Your parents.

[Mojotronica]

I'm sure that you love your parents, but by adolescence you started realizing that they are human beings with flaws and shortcomings, some of which negatively impact your life. Sometimes they make decisions that are not in your best interest. Most teenagers believe that when a parent lays down a ground rule, it is not in their best interest -- but it often is.

Most people figure this out after they leave home, and appreciate their parents all the more for putting up with their whining.

But occasionally parents can be astoundingly self-centered or toxic to their children. Some would argue that prospective parents should have to take some kind of test to qualify to be a parent... But most people consider parenting to be a god-given right.

How were your parents? Mine were very loving, but not always nurturing. They were very lenient, but I was basically a good kid so I stayed out of trouble. My grades and college prospects could have been better, though...

Also my Dad has been a terrible underachiever his entire life, only now that he's nearing retirement age has he started working to have a nest egg to see him through. My Step-Dad and Mom have always been hard workers but they are also very extravagant spenders -- terrible savers.

I have fallen into some of the same traps as an adult -- although I feel that I have learned from our mistakes, and have at least done so long before they did...

I think of good parenting as having three aspects:

Loving -- this should be unconditional. A parent should love his or her children so much, that they put their child's interests ahead of their own.

Nurturing -- a parent should pay attention to their child, listening to them and protecting them, and indulging them when appropriate. They should allow their child to dream.

Disciplining -- a parent should not OVER-indulge their child. They should provide structure for the child's life. They should not OVER-discipline the child. They should channel the child's dreams, not squash them.

What do you think of your parents? Do you get along? Were/are they good parents? Did anyone out there have particularly bad parents? How have you coped?

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

My father has ADD ,wich make's him a really bad father.And since it's genetic ,i have it to ,and hyperkinitic children are very hard to bring up.
Obviously ,i never got a good relationship with my father ,for that reason's. He doesn't even know he has ADD ,luckily i recently found out.

But i know ,that ill probably be not a good father myself ,it's a very strange thing to cope with ,but it has it's advantage's to.

Maybe i should consider to never make kids.

 

[Immortal]

My father is the man who Red Forman from that 70's show is based upon, an iron fist dictator in the purest sense, and I love him all the same. He's a good man, and I don't blame him for being hard on my many siblings and I. he grew up in a broken home and his father died when he was 13, and my grandma married an abusive alcoholic. My dad left when he was 16.

My mom came from a more traditional Italian family, my grandparents on that side were very stern, very controlling people as well. And my mother is the same, but she's the best mom I have

 

[Eli]

Too nurturing during my early years and even now(just dont tell them ), but it didnt effect me much outside home. I'm very realistic.

My mother is always the more strict one, while my father is the one that basically lets me do whatever I want and feel right and learn from it. Thankfully his view almost always prevails, and it worked out quite well.

They're both hard working, and comparing to many other immigrants they did a great job in establishing themselves in Israel. At least work and money wise, culturally and mentally they'll be stuck forever in the Soviet Union.

My father is very childish at home, he's the most childish member of the family.

But they're ignorant. And for me it's very painful. I spend a lot of efforts on learning(not school type learning, but general knowledge, understanding the world, understanding history, etc) and I value knowledge above almost everything, but both of them are just ignorant... Especially my father. Beyond they're jobs and basic life experience things adults need to know and I didnt have the chance to learn yet(how to do stuff in banks, where to fix the car, etc), they're empty.

Overall, they're great, I love them. But often when they ask something I just stare at them with disbelief and return to whatever I was doing.

 

[Smaasnekje]

Since I live in the basement, and only come up to eat food, or watch my younger brother, I would say that we get along well.. My mother is a somewhat nitpick, it seems like she have dust on her brain, or perhaps its just me beeing a lazy slob(i think its that), anyway, we can talk about things, even though not essential things...

My father, i get along with well just as i do with my mother, he seems to know what I'm going thru at this time, as he went through the same when he was a youth.. And he is also a part time substitute teacher, so he isnt that suprized about many of the things i have done..

they give me restrictions about how long I can stay out(2AM) and stays up untill i'm home, just to see if im safe (and not raving drunk ), if I am going to something they drive me, and pick me up if its neccesary.. As I am their first child and the first born boy on both sides, they can seem very protective, but not too much.

My parents are helping, and I can talk to them(even though there are things that i wont even consider telling them), and I wouldnt trade them for anybody.

 

[Ancient Grudge]

My father descibed in one word ARSEHOLE another word DICKHEAD another word PRICK

My mum has basically bought me up on her own the whoel of my life she is my mum and dad she is loving caring and enforces disciplien and im not ashamed to say it i love her

 

[Ohwell]

I have no memories of my father, because he died when I was seven. I do remember that he was fairly lax and lenient, and he always tried to teach me new things. I attribute many of my better qualities to him because of what he taught me. Unfortunately, he was a tad mentally ill, and in his later years he relied on homeopathic medicines instead of taking doctoral advice. He died in a car crash, but it was assumed that it was suicide.

My mother lives to this day. To be honest she was very lazy, didn't care too much about me and my sister, and was a reckless spender. But she was always a real extrovert, and just about anyone could get along with her. Eventually she got her act together and became a nurse. After that, she was very unsympathetic, a workaholic, but and tried to make me the same. I still loved her, because I could still talk to her. But most of the time, her words were all orders or advice. She helped me during some bad times, and helped me overcome troubles, so I am grateful for that.

 

[gael]

There is a confliction between parents and children that grows from inexperience of life on the childs part.
Kids look up to thier parents for guidence and wisdom. When they start into thier teens they become cockey in thier ignorance.

Its only at a certain age and maturity that the child becomes an adult and realises that the parent is just the same as they are with all the same weaknesses and shortcomings.

I think you only really know your parents when you are mature enough to see them as a person and not a parent.

 

[philippe]

My father is a man you can be proud off.Never giving up and looks hard on the outside but is direct and good for you if your honest.
My mom would do everything for someone.
Shes a bit naive but she will figure you out after 10 seconds

 

[cgannon64]

Woah, a personal thread! Anyway, my parents are great. They seem to be the perfect type of parents...but then again, I haven't yet had the typical run-ins with alcohol, drugs, and girls that usually seperate teen and parent. There is always high school, however...

 

[nixon]

I'm happy about both of my parents. I don't really know about divorce, I mean, I never really thought I'd ever forgive either of them - but as I got older, it's like there are other things to worry/be happy about. Now, it has become something "you can live with", but as I've said before and never get tired of saying, is that I'll never forgive them for not being together as "grandparents" if I ever get kids. I didn't have to experience that, and now my own kids will get a distorted view of things!

Nevertheless, I do not experience the kind of conflicts you'd normally expect, except from my dad's suspiciousness toward my girlfriend.

It's kind of funny watching by, as your parents become less and less important, not in a bad way, rather that you become more and more independent from them. If you'd come to me when I was 10, and said to me that I'd care just as much, if not more, for my girlfriend than my parents, I would have screamed "Baloney!" at you. But that's reality...and life, I guess.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by Mojotronica
What do you think of your parents? Do you get along? Were/are they good parents?

Most definately yes.
They were great parents and are great friends now. I never rebelled against them, because there was nothing to rebel against. That doesn't mean they weren't strict, rather on the contrary, but they always respected me and my opinion in a friend's way, no from a "superior" position.
I've always been a very rational person, even as a child, and they treated me like that.
They also managed to share their children's education (including sharing their job so that they both were home every second day) which means they both had an equal influence on me.
And since about age 10-12 they completely moved to a relationship of friends rather than that of parent-child. So in my teenage years they let me do everything because they could know that I wouldn't exploit it.
I think I can say that they were good parents because if I look back there is not a single major thing that should have been done another way.

 

[kmad]

My mom is a hippie and my dad's NHL career was squashed by a broken knee when he was 18.

 

[Toasty]

Er...don't get me started...

 

[Negative3X]

Very well, where should I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade
narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark.
Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. A sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. If I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve I received my first
scribe. At the age of fifteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shawn scrotum.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

Let's see....my dad was a good dad for a while, then he decided to leave my mother which is when he really changed into something else. He ended up remarrying shortly after and spoiled his "new" kids to death. My step-brother was 185 pounds in 1st grade and only got worse from there, I was a child at the time and if we made a comment that even remotely offended anyone that is slightly obese we were kicked out and our mom had to come get us. Luckily, we only had to see him every other weekend for about a year, before his work took him to texas, korea, oregon, atlanta, and other places. THANK GOODNESS.

Meanwhile I lived with my mom, she went back to school and got an excellent job. She was never too strict or too easy, she knew all of us kids VERY well and was always interested in what we were doing. I don't have a single complaint about my mother.....my father is the *******.

 

[JollyRoger]

My father is as compulsive as I am which makes him a classic over-achiever/under-achiever. For the past decade or so, he has been on the under-achiever slide, but he lives in Hawaii, so not all is bad.

My step-father is a gun-toting Clinton hater who I've brought around to several of my liberal positions ( such as we shouldn't have a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning) by playing on his gun-loving ways.

My mother is kind and caring and fell for them both.

I try to be more kind and caring than compulsive and gun-toting, but genetic and environmental influences are hard to fight.

 

[Zarn]

My Mom was a Marine, and use to punish my siblings and I, when one of us did something wrong. Punishement usually meant being hit. My father was the same. My father is alot more supportive and as teenagers my brothers and I got along with him. My mother always spoiled my younger sister. She always got us into trouble, when we did nothing wrong. My mother acts more like a mother when people outside the immediate family are around.

 

[SKILORD]

My Mother is my cool parent, listens to good music (Guns & Roses, and that stuff). Get on her wrong side and she'll kill you, but one must learn how to stay out of the way when she is angry, a half remembered glance when she is in such a moo d can mark you for years......

She is also closeminded, rigid, and intolerable of dissention. She is deep in the belief that any opinion contrary to her own is based upon a moral flaw in it's holder or a misperception of reality. She also tends to be a bit fanatical when it comes to religion.

My Dad is an obese Lawer, openminded as a polar opposite of my mother, who is more understanding of failings. He is extreamly intelligent (I'm not kidding, the man is in Mensa) and quick witted (He makes a fair sum in lawering).

He, however, tends to be too soft. He will give you stuff, which isn't what I want. For our first savings accounts he offered to math watever funds we placed in them (An offer my siblings leapt on and I refused, desiring to earn the money in my fund) He isn't the best judge of character, though he learns quickly who not to trust.

 

[Pongui]

Both my parents are well-meaning, but my father has always been a social blunderer, and needs guidance. He just can't see the big picture. Lately, I've had to snuff the childish breakup of his second marriage by making him a grandpa ahead of plan. Increasingly, I've been the one to initiate and coordinate family get-togethers on my father's side.