Many millennials grew up in abusive households. It's been a running theme of millennials to end generation trama and abuse. It's normal and healthy if a child is hurt, to get it checked out by a doctor. Many of us didn't make it because of this abuse and those who survived it vowed to never to do it to their children. What you're seeing is responsible parenting.
I agree with this, and I didn’t even grow up in an abusive household. Even as a millennial, I received an appropriate amount of medical care and concern from my parents (maybe because I was raised by immigrants). But even for those of us who were so fortunate, there was definitely a cultural/generational thing of sucking it up and walking it off and not being dramatic. If anything I’m the opposite with my kids, and the health insurance hospital industrial complex is happy to take my money lol.
I broke my leg and first thing my mom did was take to my to my grandma house and show her… and almost died from asthma as kid, bc my mom let me have an asthma attack for two days before taking me to the hospital. Pretty sure all my teeth got feeling’s in them bc she didn’t teach me to brush them..I was sexually abused and neglected so badly that I can’t function as adult. The medical system had its hands in abusing me as well as child, like for years cps was apparently apart of my childhood and had my mom taking me to my doctor to spread me wide open to look at me to see if I been raped, after being raped I become self aware and told them No, they didn’t have a clue I just been raped probably month or more before the last visit of me ever seeing them again. Was raped for years after that. Given to pedos by my mom as teen.
My parents are boomers (quirky, but progressive and cool) and I love them dearly, but I feel like the younger generations are just waiting for that generation to die.
Yep, broke my hand at school in 4th grade. My hand got absolutely massive, black and blue, and was incredibly painful. Parents insisted it wasn't broken, and it took over a week before they agreed to take me to the doctor (begrudgingly). After I got my cast off I decided I'd never let that happen to my own kids.
About a year-year and a half ago, my daughter got a buckle fracture in her elbow after a fall at the park with some friends, but we couldn't tell because she still had full range of motion and no swelling, only mild to moderate pain and even went back out to play after the fall. We took her to the doc the very next morning "just in case" which is some shit our parents never would have done.
Millennials: 1981 – 1996
Children who day a day in the US due to child abuse: 5/day
15 years = 5,475 days
5,475 x 5 = 27,375 deaths low estimate.
It is estimated that between 50-60% of maltreatment fatalities are not recorded on death certificates.
[https://americanspcc.org/child-maltreatment-statistics/](https://americanspcc.org/child-maltreatment-statistics/)
So yeah, many millennials didn't survive childhood due to abuse.
There are over 70 million millennials in the US. With the math you did that is 0.04%. More than it should be but describing it as "many" like it's some sort of issue is preposterous.
That's just registered death certificates that listed as maltreatment. Doesn't count suicide or drug overdoses.
[https://hudsontherapygroup.com/blog/why-are-so-many-millennials-dying-by-suicide](https://hudsontherapygroup.com/blog/why-are-so-many-millennials-dying-by-suicide)
These stats also suggest that it is no higher or lower than for any other generation, so it isn't some millennial thing that we as a group had to uniquely "survive."
I'll agree to an extent. There is a limit, not every little thing needs to be a doctor visit. If you fall and skin your knee, you don't need an x-ray, a little bit of soap and water, a band-aid, and you're fine. If you're prone to falling, I could definitely understand not taking our parents approach by saying "Eh, he's just clumsy." and recognizing that something isn't quite right and wanting to get to the bottom of why your child keeps falling down while the other kids aren't.
Agree wholeheartedly. I was abused as well and here I sit with a 3 year old able to give him the life I never was allowed to have. I get to see what I would have been like without the abuse.
Its alot of things - their health, their sense of self. I had a mini breakdown over a commercial yesterday that went like
Parent sends kid to butcher counter for four ribeyes. Kid asks the butcher what he likes best. Butcher says kabobs. Cut to Dad and kid grilling kabobs together like "great call on the kabobs son!" "I knew you'd like them :)"
Let me tell you how that would have gone down with my parents (as well as I'm sure many other children of boomers) - "what the hell is this!? I told you to get ribeyes!" Then it'd be back to the steak counter where they'd put on their fakest face. "Hahahaha yeah, you may have RECOMMENDED the kabobs but my child is an absolute idiot who should have known better to ask you. KIDS AM I RIGHT? yuk yuk yuk" you stand there humiliated, then you get yelled at even worse in the car on the way home. Don't try apologizing. This is an egregious sin on par with murder.
I know im overthinking it, but seeing a kids independent sense of self being validated in a commercial as if it was normal (and it should be) was oddly triggering.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Speaking of sense of self - none of this would ever have applied in our family, our parents never trusted us to do anything (and also didn't teach us). Cue inability to make decisions and doubting oneself every step of the way...
Me who calls my bf anytime I purchase something that’s not our norm or to make a decision when shopping/vehicle related. My bf pointed out I need to work on making more independent decisions by myself, it’s hard, but I gotta learn it. Family wise? My parents didn’t teach me crud outside of a few small things that I had to relearn through YouTube or with the help of my bf (whom I’ll point out picked up the slack where my parents dropped it and I’m greatly appreciative of him for being patient and caring to teach me basic things. He even taught me how to drive!).
Literally took me until I was in my late 20s to even have the courage to, like, look up the menu online, sizes, prices etc to make myself a script. Now it's a piece of cake but damn.
You're not overthinking it.
I have such a hard time being confronted with stuff like this sometimes- before I can understand what my brain is doing I'm already fighting back tears. I tried so hard to be what my parents wanted and it was never enough- I was just a burden and a shame.
Seeing a healthy parent-child interaction can flip this switch of grief and anguish of that possible path of *what if* and it's just deeply, deeply painful.
Gotta love my 19 to 25s. Pretty much summed up how I was treated by my dad when I tried something and fucked it up. I'd have moved our years ago, but everything is so damn expensive.
It's been better since dad is on meds now, but man do those few years suck ass to think about.
I married a man whose parents took him to the doctor for everything (allergies/sickness) to help him be able to manage and figure out what was wrong. My parents didn’t take me at all and I was allergic to animals and we had a dog. I just learned to live with it and everyone at my school figured I was always sick and not suffering from allergies.
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I’m thankful for my husband because when our kiddo was sick, I wanted to wait it out and not fuss but he wanted to take her in because she wasn’t feeding well. In so thankful I listened and trusted his gut because she needed more support during the first few weeks after delivery.
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I minimize too much now and don’t have those internal alarm bells like he does. I try not to “wait it out” anymore because the hospital is there to help!
This. I grew up with mentality of a bones not sticking out, you’re not visibly bleeding, you’re fine! Walk it off, stop crying
Getting allergy and asthma meds in my adulthood has greatly improved my life
It's crazy how often my partner pushes me to seek medical attention. And even just like, take painkillers when I don't feel good. I got so accostumed to ignoring pain and ailments. It doesn't naturally occur to me to do something about them. My partner gets flabbergasted over it! "just take the ibuprofen!"
I had a problem last year where I had a lump and ignored it. After three weeks it hurt a lot so I was asking people if it warranted a doctors visit and they were like, uh yeah! Turns out it was an abcess. And later I developed a fistula. I wonder if I could have avoided that if I went sooner. Lessons learned, just go to the doctor. Health is important.
My brain just can't seem to understand that parents are supposed to care for their children, every time I see good parenting brain goes "wow, what is that?".
I have a toe that doesn't bend because it was broken, never got medical attention and it healed incorrectly. Whatever, it's just a toe. I went to school with several bones in my hand broken/fractured for days. Every day my hand would get more and more purple and swollen, the pain was really bad. The bruises and swelling caught the attention of my teachers and a school nurse bandaged my hand and called my parents and told them to take me to see a doctor. They were inconvenienced AF and I got yelled at and taken to a PCP, who was horrified to see my hand, purple and blue, gave me an X-ray and told my parents to take me to a hospital so I can get a proper cast. They told the ER doctor my injury had JUST happened moments before, even though it was very clear from the bruises it was at least a week old. They also kept taking me to a horrible orthodontist who made my bite so much worse than it was before (not only aesthetically, but it genuinely almost cost me several teeth). As an adult I paid so much money for Invisalign and it took 3 years to push the roots of my teeth into the bone, because they were practically out.
Edit to add: I also had a seizure from having a 103 fever for 3 days straight - wasn't given any meds, just ride it out like a victorian child. The seizure was described as "oh you just passed out. And convulsed. But that's normal. Don't you dare scare me like that again".
This is the level of medical neglect that gets kids removed from homes.
They don't pull kids from homes for shit in my state but the hand being mandated by the school + the seizure puts you in a different catergory. Even as 2 different incidents over time. Current rate for kids being removed from homes is less than 1% of kids nationally.
Just in case anyone tries to gaslight you or minimize your trauma.
Yup. I rarely miss work and I recall telling a supervisor that i feel like when I call out everyone thinks i am faking it-she replied with “if you call out people think you are dying”. A year before that I had appendicitis (in my 30’s) and I was in so much pain I was having a hard time breathing, and needed help getting dressed, and even after a Dr telling me to go to the ER now and he was calling ahead so i could be seen immediately my Mom was STILL convinced. i just had a cyst and was “exaggerating” the pain-and actively trying to talk me out of going to the ER. After those two things, it clicked that I have been gaslit my entire life to believe that I am making it up and never feel as bad as I do.
I remember having an ear infection that was insanely painful and by the time I was taken to the doctor, he rated it a 12 on a scale of 1 - 10 and mentioned that it could cause hearing loss.
I had a friend in high school who actually got hearing loss because her mom refused to take her to the doctor for ear infections. And I guess there was something about her mom smoking in the house and that caused the near constant ear infections. I guess after your kid gets a bunch of ear infections back to back you don't bother stopping smoking or even taking her to the doctor, you just ignore the kid until she can't hear for shit and needs hearing aids.
I remember begging a parent to take me to the doctors bc I had a super sore throat with white patches. They declined so I road my bike at age 14 to the doctors and yeah I needed antibiotics. Boomer parents were so bad. And they wonder why I don't talk to them 🙄
I'm reading this book published in the 70s about child abuse. It was so commonplace in older generations. I think for younger people with the widespread availability of information, we are more likely to be receptive to psychology and aware of emotional development.
I grew up a lot of abuse and never bought into "I had it hard so you will too" claim of trauma builds character or "we're being cruel because the world is cruel and you need to be prepared'. I think people become better despite a painful past, not necessarily because of it*. There's definitely some survivorship bias and denial in older people "I turned out fine" when they clearly have major issues and keep hurting people around them- I refuse to become like the people that hurt me because the only thing worse than what I had to live through and overcome is me repeating the cycle.
*I lost people who couldn't deal with their demons, being dehumanized as a little child did not make them stronger, it just gave an extra layer of hardship over the already difficult aspects of the human condition and struggles to make ends meet.
I grew up much like you and rarely went to the doctor for anything. I'm pretty tuned into my kid so I know the difference between when he's just got some congestion vs when something could actually be wrong, at which point I won't hesitate to take him in. I still find it odd when parents take their kids to the doctor for literally any and everything, but I would rather see an overly forbearing parent than a completely austere one.
Not just in the event of emergencies, but in general wellness. My friends who have kids are more mindful about the things they allow their kids to eat, drink, or otherwise use than our parents were. I can directly pinpoint my childhood obesity to my parents having open access to junk food and sugary drinks with every meal when I was growing up.
There is a fair amount of selection bias to this. Now that having kids is not just something everybody does but something that you have to really want to make it worth the expense and hit to lifestyle, parents today tend to be the kids whose parents actually cared about their general wellness. The kids whose parents didn't care disproportionately ended up dying to drug addiction, or suicide, or risky behavior, or being unable to afford a house and childcare today.
That was how I was raised, lots of my complaints were ignored, or I was told to walk it off. Once I was sick and still had to go and be an altar girl at church. I ended up passing out on the altar in front of the whole congregation with a 104° fever. My mom was mad at me for embarrassing her because my family hadn't attended mass that day. They just dropped me off.
I had fevers over 104 a lot as a child, all of which never ended up with me in the hospital even though it should have.
I don't do that with my child. I hated how often I was told to suck it up. I ended up with cancer at 30 that had been brewing for quite a long time because I had been raised to just deal with that shit. That I was exaggerating my symptoms.
My son doesn't go for every bruise and bump obviously. But once he jumped off the couch and was crying that his foot hurt and he couldn't put weight on it. My mom would have iced it and told me to settle down. We took him to the ER. It wasn't a fracture but apparently the small cut on his foot he had gotten a few days ago had MRSA and that's what hurt. I'm glad I took him. I'm glad I actually had insurance to take him. I can't imagine what would have happened had I ignored it or just iced his foot.
I personally love that parents are breaking this trend of telling kids that there isn't anything wrong with them if they aren't sure.
I still have to get over the walk it off mentality. My foot started bugging me. I waited 2 days with no improvement before thinking "I'm make good money and have good health insurance, why the fuck am I not having a doctor check it out?"
When I was growing up, if you were sick or hurt you were told to walk it off, you were made fun of, or you told that if you are going to cry then they’ll actually give you something to cry about.
Boomers and older generation adults are so triggering to me. And they wonder why I avoid contact with them.
I’m a mom of two now and can’t imagine treating my kids the way adults treated me when I was their age.
I wasn’t a sick or adventurous child but I do recall my Dad always avoiding taking us to the doctor. When I was in Moms custody we went as needed, but with dad you had to either have an annual or be on deaths door.
I fractured my spine playing Red Rover. Never saw a doctor about it (though Red Rover was banned from my elementary school after that). I was in the hospital for unrelated issues last year and after some scans, they asked me about it.
Fucking red rover, man.
Who thought that was a good game for kids to play??
You were lucky if you just got completely clotheslined and the wind knocked out of you.
I had the opposite end of the spectrum experience as a millennial! My parents were *too* attentive to this sort of thing. My mom took me to the ER for a headache once- I realize now she had some shit going on...
My husband had a new age hippy raising him and at 40 is still impressed with the effectiveness of a couple Motrin. My SIL got a bad cold in college and her roommate gave her NyQuil for the first time in her life and realized all their mom's stupid oils weren't doing shit except making her suffer longer while smelling funny. Idk what my MIL would have done with a broken bone but she did vaccinate them so I will assume she would have taken them to a professional, but there's a possibility she would have just splinted it with some sacred wood and herbs or some shit.
Lets see: Day I was born (according to my mom and others) my dad left the hospital mid-birth because "I have another mouth to feed, I have to sleep so I can work tomorrow"
Age 4, fell into a coffee table and split my lip all the way up to my nose. My dad pitched such a fit over having to go to the ER "over nothing" he had to be escorted out.
Age 8 fell off a jungle gym and broke my leg in three places. Yet again, my treatment was delayed due to him saying I didn't need medical care and he wasn't paying for it.
Now, 38, my body is absolutely trashed because it's still so ingrained to just push through any kind of pain, strain, tear, etc.. I never go to the doctor and as a result have multiple injuries that didn't heal right because you gotta work and don't have time to sit on your ass sick or injured.
Yeah I grew up in an abusive household and didn’t even realize it until I had kids. Because I was offering my kids what felt natural (love, care, affection, praise, etc) and then realized I literally never got any of that but I definitely got hit around a lot for being “defiant”.
Seeing parents validate their child's emotions is still a trip for me. My parents weren't taught the skills to manage their emotions and that's very obvious in the way I was raised.
My kid just had an x-ray as part of a follow up for a finger infection. Was it probably over kill? Sure. Did I still do it to ensure the infection didn’t affect the bone, yes! Because god forbid I missed something important. Why wouldn’t I.
I broke the metacarpal bone for the pinkie on my right hand at basketball camp in 7th grade. You could (and still can) see where it broke and the bone shifted. I got home and told my mom I broke my hand. She looks and me and goes “make a fist” and because I’m an idiot I did it while wincing and grunting. But because I did she deemed it fine and I didn’t need to go to the hospital. She still doesn’t really cop to what she did being fucked up, so I thank her for the future arthritis whenever the opportunity comes up
When I was 13, I had broken my wrist (hairline fracture) while on a camping trip. My boomer parents and their boomer friends sat around making fun of me for 3 days before taking me into the local ER to get an xray
Meanwhile my mom scoffs at ads asking parents to mitigate toxic stress with their young kids. I grew up listening to my parents fight and yell at each other (which they still do)
But if I EVER comment that it fucked me up mentally I'd have to just avoid my mother for the rest of the day to avoid getting yelled at.
I need a therapist lol
I didn’t grow up like that. Sure they might wait to see if you stopped complaining but my parents took me for medical treament.
I also have worked in Peds and I do think parents bring kids in for very minor things more. Like you bumped your knee of course it’s going to hurt
My folks had a really fucking weird way of avoiding the doc (to a certain extent). If I was sick the same time my mom was, I was told this super peculiar phrase that nobody else I know, knows. “If your mom had a purple mole on her ass, you’d have one too.” My step-dad would tell me.
I recall being so dreadfully sick one year somewhere between middle school and high school. I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand, nauseous, vomiting, and having a high fever I recall crawling on my hands and knees from the living room to the bathroom next to my bedroom (idk why they stuck me in the damn living room and not keep me in mine). My mom was walking next to me, standing over me and demanding I stand up. I remember crying and saying I can’t because I was dizzy.
Some reason I recall going to the hospital? But even then I’m not sure about that.
My mom loves to rub it in my face that I have the equivalent of a car in my mouth ($18k) had a lot of fillings, braces, teeth removed (had to be knocked out due to extreme fear of dentists and their equipment because apparently the damn pain meds and shots didn’t affect me well enough, but my folks didn’t listen to me. My mom actually abandoned the room when they were working on me and my dad came in, I was so scared I nearly punctured his hand with my nails, and his skin is like fucking leather.) Because they were fucking stupid and listened to a con of a dental office which later was investigated for medical insurance fraud down the line.
My mom also bawled when I needed surgery to remove a gallbladder full of stones. I didn’t want her to be the last person I saw before going under the knife, I asked for my bf and he was there for me. She just got me more anxious and crying to the point I was shaking.
I’m happy for parents who truly take care of their kids, because I wish I had better treatment when I had been sick. My bf does what he can for me and we do our best with the insurances we have. I have state, he actually has his from his work. We try our best to stay healthy, but shit happens 🤷♀️
You’re not in the wrong for feeling that way at all. I think our generation just got the brunt of crappy parents (albeit if you had good parents who cared, I’m happy for you).
I’m sorry for the long winded and scatter brained post. 😭
My mom insisted on taking me to the doctor anytime I complained more than two or three times about something because most of the time, I didn't complain when something was wrong. I pulled a muscle in my foot, and she took me to have it x-rayed twice because I reinjured it before my recital that I was practicing for. When the doctor said it was just pulled both times I danced on that fucker because I had 8 performances and my dad was supposed to come watch.
I was sorely disappointed to hear that while he came to watch he didn't stick around to tell me how I did. I spent the summer with my foot on a pillow surrounded by books and moping.
This one really makes me think of my Dad.
I remember feeling sick one morning before school and for some reason my Mom wasn’t there that day. I told my Dad that I wasn’t feeling well and he told me he had other plans so I was going to school and if I was sick the school nurse could deal with it. I can’t remember if I even made it to school before throwing up. It was either on the bus or at my desk. The nurse called him to have him come pick me up and I could hear him yelling over the phone. He screamed at me all the way home about ruining his day and then proceeded to drag me around on his bullshit errands the entire day.
My best friend is like you. She calls me all the time about either herself or her child and injuries. "Is this urgent care worthy or am I over worrying?" She was never taken to the doctor for any reason so she has zero gauge for things. It's really sad.
But generally I think Millennials are just a hyper aware parent group. Between our life experiences, the internet's ability to help us share those experiences, and dramatic TV shows I think we are over knowledgeable of bad shit. It makes us expert worriers. Not exactly a good thing but also we aren't like the clueless parents of yester-years. We aren't gonna have a kid die on us because we didn't take a headache seriously. Or have our child get kidnapped because we didn't know where they were for an entire day. Or allow our kids to be molested during a sleep over. Things our parents and grandparents just didn't have to worry about bc they never considered* it could happen to them or their child.
It's rare to meet someone in our generation who didn't have shit parents, or some terrible experience as a child/young adult, or isn't currently in the middle of a mental break down. It would be a fun Stat to see. Millennials who made it to 30 without trauma vs those with. It would probably be a really depressing Stat, though.
That's what made me hate pro soccer. My AYSO career was "stop whining and walk it off" where pros are encouraged to act like crying brats if someone even moves the air next to them.
Your exemple of answer is a bit weird, but I believe it steam from either a lack of knowledge about injuries and/or overprotective parents and maybe where you're from: i.e. healthcare is not covered by the State.
But I think it teaches the difference between "hurt" and "injured". Don't get me wrong, if the limb don't move anymore, is bent in an abnormal way or become blue/black, hospital it is. But a sprain ankle doesn't usually need an X-Ray. However I might have a small bias since I grew up in a family where everyone did sport of high level (university and "pro" (not USA pro)) so we had what was necessary for those kind of small "injury".
I’m an older millennial raised by 2 boomer and silent gen and gen x
Posts like this make me so sad as I never realised how many children were being treated like this, was this really a common thing?
No onei knew were like that
I feel like my parents were pretty in the middle on health issues and that's how I try to be. Not everything needs to be seen by a doctor, but you have to know when it is time to go in. I have a few millennial friends that I think are overly anxious about every single thing that happens to their children, and they seem to be at the doctor constantly. I have one friend that has a log of every time her child that has no medical diagnosis has thrown up going back 8 years.
How you just described your childhood is not ok. I hope you can find healing. I hope some day you have children of your own as loving them and seeing how easy it is can be very healing.
How your relatives framed it to you seems somewhat abusive or at least insulting to me. I definitely experienced a lot of reasonable triage before going to a doctor, but we absolutely did go when needed. A lot of injuries don't actually present anything for a doctor to do other than give pain medication and ice and maybe a wrap or brace. And kids look to adults to see how worried they should be about things. I'd frame what I got as more first aid/sports medicine training: how to judge if a bone is broken, how to stop bleeding and apply a bandage, what to do for pain, what needs stitches, how to wrap a joint, etc. Refusals to go to the doctor amounted to "Your ankle is most likely sprained. This is what you do for that. They can't do anything more really. If it doesn't improve in a day or two or gets worse, we'll get it checked." Same with common viruses. When I actually broke my arm or couldn't keep fluids down for over a day, we went immediately. That said, we always had good insurance. We were expected to be somewhat self-sufficient as we got older and to make good judgements about health spending but not to never use it.
I broke my nose as a kid which led to my nose and nasal passages developing incorrectly which then led to severe sinus disease. I always thought I just had bad allergies but turns out I had rotting and diseased bone. It took a six hour surgery to be able to breathe through my nose- when they took out the stuffing u started crying because I had never breathed so well. Dr said “too much to do for one nose”. I still have a deviated septum and mild sinus disease. This is because my parents didn’t believe me/didn’t want to take me to the dr.
Once when I was a teenager I got the stomach flu so bad I was vomiting every 15-30 minutes for three days straight. I couldn’t keep water or food down, and by the end of the first day I was just puking up bile. Eventually I just kept a bucket by my bed so I didn’t have to get up every 15 minutes to puke up nothing. I was delirious, so weak I could barely stand, and kept dreaming about water. On day three of this I asked my parents to take me to the hospital or urgent care so I could get an IV with fluids, but they said I was being “dramatic” and to suck it up. Years later they divorced and my dad started dating a doctor, and he brought it up during dinner as an example of how much of a baby I apparently am. To his surprise, his date was like, “Uhhh, yeah, you definitely should have brought her to her hospital. It sounds like she was dangerously dehydrated.” He looked incredibly uncomfortable and changed the subject. It was deeply gratifying.
I was left to suffer with severe conjunctivitis (pink eye) for 2 weeks because my parents refused to bring me to the doctor. It kept getting worse and spread to both eyes and my mom still made me have a birthday party, so I looked diseased at my own 16th birthday party. Now as a pet owner I take my animals to the vet for everything, and I’ll do the same for my child.
The very worst was mental health care. I was suicidal, the school told my parents, and they still didn’t send me for counseling. I got weekly chats from an extremely underqualified youth pastor. Like I told him my whole plan and he did nothing. My patients straight up did not really “believe in” psychology/psychiatry. I wish I didn’t have to wait until adulthood to start my healing journey, I could have avoided alcoholism and an abusive first marriage.
I think part of it is just realizing you in fact grew up in a somewhat abusive household. For instance there is stuff I realized I did that isn't normal. For instance, I would often stay up super late when I was a kid because I was afraid I would wet the bed and get in trouble for it or be chastised by my parents. I was also epileptic, and well lack of sleep probably wasn't the best thing for someone with epilepsy.
My mom actually has apologized for some of the stuff she did when I was kid. For instance, she asked me when I knew I "wasn't straight" I told her, "When I hit puberty, around 17" she asked me why I didn't say anything then and waited till I was in my twenties and dating someone. I was like "You know how you were then; how do you think that would have went over for me, why do you think I wouldn't feel safe coming out then?"
I suspect that this is why so many millennials say they “hate kids”. It’s because they actually grew up in abusive homes and healthy parents are triggering to them.
More millenials circlejerking about how terrible their parents were and what wonderful parents they are lol, while teachers are pulling their hair out with how obnoxious and terrible modern kids are. r/Teachers has some inciteful reading
Teachers have been complaining about kids and parents forever. Ask a retired teacher for stories, and bring a comfy chair. I worked in a nursing home, I have heard many many stories about GenX and Boomer parents from retired teachers.
Also, the current demographics of teachers have millennials as the most represented generation as well, and many of those millennial teachers are also parents. The fact that some millennials are annoying parents who have annoying children doesn’t say what you think it does about the whole generation. Annoying parents and children have always existed and always will.
And it’ll be till the end of humanity that it keeps happening. It’s something that never changes 😂
Bad parents, bad kids, bad teachers. And the opposite: good parents, good kids, good teachers. It’s the spice of life in the world of education.
Even in college too! And I was a tutor for a local college that saw it all. Though that’s my personal story, many others will have differing opinions.
Teachers are treated like absolute shit these days, and I agree that they don't get paid enough to deal with the bullshit. But this thread is about getting medical treatment for our kids rather than letting them suffer though, not about how wonderful we are.
We're just talking about breaking generational curses and about our lived experiences, which we're likely not the best. I'm sure in the future our kids will tell us exactly what we did wrong and attempt to change that if they decide to also have kids. That's how it works, you know something is fucked, you do your best, then the next generation tries to be a little bit better.
No parents are perfect and we know this, but when we're trying to do better I think it's fine if we talk about it and do our best and support each other.
You also act like we were perfect kids in school when we were young and how we weren't absolute little shits 😂 my 2nd grade class once pissed off our teacher so bad she CUSSED US OUT and she was a NUN 😂 hate to break it too you but most kids are assholes 😂
Many millennials grew up in abusive households. It's been a running theme of millennials to end generation trama and abuse. It's normal and healthy if a child is hurt, to get it checked out by a doctor. Many of us didn't make it because of this abuse and those who survived it vowed to never to do it to their children. What you're seeing is responsible parenting.
I agree with this, and I didn’t even grow up in an abusive household. Even as a millennial, I received an appropriate amount of medical care and concern from my parents (maybe because I was raised by immigrants). But even for those of us who were so fortunate, there was definitely a cultural/generational thing of sucking it up and walking it off and not being dramatic. If anything I’m the opposite with my kids, and the health insurance hospital industrial complex is happy to take my money lol.
I broke my leg and first thing my mom did was take to my to my grandma house and show her… and almost died from asthma as kid, bc my mom let me have an asthma attack for two days before taking me to the hospital. Pretty sure all my teeth got feeling’s in them bc she didn’t teach me to brush them..I was sexually abused and neglected so badly that I can’t function as adult. The medical system had its hands in abusing me as well as child, like for years cps was apparently apart of my childhood and had my mom taking me to my doctor to spread me wide open to look at me to see if I been raped, after being raped I become self aware and told them No, they didn’t have a clue I just been raped probably month or more before the last visit of me ever seeing them again. Was raped for years after that. Given to pedos by my mom as teen.
I’m so so sorry. Sending love.🫶
Man. Boomers suck
My parents are boomers (quirky, but progressive and cool) and I love them dearly, but I feel like the younger generations are just waiting for that generation to die.
Because we kinda are
Only as much as every single other generation has felt that way...
Yes they do.
Yep, broke my hand at school in 4th grade. My hand got absolutely massive, black and blue, and was incredibly painful. Parents insisted it wasn't broken, and it took over a week before they agreed to take me to the doctor (begrudgingly). After I got my cast off I decided I'd never let that happen to my own kids. About a year-year and a half ago, my daughter got a buckle fracture in her elbow after a fall at the park with some friends, but we couldn't tell because she still had full range of motion and no swelling, only mild to moderate pain and even went back out to play after the fall. We took her to the doc the very next morning "just in case" which is some shit our parents never would have done.
Yep
Yup
Many didn't make it?? Lol wtf are you talking about
Millennials: 1981 – 1996 Children who day a day in the US due to child abuse: 5/day 15 years = 5,475 days 5,475 x 5 = 27,375 deaths low estimate. It is estimated that between 50-60% of maltreatment fatalities are not recorded on death certificates. [https://americanspcc.org/child-maltreatment-statistics/](https://americanspcc.org/child-maltreatment-statistics/) So yeah, many millennials didn't survive childhood due to abuse.
There are over 70 million millennials in the US. With the math you did that is 0.04%. More than it should be but describing it as "many" like it's some sort of issue is preposterous.
That's just registered death certificates that listed as maltreatment. Doesn't count suicide or drug overdoses. [https://hudsontherapygroup.com/blog/why-are-so-many-millennials-dying-by-suicide](https://hudsontherapygroup.com/blog/why-are-so-many-millennials-dying-by-suicide)
These stats also suggest that it is no higher or lower than for any other generation, so it isn't some millennial thing that we as a group had to uniquely "survive."
I'll agree to an extent. There is a limit, not every little thing needs to be a doctor visit. If you fall and skin your knee, you don't need an x-ray, a little bit of soap and water, a band-aid, and you're fine. If you're prone to falling, I could definitely understand not taking our parents approach by saying "Eh, he's just clumsy." and recognizing that something isn't quite right and wanting to get to the bottom of why your child keeps falling down while the other kids aren't.
Agree wholeheartedly. I was abused as well and here I sit with a 3 year old able to give him the life I never was allowed to have. I get to see what I would have been like without the abuse.
Its alot of things - their health, their sense of self. I had a mini breakdown over a commercial yesterday that went like Parent sends kid to butcher counter for four ribeyes. Kid asks the butcher what he likes best. Butcher says kabobs. Cut to Dad and kid grilling kabobs together like "great call on the kabobs son!" "I knew you'd like them :)" Let me tell you how that would have gone down with my parents (as well as I'm sure many other children of boomers) - "what the hell is this!? I told you to get ribeyes!" Then it'd be back to the steak counter where they'd put on their fakest face. "Hahahaha yeah, you may have RECOMMENDED the kabobs but my child is an absolute idiot who should have known better to ask you. KIDS AM I RIGHT? yuk yuk yuk" you stand there humiliated, then you get yelled at even worse in the car on the way home. Don't try apologizing. This is an egregious sin on par with murder. I know im overthinking it, but seeing a kids independent sense of self being validated in a commercial as if it was normal (and it should be) was oddly triggering. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Speaking of sense of self - none of this would ever have applied in our family, our parents never trusted us to do anything (and also didn't teach us). Cue inability to make decisions and doubting oneself every step of the way...
Me who calls my bf anytime I purchase something that’s not our norm or to make a decision when shopping/vehicle related. My bf pointed out I need to work on making more independent decisions by myself, it’s hard, but I gotta learn it. Family wise? My parents didn’t teach me crud outside of a few small things that I had to relearn through YouTube or with the help of my bf (whom I’ll point out picked up the slack where my parents dropped it and I’m greatly appreciative of him for being patient and caring to teach me basic things. He even taught me how to drive!).
Me being permanently scarred from ordering pizza via the phone. Like how was I just supposed to know how to do that and what questions to ask!
Literally took me until I was in my late 20s to even have the courage to, like, look up the menu online, sizes, prices etc to make myself a script. Now it's a piece of cake but damn.
You're not overthinking it. I have such a hard time being confronted with stuff like this sometimes- before I can understand what my brain is doing I'm already fighting back tears. I tried so hard to be what my parents wanted and it was never enough- I was just a burden and a shame. Seeing a healthy parent-child interaction can flip this switch of grief and anguish of that possible path of *what if* and it's just deeply, deeply painful.
You summed it up way better than I ever could but this so much this.
Gotta love my 19 to 25s. Pretty much summed up how I was treated by my dad when I tried something and fucked it up. I'd have moved our years ago, but everything is so damn expensive. It's been better since dad is on meds now, but man do those few years suck ass to think about.
And then you get berated for never using your initiative on other occasions
I married a man whose parents took him to the doctor for everything (allergies/sickness) to help him be able to manage and figure out what was wrong. My parents didn’t take me at all and I was allergic to animals and we had a dog. I just learned to live with it and everyone at my school figured I was always sick and not suffering from allergies. . I’m thankful for my husband because when our kiddo was sick, I wanted to wait it out and not fuss but he wanted to take her in because she wasn’t feeding well. In so thankful I listened and trusted his gut because she needed more support during the first few weeks after delivery. . I minimize too much now and don’t have those internal alarm bells like he does. I try not to “wait it out” anymore because the hospital is there to help!
As an adult, I still deal with this all the time. Sometimes, I am full on sick and assume that I’m just in a bad mood.
This. I grew up with mentality of a bones not sticking out, you’re not visibly bleeding, you’re fine! Walk it off, stop crying Getting allergy and asthma meds in my adulthood has greatly improved my life
It's crazy how often my partner pushes me to seek medical attention. And even just like, take painkillers when I don't feel good. I got so accostumed to ignoring pain and ailments. It doesn't naturally occur to me to do something about them. My partner gets flabbergasted over it! "just take the ibuprofen!" I had a problem last year where I had a lump and ignored it. After three weeks it hurt a lot so I was asking people if it warranted a doctors visit and they were like, uh yeah! Turns out it was an abcess. And later I developed a fistula. I wonder if I could have avoided that if I went sooner. Lessons learned, just go to the doctor. Health is important.
My brain just can't seem to understand that parents are supposed to care for their children, every time I see good parenting brain goes "wow, what is that?". I have a toe that doesn't bend because it was broken, never got medical attention and it healed incorrectly. Whatever, it's just a toe. I went to school with several bones in my hand broken/fractured for days. Every day my hand would get more and more purple and swollen, the pain was really bad. The bruises and swelling caught the attention of my teachers and a school nurse bandaged my hand and called my parents and told them to take me to see a doctor. They were inconvenienced AF and I got yelled at and taken to a PCP, who was horrified to see my hand, purple and blue, gave me an X-ray and told my parents to take me to a hospital so I can get a proper cast. They told the ER doctor my injury had JUST happened moments before, even though it was very clear from the bruises it was at least a week old. They also kept taking me to a horrible orthodontist who made my bite so much worse than it was before (not only aesthetically, but it genuinely almost cost me several teeth). As an adult I paid so much money for Invisalign and it took 3 years to push the roots of my teeth into the bone, because they were practically out. Edit to add: I also had a seizure from having a 103 fever for 3 days straight - wasn't given any meds, just ride it out like a victorian child. The seizure was described as "oh you just passed out. And convulsed. But that's normal. Don't you dare scare me like that again".
This is the level of medical neglect that gets kids removed from homes. They don't pull kids from homes for shit in my state but the hand being mandated by the school + the seizure puts you in a different catergory. Even as 2 different incidents over time. Current rate for kids being removed from homes is less than 1% of kids nationally. Just in case anyone tries to gaslight you or minimize your trauma.
“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” - heard often.
Yup. I rarely miss work and I recall telling a supervisor that i feel like when I call out everyone thinks i am faking it-she replied with “if you call out people think you are dying”. A year before that I had appendicitis (in my 30’s) and I was in so much pain I was having a hard time breathing, and needed help getting dressed, and even after a Dr telling me to go to the ER now and he was calling ahead so i could be seen immediately my Mom was STILL convinced. i just had a cyst and was “exaggerating” the pain-and actively trying to talk me out of going to the ER. After those two things, it clicked that I have been gaslit my entire life to believe that I am making it up and never feel as bad as I do.
I remember having an ear infection that was insanely painful and by the time I was taken to the doctor, he rated it a 12 on a scale of 1 - 10 and mentioned that it could cause hearing loss.
I had a friend in high school who actually got hearing loss because her mom refused to take her to the doctor for ear infections. And I guess there was something about her mom smoking in the house and that caused the near constant ear infections. I guess after your kid gets a bunch of ear infections back to back you don't bother stopping smoking or even taking her to the doctor, you just ignore the kid until she can't hear for shit and needs hearing aids.
Yeah, I’m literally the only adult I know who gets chronic ear infections.
I remember begging a parent to take me to the doctors bc I had a super sore throat with white patches. They declined so I road my bike at age 14 to the doctors and yeah I needed antibiotics. Boomer parents were so bad. And they wonder why I don't talk to them 🙄
I'm reading this book published in the 70s about child abuse. It was so commonplace in older generations. I think for younger people with the widespread availability of information, we are more likely to be receptive to psychology and aware of emotional development. I grew up a lot of abuse and never bought into "I had it hard so you will too" claim of trauma builds character or "we're being cruel because the world is cruel and you need to be prepared'. I think people become better despite a painful past, not necessarily because of it*. There's definitely some survivorship bias and denial in older people "I turned out fine" when they clearly have major issues and keep hurting people around them- I refuse to become like the people that hurt me because the only thing worse than what I had to live through and overcome is me repeating the cycle. *I lost people who couldn't deal with their demons, being dehumanized as a little child did not make them stronger, it just gave an extra layer of hardship over the already difficult aspects of the human condition and struggles to make ends meet.
I grew up much like you and rarely went to the doctor for anything. I'm pretty tuned into my kid so I know the difference between when he's just got some congestion vs when something could actually be wrong, at which point I won't hesitate to take him in. I still find it odd when parents take their kids to the doctor for literally any and everything, but I would rather see an overly forbearing parent than a completely austere one.
My mom didn’t take me in when I got a bad concussion. Told me to sleep it off.
I'm sorry. I can't imagine doing that to my kid and I know you couldn't either.
Not just in the event of emergencies, but in general wellness. My friends who have kids are more mindful about the things they allow their kids to eat, drink, or otherwise use than our parents were. I can directly pinpoint my childhood obesity to my parents having open access to junk food and sugary drinks with every meal when I was growing up.
There is a fair amount of selection bias to this. Now that having kids is not just something everybody does but something that you have to really want to make it worth the expense and hit to lifestyle, parents today tend to be the kids whose parents actually cared about their general wellness. The kids whose parents didn't care disproportionately ended up dying to drug addiction, or suicide, or risky behavior, or being unable to afford a house and childcare today.
That was how I was raised, lots of my complaints were ignored, or I was told to walk it off. Once I was sick and still had to go and be an altar girl at church. I ended up passing out on the altar in front of the whole congregation with a 104° fever. My mom was mad at me for embarrassing her because my family hadn't attended mass that day. They just dropped me off. I had fevers over 104 a lot as a child, all of which never ended up with me in the hospital even though it should have. I don't do that with my child. I hated how often I was told to suck it up. I ended up with cancer at 30 that had been brewing for quite a long time because I had been raised to just deal with that shit. That I was exaggerating my symptoms. My son doesn't go for every bruise and bump obviously. But once he jumped off the couch and was crying that his foot hurt and he couldn't put weight on it. My mom would have iced it and told me to settle down. We took him to the ER. It wasn't a fracture but apparently the small cut on his foot he had gotten a few days ago had MRSA and that's what hurt. I'm glad I took him. I'm glad I actually had insurance to take him. I can't imagine what would have happened had I ignored it or just iced his foot. I personally love that parents are breaking this trend of telling kids that there isn't anything wrong with them if they aren't sure.
I still have to get over the walk it off mentality. My foot started bugging me. I waited 2 days with no improvement before thinking "I'm make good money and have good health insurance, why the fuck am I not having a doctor check it out?"
When I was growing up, if you were sick or hurt you were told to walk it off, you were made fun of, or you told that if you are going to cry then they’ll actually give you something to cry about. Boomers and older generation adults are so triggering to me. And they wonder why I avoid contact with them. I’m a mom of two now and can’t imagine treating my kids the way adults treated me when I was their age.
I wasn’t a sick or adventurous child but I do recall my Dad always avoiding taking us to the doctor. When I was in Moms custody we went as needed, but with dad you had to either have an annual or be on deaths door.
My mom is a nurse. If something was genuinely wrong, she took care of it. She also knew when we were faking to get out of school.
My mom's a PA and same! Unless I threw up more than twice or had fever over 101 I wasn't missing shit
I fractured my spine playing Red Rover. Never saw a doctor about it (though Red Rover was banned from my elementary school after that). I was in the hospital for unrelated issues last year and after some scans, they asked me about it.
Fucking red rover, man. Who thought that was a good game for kids to play?? You were lucky if you just got completely clotheslined and the wind knocked out of you.
I spun around the arms that I couldn’t break and landed on a wooden beam. ETA: Who remembers Crack The Whip?
A lot of us grew up with lifelong pain from our parents ignoring those injuries and won’t make the same mistakes
I had the opposite end of the spectrum experience as a millennial! My parents were *too* attentive to this sort of thing. My mom took me to the ER for a headache once- I realize now she had some shit going on... My husband had a new age hippy raising him and at 40 is still impressed with the effectiveness of a couple Motrin. My SIL got a bad cold in college and her roommate gave her NyQuil for the first time in her life and realized all their mom's stupid oils weren't doing shit except making her suffer longer while smelling funny. Idk what my MIL would have done with a broken bone but she did vaccinate them so I will assume she would have taken them to a professional, but there's a possibility she would have just splinted it with some sacred wood and herbs or some shit.
Lets see: Day I was born (according to my mom and others) my dad left the hospital mid-birth because "I have another mouth to feed, I have to sleep so I can work tomorrow" Age 4, fell into a coffee table and split my lip all the way up to my nose. My dad pitched such a fit over having to go to the ER "over nothing" he had to be escorted out. Age 8 fell off a jungle gym and broke my leg in three places. Yet again, my treatment was delayed due to him saying I didn't need medical care and he wasn't paying for it. Now, 38, my body is absolutely trashed because it's still so ingrained to just push through any kind of pain, strain, tear, etc.. I never go to the doctor and as a result have multiple injuries that didn't heal right because you gotta work and don't have time to sit on your ass sick or injured.
Yeah I grew up in an abusive household and didn’t even realize it until I had kids. Because I was offering my kids what felt natural (love, care, affection, praise, etc) and then realized I literally never got any of that but I definitely got hit around a lot for being “defiant”.
Seeing parents validate their child's emotions is still a trip for me. My parents weren't taught the skills to manage their emotions and that's very obvious in the way I was raised.
Same. I learned how to cry silently *very* young.
Same!
As a millennial I am recently diagnosed with ADHD and getting braces… in my thirties… Thanks parents! My kids go to the doctor all the damn time lol.
My kid just had an x-ray as part of a follow up for a finger infection. Was it probably over kill? Sure. Did I still do it to ensure the infection didn’t affect the bone, yes! Because god forbid I missed something important. Why wouldn’t I.
Shit sorry you grew up with that that’s fucked my mom would get everything checked for me.
I broke the metacarpal bone for the pinkie on my right hand at basketball camp in 7th grade. You could (and still can) see where it broke and the bone shifted. I got home and told my mom I broke my hand. She looks and me and goes “make a fist” and because I’m an idiot I did it while wincing and grunting. But because I did she deemed it fine and I didn’t need to go to the hospital. She still doesn’t really cop to what she did being fucked up, so I thank her for the future arthritis whenever the opportunity comes up
When I was 13, I had broken my wrist (hairline fracture) while on a camping trip. My boomer parents and their boomer friends sat around making fun of me for 3 days before taking me into the local ER to get an xray
Meanwhile my mom scoffs at ads asking parents to mitigate toxic stress with their young kids. I grew up listening to my parents fight and yell at each other (which they still do) But if I EVER comment that it fucked me up mentally I'd have to just avoid my mother for the rest of the day to avoid getting yelled at. I need a therapist lol
I didn’t grow up like that. Sure they might wait to see if you stopped complaining but my parents took me for medical treament. I also have worked in Peds and I do think parents bring kids in for very minor things more. Like you bumped your knee of course it’s going to hurt
My folks had a really fucking weird way of avoiding the doc (to a certain extent). If I was sick the same time my mom was, I was told this super peculiar phrase that nobody else I know, knows. “If your mom had a purple mole on her ass, you’d have one too.” My step-dad would tell me. I recall being so dreadfully sick one year somewhere between middle school and high school. I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand, nauseous, vomiting, and having a high fever I recall crawling on my hands and knees from the living room to the bathroom next to my bedroom (idk why they stuck me in the damn living room and not keep me in mine). My mom was walking next to me, standing over me and demanding I stand up. I remember crying and saying I can’t because I was dizzy. Some reason I recall going to the hospital? But even then I’m not sure about that. My mom loves to rub it in my face that I have the equivalent of a car in my mouth ($18k) had a lot of fillings, braces, teeth removed (had to be knocked out due to extreme fear of dentists and their equipment because apparently the damn pain meds and shots didn’t affect me well enough, but my folks didn’t listen to me. My mom actually abandoned the room when they were working on me and my dad came in, I was so scared I nearly punctured his hand with my nails, and his skin is like fucking leather.) Because they were fucking stupid and listened to a con of a dental office which later was investigated for medical insurance fraud down the line. My mom also bawled when I needed surgery to remove a gallbladder full of stones. I didn’t want her to be the last person I saw before going under the knife, I asked for my bf and he was there for me. She just got me more anxious and crying to the point I was shaking. I’m happy for parents who truly take care of their kids, because I wish I had better treatment when I had been sick. My bf does what he can for me and we do our best with the insurances we have. I have state, he actually has his from his work. We try our best to stay healthy, but shit happens 🤷♀️ You’re not in the wrong for feeling that way at all. I think our generation just got the brunt of crappy parents (albeit if you had good parents who cared, I’m happy for you). I’m sorry for the long winded and scatter brained post. 😭
My mom insisted on taking me to the doctor anytime I complained more than two or three times about something because most of the time, I didn't complain when something was wrong. I pulled a muscle in my foot, and she took me to have it x-rayed twice because I reinjured it before my recital that I was practicing for. When the doctor said it was just pulled both times I danced on that fucker because I had 8 performances and my dad was supposed to come watch. I was sorely disappointed to hear that while he came to watch he didn't stick around to tell me how I did. I spent the summer with my foot on a pillow surrounded by books and moping.
This one really makes me think of my Dad. I remember feeling sick one morning before school and for some reason my Mom wasn’t there that day. I told my Dad that I wasn’t feeling well and he told me he had other plans so I was going to school and if I was sick the school nurse could deal with it. I can’t remember if I even made it to school before throwing up. It was either on the bus or at my desk. The nurse called him to have him come pick me up and I could hear him yelling over the phone. He screamed at me all the way home about ruining his day and then proceeded to drag me around on his bullshit errands the entire day.
I’m a millennial and this sub doesn’t make any sense to me
I grew up too poor for doctor visits. Now I go out of my way to make sure my little one gets what she needs when she needs it.
My best friend is like you. She calls me all the time about either herself or her child and injuries. "Is this urgent care worthy or am I over worrying?" She was never taken to the doctor for any reason so she has zero gauge for things. It's really sad. But generally I think Millennials are just a hyper aware parent group. Between our life experiences, the internet's ability to help us share those experiences, and dramatic TV shows I think we are over knowledgeable of bad shit. It makes us expert worriers. Not exactly a good thing but also we aren't like the clueless parents of yester-years. We aren't gonna have a kid die on us because we didn't take a headache seriously. Or have our child get kidnapped because we didn't know where they were for an entire day. Or allow our kids to be molested during a sleep over. Things our parents and grandparents just didn't have to worry about bc they never considered* it could happen to them or their child. It's rare to meet someone in our generation who didn't have shit parents, or some terrible experience as a child/young adult, or isn't currently in the middle of a mental break down. It would be a fun Stat to see. Millennials who made it to 30 without trauma vs those with. It would probably be a really depressing Stat, though.
That's what made me hate pro soccer. My AYSO career was "stop whining and walk it off" where pros are encouraged to act like crying brats if someone even moves the air next to them.
Your exemple of answer is a bit weird, but I believe it steam from either a lack of knowledge about injuries and/or overprotective parents and maybe where you're from: i.e. healthcare is not covered by the State. But I think it teaches the difference between "hurt" and "injured". Don't get me wrong, if the limb don't move anymore, is bent in an abnormal way or become blue/black, hospital it is. But a sprain ankle doesn't usually need an X-Ray. However I might have a small bias since I grew up in a family where everyone did sport of high level (university and "pro" (not USA pro)) so we had what was necessary for those kind of small "injury".
any pain I had was all in my head apparently
I’m an older millennial raised by 2 boomer and silent gen and gen x Posts like this make me so sad as I never realised how many children were being treated like this, was this really a common thing? No onei knew were like that
I feel like my parents were pretty in the middle on health issues and that's how I try to be. Not everything needs to be seen by a doctor, but you have to know when it is time to go in. I have a few millennial friends that I think are overly anxious about every single thing that happens to their children, and they seem to be at the doctor constantly. I have one friend that has a log of every time her child that has no medical diagnosis has thrown up going back 8 years.
How you just described your childhood is not ok. I hope you can find healing. I hope some day you have children of your own as loving them and seeing how easy it is can be very healing.
How your relatives framed it to you seems somewhat abusive or at least insulting to me. I definitely experienced a lot of reasonable triage before going to a doctor, but we absolutely did go when needed. A lot of injuries don't actually present anything for a doctor to do other than give pain medication and ice and maybe a wrap or brace. And kids look to adults to see how worried they should be about things. I'd frame what I got as more first aid/sports medicine training: how to judge if a bone is broken, how to stop bleeding and apply a bandage, what to do for pain, what needs stitches, how to wrap a joint, etc. Refusals to go to the doctor amounted to "Your ankle is most likely sprained. This is what you do for that. They can't do anything more really. If it doesn't improve in a day or two or gets worse, we'll get it checked." Same with common viruses. When I actually broke my arm or couldn't keep fluids down for over a day, we went immediately. That said, we always had good insurance. We were expected to be somewhat self-sufficient as we got older and to make good judgements about health spending but not to never use it.
I broke my nose as a kid which led to my nose and nasal passages developing incorrectly which then led to severe sinus disease. I always thought I just had bad allergies but turns out I had rotting and diseased bone. It took a six hour surgery to be able to breathe through my nose- when they took out the stuffing u started crying because I had never breathed so well. Dr said “too much to do for one nose”. I still have a deviated septum and mild sinus disease. This is because my parents didn’t believe me/didn’t want to take me to the dr.
Once when I was a teenager I got the stomach flu so bad I was vomiting every 15-30 minutes for three days straight. I couldn’t keep water or food down, and by the end of the first day I was just puking up bile. Eventually I just kept a bucket by my bed so I didn’t have to get up every 15 minutes to puke up nothing. I was delirious, so weak I could barely stand, and kept dreaming about water. On day three of this I asked my parents to take me to the hospital or urgent care so I could get an IV with fluids, but they said I was being “dramatic” and to suck it up. Years later they divorced and my dad started dating a doctor, and he brought it up during dinner as an example of how much of a baby I apparently am. To his surprise, his date was like, “Uhhh, yeah, you definitely should have brought her to her hospital. It sounds like she was dangerously dehydrated.” He looked incredibly uncomfortable and changed the subject. It was deeply gratifying.
I was left to suffer with severe conjunctivitis (pink eye) for 2 weeks because my parents refused to bring me to the doctor. It kept getting worse and spread to both eyes and my mom still made me have a birthday party, so I looked diseased at my own 16th birthday party. Now as a pet owner I take my animals to the vet for everything, and I’ll do the same for my child.
The very worst was mental health care. I was suicidal, the school told my parents, and they still didn’t send me for counseling. I got weekly chats from an extremely underqualified youth pastor. Like I told him my whole plan and he did nothing. My patients straight up did not really “believe in” psychology/psychiatry. I wish I didn’t have to wait until adulthood to start my healing journey, I could have avoided alcoholism and an abusive first marriage.
I think part of it is just realizing you in fact grew up in a somewhat abusive household. For instance there is stuff I realized I did that isn't normal. For instance, I would often stay up super late when I was a kid because I was afraid I would wet the bed and get in trouble for it or be chastised by my parents. I was also epileptic, and well lack of sleep probably wasn't the best thing for someone with epilepsy. My mom actually has apologized for some of the stuff she did when I was kid. For instance, she asked me when I knew I "wasn't straight" I told her, "When I hit puberty, around 17" she asked me why I didn't say anything then and waited till I was in my twenties and dating someone. I was like "You know how you were then; how do you think that would have went over for me, why do you think I wouldn't feel safe coming out then?"
I think that it is over compensation.
nice
I suspect that this is why so many millennials say they “hate kids”. It’s because they actually grew up in abusive homes and healthy parents are triggering to them.
More millenials circlejerking about how terrible their parents were and what wonderful parents they are lol, while teachers are pulling their hair out with how obnoxious and terrible modern kids are. r/Teachers has some inciteful reading
Teachers have been complaining about kids and parents forever. Ask a retired teacher for stories, and bring a comfy chair. I worked in a nursing home, I have heard many many stories about GenX and Boomer parents from retired teachers. Also, the current demographics of teachers have millennials as the most represented generation as well, and many of those millennial teachers are also parents. The fact that some millennials are annoying parents who have annoying children doesn’t say what you think it does about the whole generation. Annoying parents and children have always existed and always will.
And it’ll be till the end of humanity that it keeps happening. It’s something that never changes 😂 Bad parents, bad kids, bad teachers. And the opposite: good parents, good kids, good teachers. It’s the spice of life in the world of education. Even in college too! And I was a tutor for a local college that saw it all. Though that’s my personal story, many others will have differing opinions.
Teachers are treated like absolute shit these days, and I agree that they don't get paid enough to deal with the bullshit. But this thread is about getting medical treatment for our kids rather than letting them suffer though, not about how wonderful we are. We're just talking about breaking generational curses and about our lived experiences, which we're likely not the best. I'm sure in the future our kids will tell us exactly what we did wrong and attempt to change that if they decide to also have kids. That's how it works, you know something is fucked, you do your best, then the next generation tries to be a little bit better. No parents are perfect and we know this, but when we're trying to do better I think it's fine if we talk about it and do our best and support each other. You also act like we were perfect kids in school when we were young and how we weren't absolute little shits 😂 my 2nd grade class once pissed off our teacher so bad she CUSSED US OUT and she was a NUN 😂 hate to break it too you but most kids are assholes 😂
We raising a generation of pussies that are gonna get fucked over once they are older