fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4243 ]

[ SECRET POST #4243 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4243 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #607.
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Quite lovely, in my opinion. They had us late (four of us) - my littler brother was born when my mom was 37 and my dad was 45. They both grew up during the Depression, my dad was at Normandy on D-Day (medic in the Navy), and they both worked in health care.

They were fun and pretty open minded about a lot of things, encouraged reading and crafty stuff, would talk to us, answer questions, etc. None of that 'sit down and shut up' business.

Just...really good people, that most everyone really liked. My dad's been gone ten years, and I miss him every day. My mom lives with my sister and I'm plotting a visit.

Such a complicated question. I was severely bullied, and home was all I ever had. So I am super close to them. And yet, as I've grown up, my eyes have been opened. And they have a lot of issues. And they're very homophobic, so I can't share that part of me. And they are pretty controlling. I don't think they quite know how to deal with an adult child. So, complicated.

They did their best. My dad didn’t want kids because he believed humans were destroying the planet and it was irresponsible to make more, he and my mom were both addicts, my mom wanted kids so she’d have someone to love her and she could fulfil her role as a housewife, and I could bore a therapist to death for years, but knowing my friends it could’ve been a whole lot worse.

They loved me, didn’t believe in corporal punishment or compulsory religious belief, and both did their best to spend lots of time with me even though I was kind of weird in ways that didn’t mesh with their (very different from each other as well) ways of being weird. And I never went hungry or anything like that.

SA—I should say that this was when I was a kid—the cracks were starting to show by the time I was in my teens as their addictions got worse. My dad went totally off the rails and died when I was in my twenties and my mom died last year of cancer and booze.

Pretty good ones, but with some really outdated ideas. They both doted on me and my sisters and, even though we were poor, did everything to make us comfortable. They just didn't understand things like the importance of mental health and how being gay wasn't a choice and cautioned me from being friends with a classmate because she had bipolar disorder and was a lesbian. They're heaps better about it now and treat my friend like she's part of the family, but it took years and lots of heated discussion to get them to that point.

Hoo boy.

I remember my mother being mostly lovely when I was young, though she had some weird habits and quirks. She was an artist and I probably wouldn't have ever picked up art if it hadn't been for her, so I have to thank her for that. In hindsight, she was incredibly controlling and always tried to isolate the family/limit our contact with people. She homeschooled us which I enjoyed at the time, but she also wouldn't allow my brother or me out of the house alone, even as teenagers. My sister (her favourite) was allowed to go out/make friends.

She eventually took my sister (and all my dad's money) and ran away to Malta. We never heard from her again. We found out after that she'd been planning it for years and had made up false identities online for random men.

Without sounding cliche, my dad is the loveliest dad I could ever ask for. Just super kind, always gets on with people and thinks the best of them, with a wicked sense of humour. Put me and my brother through college after mother left, which never would have happened if she'd stayed. I have so much respect for how he dealt with everything (he admitted later he was suicidal for a good while after she left), I can't imagine what he must have gone through and he's still come out so generous, loving and just a blast to be around. I don't know where me or my brother would be now without him.

Sorry for that massive novel but it's a loaded question for me, lol.

Wooow. Every time I think of the weird or fucked up parts of my relationship with my parents, I think I’m gonna remember your mom. Holy shit, I’m sorry, and I’m glad your dad is so awesome.

Haha, thanks. The whole thing sounds so farfetched and surreal, when I met my best friend in college he thought I was making it up. We unearthed so much weird stuff about her after she left and it just kept getting weirder. My friend started using the term "drama onion" because it was like layer after layer of "what the fuck?"

It's tough to say. I'm autistic and my parents weren't prepped for that so they made their fair share of mistakes despite really wanting the best for me.

My mom was and still is, to an extent, is a helicopter parent, which kinda wrecked my sense of autonomy. My dad has a short temper and I'm stubborn as hell, so we've gotten in to a good deal of arguments over the years. But over all, they're both really caring people who look out for me and care for me. I could have gotten a whole lot worse.

Both of them grew up in very large, very poor single parent households. She grew up without a mother, he grew up without a father. Oddly, they were utterly suited for each other, and utterly unsuited to be parents.

My mother especially never got out of the need to be mothered, which meant that my childhood was all about making her happy by validating her opinions and her view of reality. ~ Add to this that everything that went wrong or upset her was my fault, and... yeah. I moved 500 miles away as soon as I was able, preferring to live alone in a big city than spend one more moment there. I've struggled for my entire adult life to overcome the shame and guilt I feel about expressing my own opinions on things, let alone my desires.

The kind with anger management issues. One died, the other was left behind to mistreat the children. No guidance, just assumed the schools would raise us. Also somehow heavily religious. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, even some financial abuse. Huge temper tantrums for reasons I don't even know. Always leaned on the kids instead of the other way around. Plenty moments of covert incest that became obvious into adulthood. Lots of isolation, no encouraging friendships, but plenty of bashing what few friends I did have. And bashing of the dead parent in front of me.

One kid managed to get out and marry into a relatively normal, sane family.

It took me so long to leave because of so many mixed messages. I was expected to manage things that surviving parent could manage for themselves, but at the same time, I was harshly criticized for not being independent. Yet when I tried to live my own life, it was rage and sabotage, and massive guilting when those didn't work. I haven't spoke to the parent in years, but they still pretend nothing is wrong. Denial is strong, I guess.

*anon above you offers a hug*

Sounds like we could start our own support group.

The best kind. They may have outdated views on some things but are glad that they raised us to be more open-minded than they are and would never care if either of us were gay/etc as long as we were happy. They're aware that their views are old fashioned on some things and are doing their best to be more progressive.

So fucking different from each other I can't lump them together at all. They got married because she wanted to start a family and I assume he wanted something to point at and take credit for. He's so narcissistic it would be comical if it wasn't so horrible. She was a real sweetheart and I can't fault her for not seeing the crazy until she was married to it.

I love them and they love me, but I have Asperger's and wasn't diagnosed until I was 36 and they really don't get me. I'm wildly different from them in a lot of ways and it confuses them, especially my mom.

Super indifferent mom with smoking and shopping addiction; super self-centered and basically only the the bare minimum to keep the kids clothed and fed (lots of canned food, second hand clothes - even though money was absolutely *no* issue!). she got severely sick with a brain bleed when i was sixteen and my relationship with her broke then. Took me 3 years of therapy to get over that. Havent talked to her in almost 4 years.

Regular kind-of-disconnected Dad. he tried his best, most of my fun childhood memories were with him. He went on day trips with us, took us out on the weekends on long walks, playgrounds etc. (today i realize it was their way of sharing kids responsibility - he was full time working during the week, so she had most of the kids-load then, and he had kids time on the weekends then). He always wanted the best for the kids and tried to give us the (reasonable) things my mom refused us. One year my mom didn't buy us any christmas gifts because of stupid reasons he was furious how she could do that to the kids. He then went out personally with my brother and me after the holidays to pick out some things. (It was not like our wishes were unreasonable, but she decided they were)

He had an alcohol problem tho and went to rehab when i was 13. he got it under control mostly (from first beer at 6am to "occasionally a beer to dinner"), but substituted with smoking.
He was physically abusive towards my brother, but never to me.
He died 2 years ago after years of sickness, and (careful, very unpopular opinion) if i could exchange my still living mom for more time with my dad, i'd do it without hesitation).

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[ SECRET POST #4243 ]

What kind of parents did you have?

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