With parents, sometimes they think they do the best for their children by keeping them safe or making choices for them, but it is controlling and a child then does not know how to live on their own.
Other times a parent is so caught up with their own problem (like divorce) and they do not see how much it is hurting their child.All they can think about is what they are going through, not their child and this can really haunt a child even when they are an adult.
I honestly think my parents just didn't care about what I was going through. If I had a child and the child came to me sincerely aged 13 and said "I am depressed," or "someone is trying to get me" I would be concerned. Deeply. My parents? They just didn't register it or something. I was a sensitive kid so I dropped it at that. It wasn't worth me repeatedly grovelling for attention and being told to get lost.
And there's no excuse for that in my eyes because my mother is a scientist, who makes her living doing rational calculations and coming to rational conclusions. So I have no idea why I got treated as though I didn't exist, I am guessing it was because I wasn't the problem child, I was usually good and therefore I was written off as something of less concern than everything else. But then this is also the mother that loved getting drunk and telling us we were all 'holding her back'. (From what, I don't know. Decorating the club floor, maybe?)
Hopefully nobody here has parents like that. The result is (as the child) you can never put your trust in them emotionally and you end up distant to protect yourself. Which I am. I haven't even spoken to her for 2 years and she never calls. Apathy (not hate) being the opposite of love, you can guess what I think. And I haven't been on proper speaking terms with my real father for over 15 years.
Eh, spent long enough in my life feeling sorry for the fact my parents didn't appear to want me, I'm over that and allowing it to get under my skin. It did cause problems though, so I agree with you, the damage even one uncaring gesture a parent could do at the wrong time can be huge to a kid.
Then there are parents who don't care. Those ones, I don't know why they had children if all they do is neglect and hurt.
As for me, I know my parents made mistakes, but as an adult I can see why they acted like they did and I understand. I think as children we see our parents as perfect, or we want to, but when they make a mistake or do something terrible, it shatters the image a child has.
Sometimes I wonder when we stop reacting to our parents and live for ourselves. I guess it must be hard if parents are controlling or they have left a child with bad memories. I guess parents just don't know how even the smallest thing could make their child be in therapy as an adult.
I firmly believe my parents were pretty selfish at times, they just can't see it (or else they can and they assume I'm going to pretend it never happened). My father took me away from my mother when I was 6 months old to upset her, (they were divorcing at the time, HATED each other and still do like no two people I've ever seen, and he wrangled for custody of me supposedly because it would be the worst thing he could do to her, aside from breaking her nose) and then three months later he met another woman and turned up at my mother's house to dump me back with her because this woman said she wouldn't have someone else's child in her house. Now that's what I call a father. Lol.
My mother I have more understanding for because she has certain disposition problems (anxiety, bipolar... I have anxiety too, probably inherited) but the difference between me and her is she drinks like a fish and gets violent and abusive. I can't accept that, it's cowardly and pathetic. Especially coming from someone who managed to make it from being a mother on social to a pretty prominent scientist in her field as she is now. If she can hold her mental problems in check for that job, she can hold them in check for me. Or else I will be the one to tell her to get lost, and it has happened quite a few times. If you've been brought up suffering that regularly, I guess you either brush it off or you come to really hate 'bad drunks' like I do.
Some people's parents' tendencies get passed on to their children like a cycle, but mine have just made me work harder to be exactly what they are not. Going on them, I wouldn't ever become a parent in a state of being horribly financially insecure, or even if I had unresolved mental problems like heavy depression. Other people like telling me 'nobody is born into the perfect situation' and I appreciate that, but at the same time it seems I picked up the psychological tab for my parents' actions. No way would I do that to someone else. Plus my genes are clearly awful.
They didn't care what I got up to at school, as long as I didn't bunk school, smoke, go to parties, or did anything whatsoever (like going to birthday parties and the park and a friends' house) where either they or my teachers were not in full view of me. Overprotective parents, go figure. Probably the worst relationship to have is one that is non-existant.
