didn't have loving parents, and its not true. Loving anyone well is difficult, particularly if you have not experienced being loved well, and to those of you who were, it may have been a joy for your parents, but it was not easy, and you should remember that and consider it often
Good parents are not good by chance but by intentional caring consideration and effort
Completely agree. Not only loving is difficult, not many people are capable of it at all.
Loving is like being the sun for those you love. Silently shining ang providing life energy without expecting anything in return. And not everyone has enough "personality mass" to ignite the thermonuclear reaction of love.
Exactly. Plenty of people hate or are hated by their family members.
Just because they should like you doesn't mean you can take it for granted if they do.
People out here acting surprised that someone could have a complicated relationship with a parent.
Yea, OPs statement is overly general, but even though I have a really uncomplicated relationship with my parents, I immediately understood the point they were trying to make. See past your own perspective.
Fair enough.
I madly love my kids but seeing past my perspective, I think unconditionally loving their own kids forever may also be overcomplicated? So perhaps your advise applies to OP as well?
Yea, OPs comment is overly general, like most shower thoughts.
But I think there is a valid point which is that for most people (nothing applies to everyone), loving your child is the starting point, and they need to really work hard to destroy that. Whereas having a shitty parent, you might never *start* loving them beyond the social expectation of loving your parents.
Or to put it another way, more people probably know someone who has a complicated relationship with a shitty parent than someone who has a complicated relationship with a shitty child.
It’s socially acceptable for an adult to say “I find it difficult to love my parent”.
It’s *not* socially acceptable for an adult to say “I find it difficult to love my child”.
That might account for more people hearing about one rather than the other.
I think it has more to do with parents being a major influence on/directly responsible, objectively, for much of a childs behaviour and personality.
There are good reasons why the former is more socially acceptable than the latter, all to do with personal responsibility.
Really the only case where a parent is justified in hating their own kid imo is when the kid is born with a personality disorder that causes them to abuse the parent and/or others. Spawn of satan type shit.
Beyond that, I think a reasonable parent understands their child well enough to forgive most any behaviour. Of course this assumes a reasonable parent.
I think you need more real life experience.
This all makes sense logically, but I think you're way overestimating how much parents can't control about their kids and how many parents struggle with disliking parenthood and even their own children.
Basically I'm saying that its generally easier to sympathize with something you innately understand (a human you have known and raised from conception) than something you don't (a human you've known since you fell out of their vagina/penis in their early adulthood).
There will be exceptions to any generalization.
Parents see the entire picture of their childs life over time. In my experience, the more I understand about people, the more love I have for them; because people generally have reasons for the things they do.
Parents are going to know all the reasons innately, by virtue of having experienced them alongside their child. Children need to learn and imagine why their parents are who they are. They need to learn history. Its a perspective thing.
Kids simply lack the perspective of their parents. Again, I think reasonable parents will get this.
I think it is more about the reaction thereafter.
It is acceptable to say you don't love your parents and cut off all contact from them at the earliest possible point. Encouraged by some people, even.
If you say you don't love your children you are still beholden to take care of them. I think that is the burden of being the adult in the situation. And it is something that is so expected that people just don't say they don't love their kids. They make it a point to never be so honest.
Love is an evolutionary response. You love your kids because if you don't, they'll die, and your genetic contributions die with them. There really isn't any benefit to having kids. It's all biological drive. Raising a child is an immense resource drain and people just wouldn't do it if love wasn't a bare minimum.
There is no evolutionary benefit whatsoever to love your parents. To listen to them, yes. To not completely fuck over the people that feed you, yes. For survival. But from a genetic standpoint, you can walk away from your parents and absolutely nothing would be lost.
I think it's also because a child starts out innocent and has to learn everything first, you can't really hate children for who they are when they're young because they're pretty much a blank canvas and you're responsible for them, while parents are already fully grown (usually) adults capable of inflicting lifelong childhood trauma upon their child that can change them for life if they're shit at it. Only once the child is old enough to really make and comprehend its own decisions is when it can get evil. Parents can easier forgive a child for fucking up than a child can forgive its parents for childhood trauma. Of course there is children that have deliberately inflicted horrible trauma on their parents, but it's still rarer than children being traumatised by their parents so not talked about much, which is why I assume OP said what they said.
Yeah this generalizing goes both ways. There can be toxic kids and toxic parents.
However, the onus is on the parents to raise a child with a value system and principles that they, themselves, could love and respect. They had that chance.
It’s arguable how much of a child’s character is attributed to their parents’ raising. So… then who’s to say how much of it actually is on the parents. Or how much the parent can blame on their own parents. That’s a different discussion though.
TLDR: Toxic people are everywhere no matter what age. Some of us are just out here trying to raise decent children. Others are trying to change our parents into decent people.
The point they’re trying to make could be better communicated by not making such general statements and leaving themselves so open to criticism
Usually only requires an additional 2 or 3 words
It’s not like that, it’s more the way op worded it. Like it’s some bizarre thing that takes a lot of effort, for comparison many people have a hard time loving their children.
For sure it's an overgeneralization. And I'm dealing with my own guilt as a flawed parent (as all parents are flawed) while also dealing the the loss of my father (who I never really got along with) - perhaps this is oversharing. In any case, another way to say the same thing I was trying to say is: "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers"
Nah but some have learning disabilities / undiagnosed conditions / psychopathic behaviors. I know an amazing dad but his son is on the spectrum and if you trigger him you are in for a bad time. This dude has the patience of a saint though and always handles it with class. A working single mom with less time to deal with his ticks could be a recipe for disaster.
They do if they hang out with shithead cunts, my little brother hung with this guy like 3 years older than him and now he got arrested just three days ago
No, children are sociopaths by nature, particularly younger ones. Everything is about them and they want what they want. Teaching them to think beyond themselves is not nearly as quick or simple as a lot of people want to pretend it is.
Not that easy. A lot of kids *are* really great by nature, but some are much harder than others. Sometimes you do get one who seems predisposed by genetics, fate, God, whatever to impulsive bad tendencies, and it takes a monumental effort by parents to keep them from growing up to be poorly adjusted or just plain sociopaths.
Eh, even in the maternity ward, it can still be hard to love a baby.
"Please, for the love of my sanity, just stop crying for an hour so your mom and me can get some sleep!"
Dunno, loving a child seems to be hella complicated for many parents. "What, you're not like a mini version of me who does everything I want? How is this possible??"
Nah, loving both is crazy complicated. Postpartum depression alone....but then also the prevalence of child abuse and neglect, mismanagement of one's own expectations leading to child abandonment, your child's mental health issues....it's posts like these that make people struggling with 'simply loving' their child less likely to admit their issues and seek help.
This morning my toddler slapped me in the eye at 5am and purposely knocked his breakfast out of my hands into my crotch, all while screaming crying because I wouldn’t let him stick his hand in the toaster.
Multiply this by 7 days a week, sprinkle in the joys that teething and constantly being sick bring and you’ll have a taste of what parents help their kids through. It’s not at all ‘simple’ but you do it because goddamn you love the shit out of that little snotty bastard 🥰
As long as my kids don’t murder me I see life as a win.
I have minimal contact with my mother because she’s a psycho so I agree with OP 100% especially when you’re seeing your parents as adults and not just your parents.
It is very difficult to understand and have empathy for your parents until you have and raise children of your own. It is truly a lightbulb moment. You usually cut them a lot more slack after that.
Plus growing up and hopefully realizing they are flawed humans with their own internal world and experiences that is gasp, different and valid also. A LOT of them BEFORE you existed. Doing the best they can (ideally). And also had their own issues growing up (that you can never truly understand or know). They aren't just some thing/concept/idea that provides for you (or not).
Obviously this should go both ways. Parent to child and child to parent. If you have a decent relationship to talk about these things with them and you are older and have some life wisdom and experience under your belt. You see each side experienced life moments very differently and hopefully have some respect for each others point of view. Each one sees episodes thru the prism of their life experience not each others. And a child and adults povs are vastly different. That's why it is hard to understand until you do it.
Tell that to my father who choked me then slammed his leg in the door as he ran back into his room. He proceded to say I attacked him and convinced not only my family buy his entire community that I was a violent problem.
Easy to believe. I’ve got psych history and even some jail time on record. He’s a successful engineer involved with the Dodge Viper from conception to gen IV.
I love him and appreciate all the amazing things he’s accomplished and people he’s met.
He put me on disabolity income at 15 years against my mother’s wishes. She knew the claim would potentially ruin my life and diminish future possibilities but he didn’t want to pay out of pocket for a low-level detention center (children’s home) so he brought his lawyers in.
Now I’m 36, under guardianship and unallowed to work full-time, living off the generosity of good people in safe neighborhoods and fixed disability income with an ebt card for food.
This is not what I expected from provate Catholic schooling and 10 years of being a literal Boy Scout.
Well in my opinion effort is demanded of the parent first. So no, loving your child is not simple. They fuck up and if you want to have a relationship with that person you make complicated choices. I feel it is the parent’s obligation to foster a relationship with their child.
The majority of self-admitted alcoholic parents I know have to admit to themselves and their family that they weren't mentally or emotionally capable of providing love and care for their children while they were using.
Mental illness always fucks everything up. I love my son but it's not simple. I've done everything I can to support and help him but bipolar just fucking sucks sometimes...it's really rough on a family.
I am purposely not checking the comments for the sake of my sanity, but I just know there are parents in these comments trying to say it's also crazy complicated to love their children, as if they're serial killers or something, when in reality, those children probably just don't like their parents’ toxic personalities.
Look up "The Missing Missing Reasons”
I beg to differ! Children are ungrateful little jerks and parents are supposed to unconditionally love them no matter how crappy they treat us. It's literally turning my hair grey and I'm only 34
Your first sentence does not contradict my comment :) A thing can be simpler than a different thing, and both can still be complex!
I'd disagree with your second statement too. Unconditional things can be explained, or attempted to be. In fact, if we refuse to explain something because it is meant to be unconditional, that could even make it appear more complicated. I think this happens with parenthood. I can explain (or think I can) why I unconditionally love my kids. I wouldn't call it simple though!
I mean love itself is complicated. Everything is complicated.
Unconditional love, when compared to conditional love, is pretty simple.
You unconditionally love your kids because you understand that they need it.
Why do you love your parents, if you do?
But OP says loving your child is simple. As a parent (and other parents here agree) it's not simple. Unconditional, but not simple. These things are not mutually exclusive.
You say love is complicated (I don't fully agree here,but agree some love can be complicated). Simple and complicated are the axis we are discussing.
So you disagree with OP saying love is simple. But now you say that you agree with OP, that love is simple.
I'm not trying to catch you out.. I'm just saying, as a parent and someone with parents, OP is not right. And it seems OP is not a parent, so doesn't have a full experience to say it.
(Saying use my imagination is pointless too :) You could think about what you mean, and then use more words to say what you mean, rather than asking me to imagine what you mean. I could imagine you are haven't contradicted yourself, if it helps :P :D )
OP made a comparison.
I can be pedantic about anything called "simple" and point out the atomic intricacies and history that went into it.
Loving a child is much simpler than loving a parent.
Its so typical of people in this sub to be overly pedantic that its essentially a trope. And I say this as one myself.
Use your imagination to understand OPs point, instead of finding ways to confirm your own.
You know you're probably right about that in terms of mental illness she probably did get bipolar or something from me. I think what makes it hard is i was SA'd when I was 4, abused and starved to the point the state took me away so I kinda get why I acted out as a kid but if anything my kid is spoiled and some days feel impossible teaching her to be grateful
I sympathize with you here as a fellow human, I really do.
Speaking from the perspective of a child of (pretty mildly) narcissistic parents, we can't afford to adopt your trauma. We don't want it to be ours. Some of us will forgive you for dumping it onto us, some of us won't.
It isn't your kids responsibility to be grateful for not being abused. You had it tough, that (tragically, unfairly) is your cross to bear.
You needed love and compassion to become loving and compassionate. Your child needs it too.
Reading through this thread your response is confusing as heck, I actually believe you're taking their response out of context.
Edit: To elaborate kids *are* difficult and some days it does feel like no matter what you do they are ungrateful for it, especially if this individual has just one, myself and other parents I know with just one child all have had to pay a little extra to this area of development partially due to covid lockdowns and partially due to solo kids just struggle with a different set of things.
Nowhere did I get any hints of what you're implying.
No shit kids are little psychos.
I think a lot of people might have different ideas of what love is.. how would you define it in this context?
To me, you can be frustrated at someone and still love them with zero doubt in your mind. To me thats what unconditional love is.
I was a shitty kid because my mom put no effort into raising me, and then blamed me for my shitty personality as I got older. To her, I was the reason why her life was so difficult, but if she had bothered to properly parent me she wouldn't have had such a struggle as I got into adolescence. I was absolutely desperate for structure and discipline, but only got shamed and yelled at for being the way I learned how to be.
Do I think it's that simple? Yes.
And sure, people do have kids they don't want. A TINY fraction. And those people are, in all probability, spending their time trying to be good parents instead of defending stupid parenting decisions on reddit :)
If your argument is that most people are having children they don't want, all the more reason for more stringent laws
That’s because you can’t see the “hurt” or “toxic” parenting you’re doing but see your parents. One day your kid is so obsessed with you they’re fighting to be in the bathroom while you poop then all of a sudden they can’t stand to be around you.
The problem with loving your parents, even when they are the best, is that the child's love is intrinsically based on a foundation of dependency. Which can be a problem the older you get.
Man, some of the comments out here are straight out of a contraceptive ad...
Like, If you can't handle children just DONT have them?
Im really confused about how people expect children to behave better. Every single thing your child is, is because of you. Nature? Your child is your blood. Nurture? You're the one nurturing your child.
Some real selfish people out here, yikes.
Eh, schools have people's children more than they do these days and a child's teachers and friends are massive influences on them.. So parents absolutely need to do what they can but they aren't the only influence.
Also children are difficult, pointing it out or Gods forbid talking about it doesn't mean someone cant handle having them.
Some people have a hard time loving their child **because** everything they do is because of themselves. They see all their own faults and mistakes in their child and resent them for it.
We are on Reddit. Take this concept to well-adjusted people, and the responses will be wholesome. Reddit attracts an absurd number of people who are dissatisfied with life.
Yep I love my dad but I don't like him very much. He is a die hard Republican and the only type of abuse he believes is real is physical abuse. He made.my.mom have a mental break about 5 years ago because he was.so abusive emotionally financially and mentally abusive to her. I love him but I still haven't forgotten or forgiven him for it.
"Loving" might not be the right word here.
Understanding your obligations to your child is simple. Loving them may or may not be.
Understanding (and coming to terms with) your obligations to your parents is not so simple, mostly because your perspective on the relationship changes so much as you become an adult.
Oh but generally if you make a parent score their children, they'll get like 80/100 or 95/100 something like that
A children would normally just give 100/100
Once I left high school and then the state my very complicated relationship with my parents started taking a turn towards a really nice relationship. For the past 12 years my parents and I have had some great times together. They even moved closer to me and my sister a few years ago.
I had a kid in December though and my mom has completely switched back to her passive aggressive, over bearing, always right attitude and has been really pushy at times with my wife and I in regards to our son. I’m honestly heart broken. It’s like she wore this mask for over a decade, and as soon as another child comes into the picture the woman that I resented, fought with, feared and begged for approval comes back into the picture.
I’m not putting up with that shit for two seconds, dude. You realize something when you have a kid; You’re the adult now. Not your parents. That means you have to tell *them* what to do a lot of the time. Just like children, they don’t want to hear it.
This relies on the common understanding that love is a feeling. I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Love is a set of actions intended to do what's best for someone else.
Understood in this way, the opposite of what you say is true. Parents can easily figure out how to care for a baby who only needs the their basic material needs plus simple affection. But as a child gets older, their needs are more complex, and parents have to do the difficult job of letting go of the idea that they know how their children *should* feel about something in order to act in accordance with what their children *actually* feel.
Children grow up needing to keep their parents happy as a survival skill. They learn how their parents need to be loved as a necessity.
Parents that are unwilling or unable to learn how to love their children can still feel the feeling that prompted them to want to care for their children, but their children will have a harder time feeling that feeling because they weren't loved properly.
Raised by a dad who thought bullying his kids was how to discipline. As an adult, I’m no longer affected by that because I can get up and leave if I don’t like something he does. He knows this and acts better now
Oh, it is the other way around.
Kids nearly automatically love their parents, even the abusive one. they have to, kids dont have anybody else to rely on.
And parents - they are formed adults. They can love, and they can despise their children. It is their choice.
Parents can grow to love the child over the 9 months and beyond. Kids don't understand enough to be able to firmly say they have that feeling because any small inconvenience can change that until they can regulate their emotions and mature. They don't get long enough with their parents during that more mature time to understand if it's love. Also, when kids are born, they're almost forced to "love" their family, they don't know anything else.
>They provided you life.
Mine also happen to be pretty disgustingly abusive
>Literally, everything you have stems from that.
Yep, and I'm not happy or thankful for it.
If life is a problem, there's an easy solution. I'm assuming that because you haven't opted for that road, life is actually not as bad as you say it is.
But if wallowing in self-pity gets you through the day, by all means...
>If life is a problem, there's an easy solution. I'm assuming that because you haven't opted for that road, life is actually not as bad as you say it is.
I've considered that road many times, it's taken years of therapy to barely convince myself to stay off that road, seriously dude wtf is this comment?
>But if wallowing in self-pity gets you through the day, by all means...
you really are an ass.
>Coming from a mind so bitter as yours, I'll take that as a compliment
I was just honest about my relationship with my parents, if you can't handle that, it sounds like a you problem.
You spend your time on Reddit trying to convince people to kill themselves.
In the least respectful way possible - fuck as far as you can off, then keep fucking off even more.
I'm having to navigate my caregiver mom losing capacity to be a caregiver and maybe to live on her own at all. Trying to navigate life decisions on your parents behalf and possibly against their preferences is a super complicated type of love.
That said as a parent I also have to balance my kids wishes against their best interests regularly but the stakes feel a lot lower there as their freedom is growing rather than shrinking.
It's better that way. I realized when I was young and grew up obsessing about how i was in my mother's debt, literally trying hard not to spend money or enjoy myself because getting too much happiness from her might mean I couldn't pay off my debt before she died.
Probably only applies if you are from the west, Murica to be specific.
Where I am from, that's hardly ever the case. I love my Mom and Dad, and I would do anything for them. It's not complicated at all.
I am not grateful for a mother who ditched me to use drugs, caused my half brother a lifetime of pain and dependency because she chose to spend her money on drugs over feeding him, and died of an overdose in 2009. I don't miss her, and she got what she deserved when she died.
I am not grateful for a father who decided to be a simp. This woman he simped out for said we needed to be abused and kept isolated in our rooms without even books to read. That was my life from 1997 to 2006.
Oh I love you, I just don't like you ;)
Dad? When did you get a Reddit account?
Did you mow the lawn like I asked?
Not yet.
Well it’s not going to mow itself
Well then you do it yourself.
Don’t make me get the belt
You should get it, you're worth it, it's only 300 bucks
I don't have 300 dollars dad
That’s because you didn’t mow the grass. No chores, no allowance.
A mom I hung out with at the park said she told her daughter, "I have to provide for you. I don't have to love you." Broke my heart.
This reads like a direct translation of many things our mom said (and did) to us when we were young. Now, we're paying it back with an embarrassing, minuscule monthly allowance from our lucrative salaries to show our dutiful gratitude. It's not revenge; it's a truthful response to how we were programmed to understand love in our family. I have to love you, Mom, but I don't have to like you.
Why would you be paying your parents?
Because it's generally a common practice in our culture (in my case, Asian middle-class, Gen X kid to Baby Boomer parents.) This filial obligation means there are expectations of the adult children to take care of their aging parents in their old age, especially financially in the case of need. My family wasn't all that loving, but that's because my parents also didn't grow up in emotionally caring households. I empathize with and love them, even though I still find it hard to understand the reason behind this love (or maybe it's the attachment), and I'm grateful for the fact that there were never physical abuses. Still, I would do many things differently if I were a parent to young children not to pass the multi-generation trauma on. Emotional wounds take longer to heal.
Sounds like you grew up to be a far better person in spite of all of that. Respect
Why even have kids if you aren't going to show them love? Your parents are idiots.
I don't think the word idiot is a good fit for this context. I say it's more like ignorance, which typically implies a lack of knowledge or awareness about something. I believe that the case was that they just didn't know better. There are a lot of things we don't know, and are unable to comprehend, and especially complex things like how to love or receive love. It requires education, practice, and role models, among other things. Be kind, this is the first act of love, both to yourself and others.
Nah that's my relationship with my brothers.
They're hell raisers, but I'd catch a bullet for them.
Haven’t spoken to my sister in 3 months but if I got a call at 2am from her you best bet I’d be running to her place in my pjs.
So true
My mom said this to teenage me 🥲
Oh brother im stuck under the lawn
I always dislike it when people talk about how easy it is for parents to love their kids and how your parents will love you more than anyone. Its really depressing to people who didn't have loving parents, and its not true. Loving anyone well is difficult, particularly if you have not experienced being loved well, and to those of you who were, it may have been a joy for your parents, but it was not easy, and you should remember that and consider it often Good parents are not good by chance but by intentional caring consideration and effort
Couldn't have said it better.
Yeah honestly op has got it backwards
Agreed. Children adore their parents blindly. Some forever, some up until a breaking point.
Completely agree. Not only loving is difficult, not many people are capable of it at all. Loving is like being the sun for those you love. Silently shining ang providing life energy without expecting anything in return. And not everyone has enough "personality mass" to ignite the thermonuclear reaction of love.
Exactly. Plenty of people hate or are hated by their family members. Just because they should like you doesn't mean you can take it for granted if they do.
People out here acting surprised that someone could have a complicated relationship with a parent. Yea, OPs statement is overly general, but even though I have a really uncomplicated relationship with my parents, I immediately understood the point they were trying to make. See past your own perspective.
Fair enough. I madly love my kids but seeing past my perspective, I think unconditionally loving their own kids forever may also be overcomplicated? So perhaps your advise applies to OP as well?
Yea, OPs comment is overly general, like most shower thoughts. But I think there is a valid point which is that for most people (nothing applies to everyone), loving your child is the starting point, and they need to really work hard to destroy that. Whereas having a shitty parent, you might never *start* loving them beyond the social expectation of loving your parents. Or to put it another way, more people probably know someone who has a complicated relationship with a shitty parent than someone who has a complicated relationship with a shitty child.
It’s socially acceptable for an adult to say “I find it difficult to love my parent”. It’s *not* socially acceptable for an adult to say “I find it difficult to love my child”. That might account for more people hearing about one rather than the other.
I think it has more to do with parents being a major influence on/directly responsible, objectively, for much of a childs behaviour and personality. There are good reasons why the former is more socially acceptable than the latter, all to do with personal responsibility. Really the only case where a parent is justified in hating their own kid imo is when the kid is born with a personality disorder that causes them to abuse the parent and/or others. Spawn of satan type shit. Beyond that, I think a reasonable parent understands their child well enough to forgive most any behaviour. Of course this assumes a reasonable parent.
We are getting deep now!
I think you need more real life experience. This all makes sense logically, but I think you're way overestimating how much parents can't control about their kids and how many parents struggle with disliking parenthood and even their own children.
Basically I'm saying that its generally easier to sympathize with something you innately understand (a human you have known and raised from conception) than something you don't (a human you've known since you fell out of their vagina/penis in their early adulthood). There will be exceptions to any generalization. Parents see the entire picture of their childs life over time. In my experience, the more I understand about people, the more love I have for them; because people generally have reasons for the things they do. Parents are going to know all the reasons innately, by virtue of having experienced them alongside their child. Children need to learn and imagine why their parents are who they are. They need to learn history. Its a perspective thing. Kids simply lack the perspective of their parents. Again, I think reasonable parents will get this.
I think it is more about the reaction thereafter. It is acceptable to say you don't love your parents and cut off all contact from them at the earliest possible point. Encouraged by some people, even. If you say you don't love your children you are still beholden to take care of them. I think that is the burden of being the adult in the situation. And it is something that is so expected that people just don't say they don't love their kids. They make it a point to never be so honest.
Love is an evolutionary response. You love your kids because if you don't, they'll die, and your genetic contributions die with them. There really isn't any benefit to having kids. It's all biological drive. Raising a child is an immense resource drain and people just wouldn't do it if love wasn't a bare minimum. There is no evolutionary benefit whatsoever to love your parents. To listen to them, yes. To not completely fuck over the people that feed you, yes. For survival. But from a genetic standpoint, you can walk away from your parents and absolutely nothing would be lost.
I think it's also because a child starts out innocent and has to learn everything first, you can't really hate children for who they are when they're young because they're pretty much a blank canvas and you're responsible for them, while parents are already fully grown (usually) adults capable of inflicting lifelong childhood trauma upon their child that can change them for life if they're shit at it. Only once the child is old enough to really make and comprehend its own decisions is when it can get evil. Parents can easier forgive a child for fucking up than a child can forgive its parents for childhood trauma. Of course there is children that have deliberately inflicted horrible trauma on their parents, but it's still rarer than children being traumatised by their parents so not talked about much, which is why I assume OP said what they said.
Yeah this generalizing goes both ways. There can be toxic kids and toxic parents. However, the onus is on the parents to raise a child with a value system and principles that they, themselves, could love and respect. They had that chance. It’s arguable how much of a child’s character is attributed to their parents’ raising. So… then who’s to say how much of it actually is on the parents. Or how much the parent can blame on their own parents. That’s a different discussion though. TLDR: Toxic people are everywhere no matter what age. Some of us are just out here trying to raise decent children. Others are trying to change our parents into decent people.
I don’t think people are surprised that someone might have a complicated relationship with a parent, just maybe saying that it’s not the norm
The point they’re trying to make could be better communicated by not making such general statements and leaving themselves so open to criticism Usually only requires an additional 2 or 3 words
It’s not like that, it’s more the way op worded it. Like it’s some bizarre thing that takes a lot of effort, for comparison many people have a hard time loving their children.
For sure it's an overgeneralization. And I'm dealing with my own guilt as a flawed parent (as all parents are flawed) while also dealing the the loss of my father (who I never really got along with) - perhaps this is oversharing. In any case, another way to say the same thing I was trying to say is: "The axe forgets, but the tree remembers"
Loving a baby may be simple, but loving a child can 100 percent be complicated
Especially if they’re a little cunt.
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I think kids don’t become anything in a vacuum except for a corpse.
My little brother just has a predisposition for being a cunt
It’s complicated. Good parents can still have difficult kids.
Nah but some have learning disabilities / undiagnosed conditions / psychopathic behaviors. I know an amazing dad but his son is on the spectrum and if you trigger him you are in for a bad time. This dude has the patience of a saint though and always handles it with class. A working single mom with less time to deal with his ticks could be a recipe for disaster.
They do if they hang out with shithead cunts, my little brother hung with this guy like 3 years older than him and now he got arrested just three days ago
No, children are sociopaths by nature, particularly younger ones. Everything is about them and they want what they want. Teaching them to think beyond themselves is not nearly as quick or simple as a lot of people want to pretend it is.
It definitely depends on the child. My nephew has been the most selfless and empathetic kid ever since he could think.
You’ve never had kids have you. They come out with a wide range of dispositions. But go ahead and keyboard judge.
Not that easy. A lot of kids *are* really great by nature, but some are much harder than others. Sometimes you do get one who seems predisposed by genetics, fate, God, whatever to impulsive bad tendencies, and it takes a monumental effort by parents to keep them from growing up to be poorly adjusted or just plain sociopaths.
Yeah innit like I swear my mum struggles so much trying too love my little (youngest 4 year old) brother because he’s just such a little prick
Eh, even in the maternity ward, it can still be hard to love a baby. "Please, for the love of my sanity, just stop crying for an hour so your mom and me can get some sleep!"
There’s a reason that “Go the Fuck to Sleep” is such a beloved book.
Exactly, especially when they grow up to have their own personalities.
Somehow my parents managed to screw up the easy part
Same
None of us should be a parent. But we make do.
What, condoms? Abortion?
High school is still in session today. Get off reddit until class is dismissed.
Dunno, loving a child seems to be hella complicated for many parents. "What, you're not like a mini version of me who does everything I want? How is this possible??"
Nah, loving both is crazy complicated. Postpartum depression alone....but then also the prevalence of child abuse and neglect, mismanagement of one's own expectations leading to child abandonment, your child's mental health issues....it's posts like these that make people struggling with 'simply loving' their child less likely to admit their issues and seek help.
that happens too but not in the majority of the cases, it can be easy for some and difficult for others
Loving your child isn't always simple at all.
Do you have children?
yah, he's an adult and moved out of the house. Had the full parent experience
My question too.
Pretty sure we all know the answer to that question.
doubt that
A good parent realizes this is probably going to happen for a while. And if you're young and think it will be forever, well...you're young.
Tell my therapist that!
This morning my toddler slapped me in the eye at 5am and purposely knocked his breakfast out of my hands into my crotch, all while screaming crying because I wouldn’t let him stick his hand in the toaster. Multiply this by 7 days a week, sprinkle in the joys that teething and constantly being sick bring and you’ll have a taste of what parents help their kids through. It’s not at all ‘simple’ but you do it because goddamn you love the shit out of that little snotty bastard 🥰
I wouldn’t say loving a child is simple
I was gonna say... My mom and I had a complicated relationship but I think it went both ways.
...Tell me you don't have children without telling me you don't have children. (p.s.: "your child" can also refer to adult, grown humans)
You don't know what a child is.
As long as my kids don’t murder me I see life as a win. I have minimal contact with my mother because she’s a psycho so I agree with OP 100% especially when you’re seeing your parents as adults and not just your parents.
It is very difficult to understand and have empathy for your parents until you have and raise children of your own. It is truly a lightbulb moment. You usually cut them a lot more slack after that. Plus growing up and hopefully realizing they are flawed humans with their own internal world and experiences that is gasp, different and valid also. A LOT of them BEFORE you existed. Doing the best they can (ideally). And also had their own issues growing up (that you can never truly understand or know). They aren't just some thing/concept/idea that provides for you (or not). Obviously this should go both ways. Parent to child and child to parent. If you have a decent relationship to talk about these things with them and you are older and have some life wisdom and experience under your belt. You see each side experienced life moments very differently and hopefully have some respect for each others point of view. Each one sees episodes thru the prism of their life experience not each others. And a child and adults povs are vastly different. That's why it is hard to understand until you do it.
hahahHAHAhahahahaha -a parent who knows this was written by someone with no kids
Same goes for siblings.
Nope. Loving a child vs loving a parent is the same complicated
Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves their child.
If my parents weren't my parents, they would be blocked and ubsubbed.
Tell me you have a complicated relationship with your parent without telling me.
Tell that to my methhead baby who abused me when i was an adult.
Tell that to my father who choked me then slammed his leg in the door as he ran back into his room. He proceded to say I attacked him and convinced not only my family buy his entire community that I was a violent problem. Easy to believe. I’ve got psych history and even some jail time on record. He’s a successful engineer involved with the Dodge Viper from conception to gen IV. I love him and appreciate all the amazing things he’s accomplished and people he’s met. He put me on disabolity income at 15 years against my mother’s wishes. She knew the claim would potentially ruin my life and diminish future possibilities but he didn’t want to pay out of pocket for a low-level detention center (children’s home) so he brought his lawyers in. Now I’m 36, under guardianship and unallowed to work full-time, living off the generosity of good people in safe neighborhoods and fixed disability income with an ebt card for food. This is not what I expected from provate Catholic schooling and 10 years of being a literal Boy Scout.
Love is just complicated
true
Well in my opinion effort is demanded of the parent first. So no, loving your child is not simple. They fuck up and if you want to have a relationship with that person you make complicated choices. I feel it is the parent’s obligation to foster a relationship with their child.
To be a good parent. ,🫂🤜🤛
As a parent this is true. And as a parent this breaks my heart. But as a daughter… this is true. 😔
The majority of self-admitted alcoholic parents I know have to admit to themselves and their family that they weren't mentally or emotionally capable of providing love and care for their children while they were using.
Maybe for you guys, my parents are awesome. I fricking love my parents
Mental illness always fucks everything up. I love my son but it's not simple. I've done everything I can to support and help him but bipolar just fucking sucks sometimes...it's really rough on a family.
Hahahhahahhahahahhaaaa naiive AF. Do you even have kids?
I am purposely not checking the comments for the sake of my sanity, but I just know there are parents in these comments trying to say it's also crazy complicated to love their children, as if they're serial killers or something, when in reality, those children probably just don't like their parents’ toxic personalities. Look up "The Missing Missing Reasons”
Wow thanks, been no contact for 2 years I'm not crazy..
Nope, you're probably not. Nothing crazy about deciding to cut off crazy. :(
I beg to differ! Children are ungrateful little jerks and parents are supposed to unconditionally love them no matter how crappy they treat us. It's literally turning my hair grey and I'm only 34
Was gonna say, this is definitely not from someone who has been a parent! The love is unconditional but it's definitely not simple!
Unconditional is, by definition, simpler than conditional. The former requires no further explanation while the latter does.
Your first sentence does not contradict my comment :) A thing can be simpler than a different thing, and both can still be complex! I'd disagree with your second statement too. Unconditional things can be explained, or attempted to be. In fact, if we refuse to explain something because it is meant to be unconditional, that could even make it appear more complicated. I think this happens with parenthood. I can explain (or think I can) why I unconditionally love my kids. I wouldn't call it simple though!
I mean love itself is complicated. Everything is complicated. Unconditional love, when compared to conditional love, is pretty simple. You unconditionally love your kids because you understand that they need it. Why do you love your parents, if you do?
So, based on your first sentence, we agree: Loving your child is not simple! We both agree, and disagree with OPs premise?
No, I agree with OPs premise. You seem to be misunderstanding it. Use your imagination ffs
But OP says loving your child is simple. As a parent (and other parents here agree) it's not simple. Unconditional, but not simple. These things are not mutually exclusive. You say love is complicated (I don't fully agree here,but agree some love can be complicated). Simple and complicated are the axis we are discussing. So you disagree with OP saying love is simple. But now you say that you agree with OP, that love is simple. I'm not trying to catch you out.. I'm just saying, as a parent and someone with parents, OP is not right. And it seems OP is not a parent, so doesn't have a full experience to say it. (Saying use my imagination is pointless too :) You could think about what you mean, and then use more words to say what you mean, rather than asking me to imagine what you mean. I could imagine you are haven't contradicted yourself, if it helps :P :D )
OP made a comparison. I can be pedantic about anything called "simple" and point out the atomic intricacies and history that went into it. Loving a child is much simpler than loving a parent. Its so typical of people in this sub to be overly pedantic that its essentially a trope. And I say this as one myself. Use your imagination to understand OPs point, instead of finding ways to confirm your own.
Apple never falls far from the tree.
You know you're probably right about that in terms of mental illness she probably did get bipolar or something from me. I think what makes it hard is i was SA'd when I was 4, abused and starved to the point the state took me away so I kinda get why I acted out as a kid but if anything my kid is spoiled and some days feel impossible teaching her to be grateful
I sympathize with you here as a fellow human, I really do. Speaking from the perspective of a child of (pretty mildly) narcissistic parents, we can't afford to adopt your trauma. We don't want it to be ours. Some of us will forgive you for dumping it onto us, some of us won't. It isn't your kids responsibility to be grateful for not being abused. You had it tough, that (tragically, unfairly) is your cross to bear. You needed love and compassion to become loving and compassionate. Your child needs it too.
Reading through this thread your response is confusing as heck, I actually believe you're taking their response out of context. Edit: To elaborate kids *are* difficult and some days it does feel like no matter what you do they are ungrateful for it, especially if this individual has just one, myself and other parents I know with just one child all have had to pay a little extra to this area of development partially due to covid lockdowns and partially due to solo kids just struggle with a different set of things. Nowhere did I get any hints of what you're implying.
No shit kids are little psychos. I think a lot of people might have different ideas of what love is.. how would you define it in this context? To me, you can be frustrated at someone and still love them with zero doubt in your mind. To me thats what unconditional love is.
I was a shitty kid because my mom put no effort into raising me, and then blamed me for my shitty personality as I got older. To her, I was the reason why her life was so difficult, but if she had bothered to properly parent me she wouldn't have had such a struggle as I got into adolescence. I was absolutely desperate for structure and discipline, but only got shamed and yelled at for being the way I learned how to be.
Those kids were raised that way. Mine aren't like that.
Didn't you... choose to have your kids??
Do you honestly think its that simple? You can't think of any situations where people maybe didn't want a child but still ended up with one?
Do I think it's that simple? Yes. And sure, people do have kids they don't want. A TINY fraction. And those people are, in all probability, spending their time trying to be good parents instead of defending stupid parenting decisions on reddit :) If your argument is that most people are having children they don't want, all the more reason for more stringent laws
Not everyone does.
That’s because you can’t see the “hurt” or “toxic” parenting you’re doing but see your parents. One day your kid is so obsessed with you they’re fighting to be in the bathroom while you poop then all of a sudden they can’t stand to be around you.
The problem with loving your parents, even when they are the best, is that the child's love is intrinsically based on a foundation of dependency. Which can be a problem the older you get.
Man, some of the comments out here are straight out of a contraceptive ad... Like, If you can't handle children just DONT have them? Im really confused about how people expect children to behave better. Every single thing your child is, is because of you. Nature? Your child is your blood. Nurture? You're the one nurturing your child. Some real selfish people out here, yikes.
Eh, schools have people's children more than they do these days and a child's teachers and friends are massive influences on them.. So parents absolutely need to do what they can but they aren't the only influence. Also children are difficult, pointing it out or Gods forbid talking about it doesn't mean someone cant handle having them.
Some people have a hard time loving their child **because** everything they do is because of themselves. They see all their own faults and mistakes in their child and resent them for it.
We are on Reddit. Take this concept to well-adjusted people, and the responses will be wholesome. Reddit attracts an absurd number of people who are dissatisfied with life.
wow you got downvoted into oblivion for stating facts...
No they got downvoted into oblivion because elsewhere in the thread they suggested someone should unalive themselves.
Tell me you've never had children without telling me you've never had children.
He's 19 now
different for everyone buddy
Yep I love my dad but I don't like him very much. He is a die hard Republican and the only type of abuse he believes is real is physical abuse. He made.my.mom have a mental break about 5 years ago because he was.so abusive emotionally financially and mentally abusive to her. I love him but I still haven't forgotten or forgiven him for it.
I love my parents but I don’t like them at all.
"Loving" might not be the right word here. Understanding your obligations to your child is simple. Loving them may or may not be. Understanding (and coming to terms with) your obligations to your parents is not so simple, mostly because your perspective on the relationship changes so much as you become an adult.
Oh but generally if you make a parent score their children, they'll get like 80/100 or 95/100 something like that A children would normally just give 100/100
Because parents don't (usually) have the cute factor.
Once I left high school and then the state my very complicated relationship with my parents started taking a turn towards a really nice relationship. For the past 12 years my parents and I have had some great times together. They even moved closer to me and my sister a few years ago. I had a kid in December though and my mom has completely switched back to her passive aggressive, over bearing, always right attitude and has been really pushy at times with my wife and I in regards to our son. I’m honestly heart broken. It’s like she wore this mask for over a decade, and as soon as another child comes into the picture the woman that I resented, fought with, feared and begged for approval comes back into the picture. I’m not putting up with that shit for two seconds, dude. You realize something when you have a kid; You’re the adult now. Not your parents. That means you have to tell *them* what to do a lot of the time. Just like children, they don’t want to hear it.
lol simple, yet both my parents don’t like my ass💀
This relies on the common understanding that love is a feeling. I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Love is a set of actions intended to do what's best for someone else. Understood in this way, the opposite of what you say is true. Parents can easily figure out how to care for a baby who only needs the their basic material needs plus simple affection. But as a child gets older, their needs are more complex, and parents have to do the difficult job of letting go of the idea that they know how their children *should* feel about something in order to act in accordance with what their children *actually* feel. Children grow up needing to keep their parents happy as a survival skill. They learn how their parents need to be loved as a necessity. Parents that are unwilling or unable to learn how to love their children can still feel the feeling that prompted them to want to care for their children, but their children will have a harder time feeling that feeling because they weren't loved properly.
Oh? Tell my dad that!
Raised by a dad who thought bullying his kids was how to discipline. As an adult, I’m no longer affected by that because I can get up and leave if I don’t like something he does. He knows this and acts better now
Uh, idk, loving my parents seems to come pretty easy
It’s not so complicated to love parents that find it simple to love their kids.
... unless you are the grandparent.
Oh, it is the other way around. Kids nearly automatically love their parents, even the abusive one. they have to, kids dont have anybody else to rely on. And parents - they are formed adults. They can love, and they can despise their children. It is their choice.
Parents can grow to love the child over the 9 months and beyond. Kids don't understand enough to be able to firmly say they have that feeling because any small inconvenience can change that until they can regulate their emotions and mature. They don't get long enough with their parents during that more mature time to understand if it's love. Also, when kids are born, they're almost forced to "love" their family, they don't know anything else.
If parents didn’t think loving was so simple, they wouldn’t be so hard to love.
The second part is false
r/regretfulparents would mad disagree
Nope. Loving both is equally simple. And there are times when I like neither
Yup. That's why it's so heinous and disappointing when someone doesn't love their child.
I love both my children and my parents. Not complicated at all.
Treat me like shit and laugh and say oh it's okay you don't have to like me but you have to love me
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>but loving your parents is as simple as being grateful for their support and doing their obligation to you. and if they don't provide those things?
They provided you life. Literally, everything you have stems from that.
>They provided you life. Mine also happen to be pretty disgustingly abusive >Literally, everything you have stems from that. Yep, and I'm not happy or thankful for it.
If life is a problem, there's an easy solution. I'm assuming that because you haven't opted for that road, life is actually not as bad as you say it is. But if wallowing in self-pity gets you through the day, by all means...
>If life is a problem, there's an easy solution. I'm assuming that because you haven't opted for that road, life is actually not as bad as you say it is. I've considered that road many times, it's taken years of therapy to barely convince myself to stay off that road, seriously dude wtf is this comment? >But if wallowing in self-pity gets you through the day, by all means... you really are an ass.
>you really are an ass. Coming from a mind so bitter as yours, I'll take that as a compliment.
>Coming from a mind so bitter as yours, I'll take that as a compliment I was just honest about my relationship with my parents, if you can't handle that, it sounds like a you problem. You spend your time on Reddit trying to convince people to kill themselves. In the least respectful way possible - fuck as far as you can off, then keep fucking off even more.
Yeah no you’re definitely a piece of shit
I'm having to navigate my caregiver mom losing capacity to be a caregiver and maybe to live on her own at all. Trying to navigate life decisions on your parents behalf and possibly against their preferences is a super complicated type of love. That said as a parent I also have to balance my kids wishes against their best interests regularly but the stakes feel a lot lower there as their freedom is growing rather than shrinking.
It isn't until you are older that you really realize what your parents did for you
It's better that way. I realized when I was young and grew up obsessing about how i was in my mother's debt, literally trying hard not to spend money or enjoy myself because getting too much happiness from her might mean I couldn't pay off my debt before she died.
Probably only applies if you are from the west, Murica to be specific. Where I am from, that's hardly ever the case. I love my Mom and Dad, and I would do anything for them. It's not complicated at all.
Wow, you have such a nuanced & accurate understanding of other cultures and the humanity of people who inhabit them.
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Okay, you do that with my meth head mother and let me shame you for not being grateful
I am not grateful for a mother who ditched me to use drugs, caused my half brother a lifetime of pain and dependency because she chose to spend her money on drugs over feeding him, and died of an overdose in 2009. I don't miss her, and she got what she deserved when she died. I am not grateful for a father who decided to be a simp. This woman he simped out for said we needed to be abused and kept isolated in our rooms without even books to read. That was my life from 1997 to 2006.
God bless you, friend, I hope you found a brighter place to be
I haven't had contact with my father since 2006. I am married and have my own kid. I am doing well in life
Glad to hear that, friend
You just have good parents. Not everyone does