#poor parenting

[ella-the-ella]

This has probably been done to death and taken as fact by now but... I thought this sums it up well

[31suitboots]

we need to talk about *inconsistent* authoritarian parenting.

everyone knows the story on authoritarian parenting at this point. "Do what I say", "Because I Said So", "Get good grades or else" and a lot of these times, disobeying these rules comes with physical punishment.

but we need to talk about the times it doesn't look like this!

my mother is an authoritarian parent, mostly standard model of it. she sees criticism as complete disrespect of her authority, blows up at it, she's your friend until she's not, then she's your Parent, stop questioning things. but she doesn't care about grades, she never gets physical with us, and i know for a fact she will never take away 'social privileges".

she teaches us to not believe everything we're told. she questions authority and makes (often offensive) jokes regarding politics. she will generally defend us and try to make sure we're alright.

it hurts when she's nice, because we all know that will not last, and she'll refuse to see what's wrong with her behavior. she outright said once that she has the *right* to yell and scream at us if she feels disrespected, and then of course you have the times where she's completely projecting, especially onto me.

but when she decides to be a good parent, she's a really fucking good parent. its distressing and confusing and i never hear about it anywhere which makes it 10x worse! it makes me feel alone and cut off, i can't find any articles or posts even mentioning this version. statistically i cannot be the only person to have an experience like this, so why does it feel like im the only one who does? ive never seen or heard anyone talk about it and i dont understand why it never appears in media of any kind.

sorry for this turning into a vent im just really upset about it

[jomiddlemarch]

Some may have blamed you that you took away

“I think Caitlin’s arm is broken,” Taggie said. Caitlin was tucked up on the ratty sofa in the sitting room, an afghan of some dim provenance wrapped around her. She was dozing after drinking the hot sugared tea Taggie had half-filled with brandy, a meager attempt at first aid for shock. It wasn’t much good, perhaps it wasn’t any good, because Taggie had never finished a first aid course, had never even been brought to Girl Guides, but neither of their parents was doing anything for Caitlin at the moment. Mum sat at the kitchen table, gazing off into the distance as if there weren’t a range and an emptied kettle breaking up the view and Da was pacing about, trying the phone every ten odd minutes, muttering under his breath with his mouth pursed like he tasted something terribly bitter.

The wind was still howling, not satisfied with having killed Monica. There was no rain, which seemed odd, just the wind battering and scraping at the Priory’s walls and windows, and Taggie supposed neither of her parents might have heard her over it. 

“Caitlin’s hurt, her arm’s broken,” Taggie said, raising her voice.

Neither of them looked at her.

“Da, listen to me. Caitlin’s arm is broken,” she said, grabbing her father’s forearm, making him pay attention. 

“What? She had some scrapes, that’s all. Poor Monica—” he broke off, lifting a hand to rub at his forehead. Taggie thought maybe she ought to pity him a little, maybe he’d had to see Monica in the car, maybe it had been gruesome, but she couldn’t find it in herself, pity or kindness like the last smear of drop of honey in the jar.

“Stop it! Caitlin’s the one who’s hurt,” she exclaimed.

“Monica’s dead, Taggie,” Mum said in the sort of acidic hiss that meant she was acting but also that she thought Taggie was a stupid eejit. There wasn’t a lightning bolt to make the point, but it came to Taggie, a whole thought, complete as an apple: Mum was a bad mother.

“And it might’ve been Caitlin, your own daughter, who you don’t seem to mind was dragged out into the storm for no reason. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to come home and she was safe there, with Archie,” Taggie said.

“What d’you mean, Tag?” Da asked. He was more ready to battle for his own, more apt to see insult, subtle or sly or close to invented, especially when it came to the Baddinghams. In the case of the Baddinghams, with the except of Bas, Da was usually right to expect an assault.

“Caitlin said she was fine there. She and Archie were sitting around, listening to records and finishing up the leftover pudding. Monica made her leave, insisted on taking Caitlin home. Monica’d already been out in the storm and she came back and then told Caitlin they were going,” Taggie said.

“The poor woman’s dead, Taggie,” Mum repeated.

“It could be Caitlin. And she’s hurt, you didn’t take any time to see if she was injured, you just brought her home and left Rupert to deal with Monica,” Taggie said.

“I’d call for an ambulance, but the phones aren’t working,” Da said. For once, he sounded like he had no idea what to do next. Like he was looking to Taggie for directions. Mum just sat at the kitchen table, winding a long lock of her coppery hair around two of her fingers, then letting it go. It was almost as if she’d never been frantic waiting for Caitlin to come home.

“We’ll have to wait until this storm clears up,” Taggie said. “It’s not safe to go back out there.”

“It can’t last much longer, now, can it?” Da said.

“I don’t suppose so. You two might as well go to bed, I’ll stay with Caitlin,” Taggie said. They’d be useless, each in their own way, and she didn’t fancy finding out how they’d do the next day on no sleep, a day when Tony Baddingham would have found out he’d lost his wife, Archie his mother. It was possible Rupert would come back to the Priory before dawn and he might need something. Cameron was enormously competent, but she wouldn’t know how to make a hot milky drink and simply be willing to sit with him while he drank it. There’d be some angle to consider and exploit about Monica’s death, Taggie didn’t expect Cameron would observe any niceties about condolences, at least not here. Taggie wondered, from time to time, when she was waiting for a batch of biscuits to bake or for a custard to set, how Cameron was with her own people back in the States. There had been one time when Taggie put down a dish of macaroni cheese and had seen an expression on Cameron’s face of disappointment and frustration, gone as quickly as one of Gertrude’s barks. 

“She’ll be fine,” Mum said. Da nodded and Taggie didn’t bother to answer. It hadn’t been meant for her. Mum was deciding how the scene would play, reassuring Da, since reassurance was what he wanted, reassurance and some return to how they’d looked at each other when she and Rupert had first come in from the storm.

“You’re good to look after her, Tag,” Da said. “Mind you wake us if she needs anything.”

“If I need anything? What a bloody joke,” Caitlin said, when Taggie repeated it to her in the morning, both of them sipping on mugs of black tea turned the color of a seashell with the last of the milk from the jug.

“Before, with Archie, was it okay?” Taggie asked. It seemed like a thousand years ago and she was still wearing Rupert’s jumper, the cuffs pushed up. She wanted it to smell like him, but it only had the scent of her own soap and the storm’s wind lingering in the crannies of the elaborate knitted pattern.

“It was nice,” Caitlin said, finally shy, looking down when Taggie raised her eyebrows at nice. “Archie’s nice, you wouldn’t think they could be his parents, they made us sit through the most dreadful meal and his mother—poor Monica—”

“After we get your arm sorted out, you could call him,” Taggie said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’ll want to hear from me today. If it were Mum, I don’t know if I’d want him calling me,” Caitlin said.

“But you’ve got me and Patrick and Da. He’s got his father and his younger sisters,” Taggie said. 

“He likes shortbread,” Caitlin said.

“I’ll make a batch, we can run it round. He’ll know you’re thinking of him,” Taggie said.

[ashootingsoren]

I will never not be mad at parents who had the means to, but didn't save up for their children's college/uni funding and then hit them with the "you can't study that. it's too expensive."... didn't you have 18 years to prepare for this?

now your child has to potentially change their life plans because you failed to plan for yourself?

sick and twisted concept if you ask me

[mugiwaerouma]

It is not my job, as a childless adult, to curate a safe space for children. It is not my  job to take into the consideration of kids on the Internet. You know whose job it IS? Their fucking parents.

How about, instead of them complaining that their kids are getting exposed to all this horrible shit, they actually parent their children and SET RESTRICTIONS ON THE INTERNET so those who are adults can fucking continue doing what they want so long as it isn’t hurting anybody. It’s like these dinosaurs have never heard of fucking parental controls. Or you know, setting restrictions for their kids PERSONALLY.

I am so fucking sick of censorship. I am not going to censor myself because some fucking kid decides to go on the Internet, look shit up, and then their parent blames it on the Internet at large rather than doing something about it themselves.

Jesus, talk about lazy fucking parents.

[the-dead-poet]

i love how my parents are always saying how over critical i am of myself like they aren’t the ones who caused it

[monsters-demons-and-heralds-ohmy]

Dean: "I figured out the most effective parenting technic."

Sam: (Internally: 'Oh Chuck please no.') "What...?"

Dean: "Any time Jack wants to do something I don't want him to do, I just mutter, 'that's exactly what an evil person would do...' "

[seasonallydefective]

Going off that post about learning social skills late ...

I had a friend who I’d asked to explain some faux-pas I’d made (that she had pointed out) because I didn’t understand where I’d gone wrong. her response was, “You should already know this. I’m not here to parent you.”

And like ...

If you have a PROBLEM and you’re gonna go to all the trouble to point it out, PLEASE just go the extra mile to help the person understand where they went wrong and what to do instead.

I’m in my 20s!! If I haven’t figured it out on my own by now, I’m probably not going to!

I need people to stop acting like someone being socially blind to something means they aren’t trying or they’re rude. It costs nothing to say, “You’re doing [X] and I need you to please do [Y].”