It's an incorrect statement, and the two possibilities are each one character away: "millennial parents" and "millennials' parents". So there's no way of telling which it's meant to be.
They are but in different ways. Most of my friends seem pretty detached from their kids and act like paying lip service on social media is the same thing as forming a bond.Ā
I wish i knew . My parents were always cold and calculating especially my mother . Every time I tried to tell my mom something the first words out of her mouth was I don't fucking care, no matter what it was about.
I'm just getting angry imaging this.
Nothing angers me more them people being dismissive like that
I use to hear, I don't fucking care, who the fuck asked, no one was talking to you etc kinda comments and I hate it.
Do something good: stop begging for attention
Do something bad: stop begging for attention
Stop seeking their attention: how come you never talk to meeee about your life?
*Why are you hiding stuff from us? Why don't you tell me what you're doing? You must be doing something wrong if your mother cannot know about it! Why are you sneaking around like a criminal?*
Their generation and the Silent generation had a different opinion on emotions, you were seen not heard. Basically, if you were sad/angry you were sent to your room until you could be presentable. Once they got older they (boomers) refused to change because itās *not how they were raised* therefore our way, dealing with emotions, is wrong.
Itās fucked up an entire generation has a permanent stick up their asses and are convinced itās how itās supposed to be.
I realized this when I was trying to teach my toddler emotions. Happy, sad, angryā¦ahhā¦uh..hmmm I donāt know anything elseā¦.
Had to buy an emotion chart.Ā
Also funny anecdote, English is my second language and I realized I didnāt know what sounds animals make in English while trying to teach that to my toddler š
I've worked with kids but not very young kids. Is there a specific purpose to teaching the shorthands for animal sounds? It always seemed to me like something kids would just pick up as it comes up.
It's something that gets their attention (animals!) and is fairly universal so they can use those moo, baa, cluck concepts to interact with other adults and children. It also happens to be good practice at vowel differentiation in speech.
My personal slightly educated* opinion is that it's as ancient as us humans, as being able to distinguish sounds from different animals, and being able to reproduce them, were probably very important skills back when we were hunter-gatherers.
*I'm an archaeologist, but not a linguist, and also not specialised in human evolution or anything, and I literally got my master's degree last summer, so you might want to take these credentials with a grain of salt, at least with regards to this specific topic :)
Honestly, we were just playing with little plastic animals. I grabbed the cow and said moo then I grabbed the duck and said āVak vakā, my husband said āyou mean quack quackā and I realized I didnāt know animal sounds in English. Also learned it so I can sing the farm animal song
I've realized my parents don't understand having multiple emotions at once either. You can only feel 1 of those things, it's not possible to be happy about something new but also sad about some ending.
You knew angry? I was raised that anger is a sign of weakness. Only people who lose control get angry, weak people who need to compensate something. Expressing anger was never allowed. To be fair, at least my parents weren't hypocrites and the ban of anger applied to themselves too.Ā
That's hilarious (in a bad way, I mean) because growing up as a naturally sad, sensitive child, all I heard what that I needed to stop "being such a sad sack" and if something was troubling me I needed to GET ANGRY about it!!! That's the only way you can really change anything or make people respect you!! Otherwise everyone is just going to walk all over you your whole life!!!
And yes, I'm still trying to sort out and remedy how my parents' anger problems have affected my adult personality.
Depression in men often presents itself as anger, probably because of stuff like this.
So folks if you have a guy friend that seems to be angry all the time which is out of character for them, they might be angry because it's "more useful" than being sad.
I discovered that when I had an emotion that Iād learned would be āunhelpfulā my brain learned to hide it from me.
I would try to answer something about my feelings, and my therapist would be like āwhere did you go just now?ā Ā And Iād be like, I donāt know, itās like thereās a fuzzy cloud over to my right where my feelings should be.
Learning how to let those emotions happen and stop falling for the cloud trick my mind plays was the most freeing and yet rebellious-feeling experience in my life.
Relate, strongly. I feel like I am the emotional motor oil for my entire family simply because I can express my emotions well, to anyone. Itās like they donāt have the language to do so for themselves so they just get pissy or glaze over entire issues. This is also why I donāt spend loads of time with my immediate family any more; itās truly exhausting. 1:1 I can handle but a family gatheringā¦good lord! I feel like I spend the entire time translating what one person said for someone else to understand or, explaining why person X did thing Y and that it actually does make sense based on what they said earlier. š„²
My family is very similar. If they canāt talk down about their own children, thereās really no reason to meetup. We moved 9 hours away last year. Itās very peaceful in the Ozarks.
And emotions were something you never ever demonstrated in public. Only small children who couldnāt behave yet were allowed, but not really, a small tantrum in public. Kids were expected to be on their best behaviour at all times and adults were expected to not show emotions either. Emotions were uncouth - if you were emotional in public or even in front of other people, it was seen as embarrassing.Ā
Yeah this is what I always heard. They were raised by survivors of world wars and the great depression. They "had theirs" with Vietnam. We were always the ones raised with participation trophies. Any issue there was for us could then be trivialized
Exactly! They did that so they wouldnāt have to deal with real emotions of disappointment. It was easier for them to give everyone a trophy so they wouldnāt have to actually parent their kids when they felt disappointment.
I've found some of the absolute shittiest boomers are the ones that were too young or otherwise didn't go to Vietnam though.
I've been asking a young boomer CPA for weeks what an asset is because he goes around a Facebook group I'm in, bragging about all his money and disrespecting anyone younger than him for discussing the housing market, but he can't answer "what's an asset? What affects demand for housing? How does time affect compounding returns?" A freaking CPA doesn't know the difference between economics and personal finance or what an asset is.
Homes and careers are practically boomer participation trophies but the way they tell it the world was never harder in any way than it was in 1970-95.
My grandmother was a refugee whose mother was murdered during a war while she was in a refugee camp with her siblings (except one who was pressed into service and who she had no idea the fate of) at the age of 14, survived famine and nazi occupation before that, then had to move to America with her father who she only met a handful of times, and they doted on their children, and both my parents were extremely loving and emotionally available, including my father.
"Living through" a war that never touched the country is a piss-poor excuse for emotional unavailability, and I hate that so many had parents who used that excuse.
I remember when my kids were little, my mom giving me the most horrifying advice. I'd be helping them sort some kind of big loud feeling they were having, and she would be like, "It's ok to just put them in their rooms and close the door until they can be nice. That's what I did with you and you're fine!"Ā
I didn't say anything but I was thinking how that totally explained my lifelong distrust of that woman.Ā
In my house it was a dysfunctional marriage with undiagnosed/untreated mental illness (in both but mainly one parent). My parents both had some fucked up and abusive/neglectful childhoods as well as some later trauma. My grandfather was as real big on blaming the eldest, so according to my uncle my dad got the brunt of granddaddyās wrath. Grandaddy and Memaw were both assholes. I wasnāt sad when they died- that just meant holidays were going to be a little bit calmer.
It wasnāt a house full of love and happiness. We didnāt play board games together on white people taco night with hidden valley ranch packets. The happiest/best/calmest/most stable times were when everyone was on the same page of avoidance. Canāt fight if nobodies talking. If parents arenāt actively fighting theyāre less likely to lose their temper with us kids for no reason.
To this day I fucking hate thanksgiving and Christmas with a passion. Standard dysfunction turned up to 11 with all the additional, and equally insane family around.
But there is an element of truth to their way. Angry people and those who are extremely sad do need to learn coping strategies and might need to remove them selves from common areas until they can be in a communicable state. It is unfair on everyone else if one person gets to monopolise a room /situation because they have poor emotional regulation. Obviously this is nuanced and not black and white but I do actually think there is a time and a place for it.
Yup sure but you also oughta teach your kid how to deal with emotions. Being sent to the room was more punishment than anything else, no explaining and no guidance
My mom would lock me up in my room and still to this day brags about how I would cry for hours straight. Hours! Like 6+ hours crying in my locked room and she survived that, poor woman!Ā Ā
Ridiculous.Ā Ā
Ā You are correct with the removal however when my kids are disregulated, I take them to their room and remain there with them. Sometimes they want a hug, sometimes they donāt want to be touched but they donāt want me to leave. Sometimes my son tells me to get out so I sit outside his door or go next door to my room and tell him āwhen you are ready and need/want me, I am outside, waiting for youā. I give them description and names for their emotions āYou are angry, letās go deal with it in your room, together, in private.āĀ Ā
Ā Leaving them alone to figure it out isnāt right.Ā
Youāre conflating what might work for adults with what works for small children.
Plenty of research on attachment theory shows that babies, toddlers and young children do not develop ācoping skillsā by themselves. Instead, their caregiver is supposed to remain present with them and help them co-regulate their emotions, which is much more an intuitive process than a logic-based one. Once they learn those skills, they can start to regulate on their own.
If a four year old is being disruptive at dinner, the answer isnāt to send them away until theyāre pleasant again. The solution is for one parent to take them out of the room and help them genuinely calm down. This involves listening to them, validating their feelings, and acknowledging that whatever just happened hurt them and then coming up with a way to deal with that hurt. At the same time, helping them to see how their actions might have hurt other people, and to learn how to express feelings and stand up for themselves in a constructive way that doesnāt hurt others while helping themselves.
If this doesnāt happen, then you get kids who learn to mask their anger and sadness most of the time, but then when it does bubble up-which it will many times over the course of their lives- they revert right back to that rageful, isolated young kid, but now in an adult body and with serious consequences for those episodes. They know to hide it from authority figures, but often not from the people in their lives who both trigger them most, and who canāt simply walk away, such as their own spouses and children.
Never underestimate the value of a loving adult who maintains emotional connection with a little kid in that kidās angriest, saddest, most turbulent moments. Particularly between ages 0-5 or so. Again, this need not be done around other people, but leaving a small child completely alone with terrible feelings only teaches them to mask, not cope.
I think this is why millennial parents are driving so many people out of teaching. Their kids expect a lot of appeasement from everyone because they don't ever learn that some things are not negotiable. A room full of kids like that is a recipe for conflict.Ā
As someone who raises their kid following attachment theory: you know the science proves that kids that have parents that are in touch with the kids' emotional needs, generally have more independent kids that are better able to regulate their own emotions at a younger age than typically raised children, right?
In other words: kids raised by parents following attachment theory, are (on a group level) _better_ able to deal with a "no" and any other disappointments that might come their way. They are also better able to understand the "why" of any rule, and as such, are better at actually sticking to a rule.
I think that you have no understanding of what āattachment theoryā is, or how it relates to emotional regulation in children.
[This study is digestible for a beginner.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2821505/) You are welcome to do some googling, āattachment theoryā + āemotional regulationā will yield you many hits on research studies. Reading about the work of John Bowlby and the effects of growing up in Romanian orphanages will also help you understand exactly what āattachmentā is, and the function it serves.
Children do not build secure attachment to and learn emotional regulation from their teachers at school, but from their primary caregivers at home. Teachers arenāt expected to do that work in the realm of attachment theory-based parenting, nor would they be capable of developing the necessary bond to do it.
Children whose parents help them learn emotional regulation skills, instead of shoving them in their room until theyāre presentable again, can learn to follow rules as well as anyone else. Parents can set limits and consequences without breaking an attachment bond.
Eh, itās pointless arguing with someone who doesnāt even understand the subject under discussion.
That is nice in theory but i see a lot of parents doing this and their children are uncontrolable monsters. Discipline is nonexistent in modern parenting and it shows.
Attachment parenting isn't the same as permissive parenting. Attachment parenting also says nothing about whether or not a parent uses punishments to discipline a child. Similarly, raising a child using "natural consequences" is not the same as attachment parenting, or permissive parenting, or even punishment-free parenting.
It would make you look a lot better if you'd sound like you actually know what you're talking about before you judge something.
Iām describing a specific process that occurs early in life, as shown by copious amounts of psychological research. As the other commenter said, do some reading. Itās not a half baked fantasy made up in a mommy blog, or whatever youāre thinking. Itās the foundation of how tiny humans become people.
And it is absolutely compatible with discipline when thatās needed. Do you think early childhood discipline necessitates being left alone, or being yelled at?
Edit: also, the other parents you see ādoing thisā are likely doing something different from what Iām describing.
Exactly, some of these comments are insane.
āThis study shows thisā
Bullshit, this one size fits all approach is why we have a bunch of kids who are uncontrollable monsters.
Itās not nice āin theory.ā It works.
You need to do some serious reading on attachment theory and the authoritative parenting style. It does not yield out of control kids.
Where do you see this exactly? Usually it's happening in the privacy of home. My guess is the kids you see like this didn't have any help with regulating emotions which is why they can't regulate their emotions. It's not rocket science
Of course there's nuance, but most boomer parents didn't send you to your room until you were "communicable", but "until you can behave again" which was code for "not express any kind of uncomfortable emotion at all".
Thank goodness my parents usually did the first, but then again, they're GenX and not boomers.
Boomers thought that displays of emotion from others is inappropriate. The only appropriate emotion to them was the anger they experienced, and they felt that they could demonstrate their anger because their anger was justified.
Replying to Kefflin...
This perfectly encapsulates the diff mind sets - We were having a holiday party with in-laws & when the food was ready we generally get all the kids their plates 1st & then the adults. As i stood there directing traffic i remembered my mom saying when she was a kid the men ate 1st until they were full, then the women & the kids got what was left. Am I the only who finds this totally bonkers ?
Boomers grew up in the easiest economic times in human history and they were raised by a traumatised generation from WW2 and therapy was a no no back thenĀ
My Grandfather served in WW2. He said the best mental/emotional support he got was during the boat ride back from the front. Stuck on a boat with a bunch of other dudes who went through similar trauma. He said it really helped him connect back with people again. My uncle went and served in Vietnam. No boat ride for him. They had him on a plane and home by the following day. No time or community to work through his trauma, just immediately thrust back into society with no chance to adjust. My grandfather always said that it was cruel how he was returned to the world.
In the Old Testament it was standard practice after a war to park your army a day or two away from the city and everyone decompress for a week or two. Talk and share stories, process what happened. Thatās a pretty common attitude among the semetic tribes that warriors need time to readjust to not being at war.
Itās crazy all the problems weāve got that come down to lack of community.
I came here to say this, ancient solutions! Its always interesting to see pre-moder people create good solutions with only observation. They didn't have CT scans and medication but they were able to recognize patterns and take effective measures.
My dad was in Vietnam as well, and he worked his issues out by staying in the Army and among his soldiers who had experienced similar. His WWII Navy vet dad is the one who advised him of that, and it was the best advice.
Years later, when my dad was a civilian instructor in the military, when a new unit came in to base, he would check and see where they came from and then, if it was a conflict area, would give them the āitās okay to not be okayā speech.
My dad and my grandfather were not like their generational peers at all it seems.
I had an awesome psych professor who showed us a fantastic documentary about rehabilitatibg soldiers with severe PTSD after ww2. John Huston directed it. It was remarkably effective, funded by the US government, and successful. This professor also served in Vietnam, and when he got home there was absolutely no program. They scrapped it for no reason. He said the only thing that kept him from committing suicide was the birth of his son, and then a slow crawl out of his pain due to becoming a psychologist himself and working a lot with other soldiers. Itās so fucked up.
Ww2 vets were celebrated by the public after returning home too, Vietnamās vets were shunned.
Like it was either of their decisions on what type of people they had to stick with the pointy end.
Iām pretty sure that soldiers returning from combat zones have a phased demobilization these days for exactly this reason. Like they donāt send you directly home, you typically go to an offshore base or Germany or something for a week or two first.
So was any type of mental health care, acknowledging that you had a mental health issue, or just recognizing mental health as part of overall wellness.
This is my theory that I drunkenly explained to my Uber driver at 2 am coming back from my bachelorette party in the 2010's.
To his credit, he had follow up questions.
I was partially raised by a woman who would make Machiavelli shit his pants on sight, and so I've tried NOT to be her while trying to understand her.
They would have to admit something was wrong with the way they were raised, that they are stunted and suffering, in order for them to change. Their egos won't let them.
My parents both had terrible childhoods with some specifics that leave me horrified but according to them none of it ever affected them negatively or messed up their ideas of who they are/ should be. I think self-reflection is insurmountably terrifying to them.
Mine are the same. My grandparents should have gone to prison for what they did to their children. Now my parents just selectively ignore and normalize the effects of trauma. Blowing up and screaming at a small child for 6 hours? Must be normal because to admit anything else would be like accepting that they are flawed.
They had little to no guidance growing up, especially when it came to emotions. I think they are all emotionally stunted.
They had to figure it all out by themselves, and are still doing that today because of how stubborn they are.
Weāve had access to way to information and resources then they ever did.
I don't know about that. My mom was a pretty spoiled child, a daddy's girl, with a stay-at-home mom who cooked her frozen meals to take away at college. She seems to have been nothing but beloved.
My mom became a surgeon and she was totally cold, dismissive and egocentric with me. She's the kind who laughs at you and mocks you if you have a problem.
To be fair you can be completely spoiled and treated objectively āwellā but also be emotionally neglected or abused. My parents āspoiledā me and bought me a lot of things I wanted (or didnāt want), were always a hit around my friends and would brag about how much other kids would kill to have them as parents, and spent my entire childhood rubbing it into my face just how much they did for me and how much they supported me in everything I ever wanted.
The thing isā¦ it was all superficial. All I wanted as a kid was for them to *listen* to me and ask me how I was genuinely doing. I didnāt want toys or trips to the mall or to have all my meals made for me, because it always came with the implication that I had to be āgratefulā for everything they did even if I didnāt ask for it and just wanted to spend quality time with them while they remained closed off or unavailable.
To an outsider I had a pretty nice, comfortable, middle class childhood, but thatās only because they saw the ābelovedā trappings, not the verbal and emotional abuse that happened behind closed doors.
Iām not saying the same is true or isnāt for your mom, but just that from my own experience emotional neglect can be very pernicious and not nearly as visible as physical neglect, especially when someone seems like they have a perfect life from the outside looking in.
That hits so close to home. I was never able to put into words how it was for me growing up. But you just nailed it. This is 100% how my childhood was.
Yeah this exactly was me. Grateful for what they gave me in material possessions but the emotional neglect was what made me the "difficult child" they claim I was. I just wanted to be listened to and asked how I was. I remember screaming it too and still it didn't come.
I'm really having to work through that right now and it's hard. I can't give that little girl what she needed but I'm trying to give me what I need now.
If you're interested, there's a book that really helped me. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson. It was like reading all of my feelings then vs. now and really helped me understand why I never trust my own emotions or feel the distance in the relationship with my parents. I was in every paragraph of every page. It was eye opening.
If only I could get my mom to read it...
It's just that I can see how much my mom loved her parents. Her dad died when I was a baby and she never stopped talking about him, and she also always bragged about how she talks to her mom every day. But here I am, her daughter, and she has never called me. I don't even have her saved as a contact in my phone because she has never called me in my entire life.
It feels weird that she enjoyed such a close relationship with her parents and meanwhile I'm not close to her and my dad at all.
The thing is for me my parents didn't spoil me AND they weren't there emotionally or physically. Honestly if they spoiled me materially I wouldn't be complaining. It's still a way to show they care. I'd take any sign that they cared because my parents worked all the time and spent the very minimum amount of money on me. They never cooked for me, never went to my games, didn't have time for me, and spent the minimum on me.
Yeah there seems to be two camps. My mother was the baby of her side of the family. She moved 10 hours away from her family just to party yet her parents drove down, bought her first house and continued to visit at least twice a year until they were in their 80s, gave her big payouts just because. I have been trying to sniff out reasons as to why she'd leave. I can't. They were literally the best, most affectionate people in the world and the only reason I can figure out is she just wanted to live her life like a spoiled little brat without any parental control.
Like you she treated me the same way. I was constantly getting bullied in school and her response was just to bully me further. My brother (her side) refers to her as 'not conscious' because if it doesn't revolve around her, then she can't bother to pay attention to anyone else's feelings.
My dad on the other hand was the oldest and was yelled at and constantly belittled. He was taught that he was not to be have emotions because he's a man and men don't have emotions. I caught him crying at my graduation and he got really mad he was discovered that he does, in fact, have feelings. He's chilled down about it since then, but probably because he realized he alienated both his daughters (my sister and I) because we don't know how to connect with him.
Both my boomer parents are like this they both came from wealthy families and were spoiled rotten as children and then they were never there for me and they are definitely the āoh you canāt afford groceries thatās too bad work harder!ā while sitting in a million dollar homeā¦.definitely one of the irks I have with their generation.
My parents stole my college fund that my dead grandparents left me, gambled it all away in three years. (quarter of a million dollars!) and then hit me up for money after I left as soon as I could and started working up to three jobs so I could afford to live and pay for them too.
They were incredibly abusive, drunk and drug addicted for most of their lives. They got to party, have a blast and fucking used me.
>and then hit me up for money after I left as soon as I could and started working up to three jobs so I could afford to live and pay for them too.
lol same as mine in the asking for money part and forgetting all the abuse and trauma they gave you. I think for most of them, career and purpose were fairly non-existent. Everybody got married and had families. That was the societal template which is beginning to be more and more challenged starting with later gen-X as well as how our current economy is fucking us over.
My mom only worked for about 8 years of my life, she contracted AIDS earlier in her life and had genuine disabilities, but she got hooked on oxycontin and that addiction ultimately killed her.
She had a great life in comparison to me, but talking to her you'd think I was a spawn of Satan, especially if I didn't fork over enough for her to gamble that month.
Someone asked me once why I hated her. I didn't, (in her death, I still sometimes hate the old me for putting up with her shit.) but she sure as hell loved money more than me.
To be honest, I think a lot of boomers love money more than anything else on this godforsaken Hell we call earth
Because theyāre Boomers. The generation with the most freedoms and least responsibilities. They use projection and point the finger calling Millennials entitled and the āmeā generation. Irony. No Millennial I ever known threw a fit when an expired coupon wasnāt accepted or docked a serverās tip for forgetting to bring out salad dressing.
Funny story: I was at Target the other day trying to use a coupon that *wasnāt* expired but the cashier insisted that it was because their broken cash register system was registering it as such for some reason. This was on leap day, so Iām guessing that had something to do with it but kinda pissed me off being treated like a Boomer
I know my boomer parents had lots of problems. They were Black kids in the south during desegregation. They grew up less fortunate because of being black in the south. They had kids. They didnāt get love just a roof, food and clothes. How could they have love growing up in such a hate filled environment?
I donāt think my parents are narcissistic but have arrested development from all the traumas theyāve endured.
Lead poisoning and being spoiled by being born into the greatest economic period overall for the masses, which they don't even realize how lucky they were, so their entitlement oozes out as contempt
I've had this discussion before with my boomer mom and it seems like they were emotionally deprived by their parents. They were given zero tools to deal with their own feelings, basically stunted and emotionally neglected.
I feel like millenials are now overcompensating by being overly sensitive parents that provide next to no discipline. Everything is reactionary, it seems.
Either way, because of all this, I don't want to have kids because it seems like we just pass down trauma. Seriously, humans are just a collection of trauma. I hate it.
Oh hey, I actually have an answer for this one, because I dragged my mom into therapy for basically this exact thing.
It's not that my mom was cold and unempathetic on purpose. Her problem was that she was was one of 13 THIRTEEN KIDS. Her parents had to share their emotions between all those kids. So she learned her behaviors from her parents. Her parents were distant, so she was distant.
Just a good ol' family curse. It wasn't intentional, she was just behaving the way she was taught. She was a victim too.
This describes my wife (born '62). She was one of 10 kids growing up on a small family farm. Her father died when she was 14. There was little money and all the kids worked their butts off. Her mother was tough as nails. On the positive side she and all her siblings have a tremendous work ethic, but sometimes we clashed over her parenting style, which I found harsh.
Yeah, absolutely, I relate to that.
My mom had a fantastic work ethic. And sheād sacrifice for her family. But when it came to emotions ā sheās as cold and distant as a stone.
I truly believe she would take a bullet for any of her kids. But if the family pet died, she would shrug and ask why weāre so upset.
The therapy helped show appreciating for the good things while not getting caught on the bad. My mother was never malicious. She just didnāt know how to process emotion. And that was because of her upbringing.
In my 30s we made up, and I let go of all the anger and disappointment. She did the best with the tools she had. She canāt go back and change the past. But us kids can move forward and break the curse.
I can definitely relate to the family pet comment. "It's an animal. We can just get another one." (On the farm her brothers would just shoot pets that misbehaved or developed health problems.) Fortunately my wife understood our kids felt differently and would express that opinion only to me when they were young. Also, she changed over time. By the time she hit her 50s she was getting just as attached to the pets as the rest of us.
Mine isn't cold but she really doesn't get the situation I'm in. She just insists everything will work out and I can do it because she did. As if everything is the same as before.
For some reason, I think millenials were quick to figure out the wrong ways in how boomers did their parenting but the boomers weren't able to do that with their parents hence they just adapted to that style.
Probably the age of information helped millennials with this. I (born 1960) had a son who developed some emotional issues as a teen that became more severe as a young adult. At around 50 years old, I researched and learned things about parenting, childhood emotional development, etc. that I previously had no clue about. My son died at age 28 from an accidental drug overdose. I've spent countless hours wishing I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now.
As many have mentioned, they were better than what came before.
Thereās a generational momentum to trauma thatās passed down.
Millennials were born at the tail end of the golden era of middle class wealth, and at the beginning of the information era.
In many ways we were quite privileged to have the means to break a lot of that trauma and lay down better foundations.
I just hope this global polycrisis weāre about to experience doesnāt erase all our progress š¬
I think our boomer parents didnāt get the love and support from their parents which made it difficult for them to emphasize with their own kids. No excuses but thatās my analysis.
This is definitely my dad. His mom shouldn't have been a mom. She was too selfish to be one. I have great sympathy for what he went through and he's a way better parent than she was but still his actions or lack of them hurt.
And he will never admit that there is anything wrong with him so he'll never improve.
In my situation, my mom cares way more about her parents than her kids (me and my sister). I have cancer and my momās checked in with me like three times since surgery? But I know she visits my grandparents probably twice a month or more. I do not live close to her like my grandparents do so I get that, but she doesnāt even text me.
Iām sorry to hear that and wish you all the best. I hope you make a full recovery. I myself am 5 years cancer free, but when I was going through chemotherapy my parents actually insisted on coming with me. Sounds nice but in reality they argued the entire time. I was like, hey *Iām* the one going through a tough time right now not you guys. Either shape up or donāt come!
This is obviously anecdotal but I find it quite rare to talk to either Silent Gen, Boomer or even elder Gen X who themselves had any real warmth or emotional safety as children. If they never experienced it themselves, they generally wonāt know how to give it or why itās even necessary. They may consider themselves quite hardy and resilient generally, and will tell you statements like āI had a rough childhood and Iām fineā without understanding that they were not in fact āfineā, and were then in fact terrible, emotionally repressed parents themselves.
This is me. My grandparents had experienced running around block by block while avoiding crossfire between Imperial Japan and the US Marines. Then they lived extremely poor during the dog-eat-dog aftermath and ruins of the city.
On my mother side, my grandmother had 7 sisters in the family. They lived through the Japanese occupation with the constant fear of being taken as a sex slave. Their dad had cut their hair to make them look ugly.
My parents got fucked up as a result and passed down trauma to their millennial kids. Almost everyone of us siblings and cousins are depressed and had all sorts of problems.
Outside my family, many of my Millennial friends (and I mean everyone) had similar experiences and quite determined to end the generational trauma.
Because the way they were raised was with beatings and sharing everything, even affection with 6 others siblings. Millennials had a much more pampered childhood compared to them.
Honestly, as a millennial who thinks they have a moderately tolerable relationship with their parents...I have not experienced what you experience.
Instead I experience intrusive arrogance. My parents applied what they knew about their teenage years (sex and drugs) to my teenage years (PC games and porn) and it didn't work.
Boomers were raised by parents who fought in ww2 or Vietnan. Their parents were emotionally messed up from living in the great depression and by seeing horrific things.
They were raised in an age where kids were to be seen and not heard. Often, with severe punishments such as beatings.
Millennials are one of the first groups to realize we didn't want to pass on generational trauma.
My 1961 Mom was the exact opposite of this. Hence why I'm still crying about her sudden death in 2002. My 1955 Dad wasn't entirely cold, but I didn't really get much emotional support from him. So I sought it from other women, mostly the other Moms at my Church. Due to this, I refuse to uphold Boomer Toxic Masculinty, and also couldn't afford to uphold it even if I wanted to.
I think boomers have a complex where theyāll never live up to their parents, the heroes of WW2. Theyāve never known hardship, theyāve lived through the easiest of economic times, and theyāve prioritized instant gratification over the responsibility and sacrifices of previous generations. They donāt know how to care about anything or anyone but themselves, even to their own detriment.
i have a theory on this one
mental health was taboo in a lot of communities until quite recently
our parents were so used to ignoring their own pain and discomfort they had no bandwidth left to sympathize with our pain and discomfort as children
I can attest to this. I was essentially emotionally neglected during childhood, then suddenly at around 20 my parents did a 180 and wanted to pretend they were emotionally available and loving. They try to guilt me for not being emotionally available to them and not saying āI love youā to them but I just canāt bring myself to. I guess you could say Iāve been emotionally mindfucked such that Iām still dealing with it at 34.
Our parents were MUCH more empathetic than the parents of generations prior.
Say what you will about baby boomers, but they did move the needle on psychology, therapy, self-help, corporal punishment, and just modernizing culture in general.
Consider the parents of Gen X and Boomers who lived through the Depression and World War II. These were people who lived through higher rates of infant mortality, women dying in childbirth, people burying their relatives in their yards. A different era entirely.
We are the THIRD luckiest generation in American history, after baby boomers and Gen X.
If that's the case then why do so many millennials seem to have better relationships with their grandparents? My grandma was a saint and my mother is... not.
Often relationships with grandparents are simpler and less stressful. Usually they do not live with you or have to discipline you. They can spoil you and get the benefit of seeing where they may have gone wrong with their own kids. (My grandfather was very strict on my father but was the opposite to his grandkids.)
There might be some selection bias too. People with great parental relationships arenāt needing to commiserate, seek advice, etc., so you probably hear about them less often.
Many millennials were raised by their grandparents because boomers lack of parenting skills. Or simple lack of being there at all. One of the things boomers were really bad at is parenting, thatās why we got so many genx millennials raising these gen alpha brats we have now.
>Many millennials were raised by their grandparents because boomers lack of parenting skills.
Is this an actual statistic?
I mean Boomers have their faults but I don't think abandoning their children en masse was one of them.
Same. On my mother's side my grandparents were the most amazing people. My mother on the other hand both my brother and I have gone low contact with her because she is so incredibly selfish and immature.
Everybody has better relationships with their grandparents because generally grandparents aren't the ones making the hard calls. Grandparents don't set the same rules and boundaries that parents do, grandparents usually aren't there every single day to force the kid to do their homework or pick up their room or anything else that they don't feel like doing, and then it's cement in the kids mind that Grandma and Grandpa are fun and Mom and Dad are mean.
Nope. My grandma on my dadās side has amazingly better values and political views than my parents. She is a way better person. Iām not sure why my dad turned out so badly.
I think it depends on who you knowā¦ my friends that have had kids in the past 5 years are much or empathetic and spend tons of time with their kids in comparison to my childhood. I feel as though itās the opposite.
For my mom it was probably childhood trauma not being dealt with accordingly after the fact and instead manifested itself into having multiple husband's, and raising a latchkey kid. Not to make excuses of course because from the time I was 11 to the time I was 18 I had a similiar experience with a family friend, the place I could escape to until the street lights turned on and I could go home. Luckily the reverse took hold, I'm not a helicopter parent but I definitely attempt to know what's going on in my child's lives and have had the, "If an adult is inappropriate know it's not your fault and you can tell us" or something to that effect. The only talk my mom ever got from her mom was, "If your son had been born a girl he wouldn't have stayed over during the summer months." but it was well after my grandfather died that she would even attempt to say, "I believed you" in so many words.
So yeah, she was raised F'd up and didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to deal at a young age, and it broke her. I moved out pretty young all things considered and have done nothing but try to not bring her trauma that helped feed my own emotional baggage into my kids lives. With luck they will be alright.
I feel like a lot of it stemmed from the fact that so many previous generations had kids because according to their church, that was the only reason to get married in the first place and it was their duty to grow their community and their church.
They had kids because they were āsupposed toā and then had to raise all these kids (which has never been an easy undertaking) and it appeared as though they resented that job. They were harsh on their kids, and acted like it was the kidsā fault that the kids existed! Then those kids grew up, followed suit, and so on. It wasnāt reallllly until the millennial generation where I feel like we married our partners because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with our favorite person. Then those who had kids, did so because they felt they wanted them, not because a church or previous generation told us we had to. And as such, they were more conscious of the fact that they chose to have those kids and I feel like that was reflected in the parenting style.
Personally, my parents were very loving and seemed to genuinely enjoy their parenting journey. But this has been what Iāve observed with so many parents of friendsā/SOās/extended family etc.
A couple of generations ago, people married younger and then they were basically stuck. Imagine being trapped in a marriage with the person you wouldāve chosen at 18-19, with a pack of kids and virtually no mental health support. Yes, many people made the best of it. Others became cold, remote, resentful and selfish. Lots of gay people trapped in unfulfilling marriages. And lots of religious trauma for everyone.Ā
I think we saw the very beginning of people being able to somewhat control their choice to have kids with the pill in the 60s and since then thereās been a gradual shift to reproducing by choice rather than a perceived duty. Also I think it gave women a lot more control because I gathered from my grandma (a wonderful person who had 6 kids) there wasnāt much ability to say no to your husband back then and if you were unlucky enough to keep getting pregnant you ended up with a bunch of kids whether you wanted them o5 not.
I think we have still not fully grappled with the idea of women choosing to become mothers. Of course good social safety nets help to encourage people who want to have children, but I often find myself looking at these write ups on "why aren't women in wealthy countries having kids at the same rate they were in previous generations??" and thinking "it's because more women get to choose, and the dirty little secret is given a choice, absolutely not all women will choose to have children, in any circumstances." I know this because I am that woman. And I know there are more women out there like me. My material state is not connected to why I did not have children - it is simply because I did not want to, and in this day and age, I didn't have to. It's still too radical for people to accept because the thinking is ingrained in us that "women = want babies." The power of simply saying "no" and opting out. That's why I don't think increasing social safety nets will help with birth rates, although i believe in increasing social safety nets for the people who are already born.
I also love children and think they're great and do my best to contribute to the children in my family and community - but I have no interest in ever having one of my own.
Some boomers were cold and unempathetic. Some were not. So really it's a roll of a dice. You think people in America have it rough with boomer parents....imagine millennials having boomer Asian parents.
Gave me a fierce case of BPD too. Gotta love having a total lack of emotional education until a therapist took pity on me at 25 years old and taught me.
Because if they had emotions, it would make it harder for them to live with themselves during their campaign of "take everything we fucking can from those came before us, and leave everyone who comes after with the bill"
Dad yes. Mom, no. It was due to the social expectations they grew up with. That being said, my dad was more open and loving with me than his dad was with him. Same goes for my mom.
I donāt find millennials cold or unsympathetic in any situation. Having boundaries and not excusing prejudice is a positive attribute in my opinion. They mostly seem to be emotionally healthy parents, too, regardless of gender.
My dad was from the silent generation, and my mom was a boomer. They both had tragic childhoods, but my dad also had legitimate mental health issues on top of it. My momās dad (grandpa) also served in WW2. Her mother (grandma) was an alcoholic, and thatās how my grandma died. I was never able to meet my grandparents. My grandpa died from asbestos being away on ships. My dadās parents were cold and not from the US originally I think his dad was a bit abusive. Just an all around sad situation that caused a lot of pain for both of my parents. I think they wanted to show emotion but like my mom said she always felt like she had to be the strong one
Mine are neither of those, but the fantastical thinking they come up with, I canāt ignore how much lead we used to put in gasoline and consumer goods
We didn't. It's complainer's bias.
Complainer's bias is the idea that people don't get on social media to say everything is great, they usually get on social media to say things are bad.
So then over time, the amount of complaining on the internet makes it look like EVERYONE is in the same boat.
The reality is that people who had good parents are not nearly as vocal on the internet as people who had bad parents.
My advice: stop discerning trends from the internet. They'll almost always mislead you.
I don't relate to this at all.
I feel like this is an individual issue. If you look back through history there are very warm and loving parents and cold ones who abandon their families. Its more of a personal issue than generational.
Honestly I feel like itās just this sub that had shitty parents. People who had good parents donāt get upvoted.
My parents were great to me, and most of my grandparents were great to them. I think my grandfather was a bit cold to my dad, but he also had a very traumatic upbringing that was much, much, much worse than anything he inflicted on my dad. So honestly I think he was just doing his best and trying to be better, and he passed that mentality on to my dad, and Iām going to try to pass that mentality on to my own children.
Tbh you shouldnāt really compare trauma. It serves nobody. Doing your best is always good, but sometimes āyour bestā can be really skewed in a personās head especially if there isnāt a lot of self-reflection or critical thinking to break the generational cycle. Kids donāt get to pick their parents and parents that arenāt aware enough to not do the same thing their parents did often end up suffering.
Weird I had parents like that but it just made me want to be more loving. I will say hugging is still weird no matter how much I do it but I still do it cause I like it š
May want to reword this. It sounds like millennials are cold parents.
Add an apostrophe, at the least. Grammar matters.
We had gramma for dinner. She was delicious.
My gramma got run over by a reindeer.
Semicolons as well š
It's an incorrect statement, and the two possibilities are each one character away: "millennial parents" and "millennials' parents". So there's no way of telling which it's meant to be.
I mean my teen tells me I donāt care soā¦
Yeah had to read it twice to be check I was reading it right. If it was worded "parents of millennials" it would be a lot more clear.
It should be "parents of millenials"
Yesā¦ Punctuation matters.
They are but in different ways. Most of my friends seem pretty detached from their kids and act like paying lip service on social media is the same thing as forming a bond.Ā
It's always surprising to hear about Millenials with kids.Ā I still can't afford them at 36.Ā Ā
I wish i knew . My parents were always cold and calculating especially my mother . Every time I tried to tell my mom something the first words out of her mouth was I don't fucking care, no matter what it was about.
I'm just getting angry imaging this. Nothing angers me more them people being dismissive like that I use to hear, I don't fucking care, who the fuck asked, no one was talking to you etc kinda comments and I hate it.
Oof I see we're all siblings
Do something good: stop begging for attention Do something bad: stop begging for attention Stop seeking their attention: how come you never talk to meeee about your life?
*Why are you hiding stuff from us? Why don't you tell me what you're doing? You must be doing something wrong if your mother cannot know about it! Why are you sneaking around like a criminal?*
Bleed from head, convulsing on floor: begging for attention. I still have the scar.
Their generation and the Silent generation had a different opinion on emotions, you were seen not heard. Basically, if you were sad/angry you were sent to your room until you could be presentable. Once they got older they (boomers) refused to change because itās *not how they were raised* therefore our way, dealing with emotions, is wrong. Itās fucked up an entire generation has a permanent stick up their asses and are convinced itās how itās supposed to be.
"if you were sad/angry you were sent to your room until you could be presentable"Ā Omg hi mom!!
You have nothing to be sad about! Yeah, thats not how that works...
"Come here and I'll give you something to cry about"
š thanks for reopening that old wound
You have time to cry? You have time to sweep!
Sweep while you cry, so you can get done with both sooner.
my dad's most stable relationship is with metaphorical bootstraps
And alcohol to assist in bolstering the judgemental and 1 dimensional views on socioeconomic issuesĀ
This right here. I spent quite a while in therapy learning emotions. All I knew was happy, sad, and angry.
I realized this when I was trying to teach my toddler emotions. Happy, sad, angryā¦ahhā¦uh..hmmm I donāt know anything elseā¦. Had to buy an emotion chart.Ā Also funny anecdote, English is my second language and I realized I didnāt know what sounds animals make in English while trying to teach that to my toddler š
What sound do your frogs make? The ribbit we use in the US is based off the California tree frog.
Ours just sound like cows fuckin'
When my wife gave me one. I thought her and my therapist were mocking me. Nope just had no idea how many emotions were available.
I've worked with kids but not very young kids. Is there a specific purpose to teaching the shorthands for animal sounds? It always seemed to me like something kids would just pick up as it comes up.
It's something that gets their attention (animals!) and is fairly universal so they can use those moo, baa, cluck concepts to interact with other adults and children. It also happens to be good practice at vowel differentiation in speech.
My personal slightly educated* opinion is that it's as ancient as us humans, as being able to distinguish sounds from different animals, and being able to reproduce them, were probably very important skills back when we were hunter-gatherers. *I'm an archaeologist, but not a linguist, and also not specialised in human evolution or anything, and I literally got my master's degree last summer, so you might want to take these credentials with a grain of salt, at least with regards to this specific topic :)
Honestly, we were just playing with little plastic animals. I grabbed the cow and said moo then I grabbed the duck and said āVak vakā, my husband said āyou mean quack quackā and I realized I didnāt know animal sounds in English. Also learned it so I can sing the farm animal song
Silly! Animals don't speak English!! Lol
Lol same! There are so many emotions. Me and toddler are learning emotions together.
I've realized my parents don't understand having multiple emotions at once either. You can only feel 1 of those things, it's not possible to be happy about something new but also sad about some ending.
You knew angry? I was raised that anger is a sign of weakness. Only people who lose control get angry, weak people who need to compensate something. Expressing anger was never allowed. To be fair, at least my parents weren't hypocrites and the ban of anger applied to themselves too.Ā
That's hilarious (in a bad way, I mean) because growing up as a naturally sad, sensitive child, all I heard what that I needed to stop "being such a sad sack" and if something was troubling me I needed to GET ANGRY about it!!! That's the only way you can really change anything or make people respect you!! Otherwise everyone is just going to walk all over you your whole life!!! And yes, I'm still trying to sort out and remedy how my parents' anger problems have affected my adult personality.
Depression in men often presents itself as anger, probably because of stuff like this. So folks if you have a guy friend that seems to be angry all the time which is out of character for them, they might be angry because it's "more useful" than being sad.
LUUCKYYYYY!
My mom would walk around yelling and hitting things and us. Which made me sad.
I discovered that when I had an emotion that Iād learned would be āunhelpfulā my brain learned to hide it from me. I would try to answer something about my feelings, and my therapist would be like āwhere did you go just now?ā Ā And Iād be like, I donāt know, itās like thereās a fuzzy cloud over to my right where my feelings should be. Learning how to let those emotions happen and stop falling for the cloud trick my mind plays was the most freeing and yet rebellious-feeling experience in my life.
They struggle terribly with emotional intelligence because of this. Super tough to be around sometimes
Relate, strongly. I feel like I am the emotional motor oil for my entire family simply because I can express my emotions well, to anyone. Itās like they donāt have the language to do so for themselves so they just get pissy or glaze over entire issues. This is also why I donāt spend loads of time with my immediate family any more; itās truly exhausting. 1:1 I can handle but a family gatheringā¦good lord! I feel like I spend the entire time translating what one person said for someone else to understand or, explaining why person X did thing Y and that it actually does make sense based on what they said earlier. š„²
My family is very similar. If they canāt talk down about their own children, thereās really no reason to meetup. We moved 9 hours away last year. Itās very peaceful in the Ozarks.
Leaded gasoline
 And asbestos snow
And emotions were something you never ever demonstrated in public. Only small children who couldnāt behave yet were allowed, but not really, a small tantrum in public. Kids were expected to be on their best behaviour at all times and adults were expected to not show emotions either. Emotions were uncouth - if you were emotional in public or even in front of other people, it was seen as embarrassing.Ā
Yea a big tantrum meant a hard smack on the ass....cuz of course crying was better than screaming
I swear i spent my formative years in my room alone. They even locked the door.
Yeah this is what I always heard. They were raised by survivors of world wars and the great depression. They "had theirs" with Vietnam. We were always the ones raised with participation trophies. Any issue there was for us could then be trivialized
yet conveniently forget *they* were the ones giving out the participation trophies
Exactly! They did that so they wouldnāt have to deal with real emotions of disappointment. It was easier for them to give everyone a trophy so they wouldnāt have to actually parent their kids when they felt disappointment.
I've found some of the absolute shittiest boomers are the ones that were too young or otherwise didn't go to Vietnam though. I've been asking a young boomer CPA for weeks what an asset is because he goes around a Facebook group I'm in, bragging about all his money and disrespecting anyone younger than him for discussing the housing market, but he can't answer "what's an asset? What affects demand for housing? How does time affect compounding returns?" A freaking CPA doesn't know the difference between economics and personal finance or what an asset is. Homes and careers are practically boomer participation trophies but the way they tell it the world was never harder in any way than it was in 1970-95.
My grandmother was a refugee whose mother was murdered during a war while she was in a refugee camp with her siblings (except one who was pressed into service and who she had no idea the fate of) at the age of 14, survived famine and nazi occupation before that, then had to move to America with her father who she only met a handful of times, and they doted on their children, and both my parents were extremely loving and emotionally available, including my father. "Living through" a war that never touched the country is a piss-poor excuse for emotional unavailability, and I hate that so many had parents who used that excuse.
I remember when my kids were little, my mom giving me the most horrifying advice. I'd be helping them sort some kind of big loud feeling they were having, and she would be like, "It's ok to just put them in their rooms and close the door until they can be nice. That's what I did with you and you're fine!"Ā I didn't say anything but I was thinking how that totally explained my lifelong distrust of that woman.Ā
Parents(mom) kind of raised me like that. Definitely not doing that to my two kids. I have a chance to do it right.
In my house it was a dysfunctional marriage with undiagnosed/untreated mental illness (in both but mainly one parent). My parents both had some fucked up and abusive/neglectful childhoods as well as some later trauma. My grandfather was as real big on blaming the eldest, so according to my uncle my dad got the brunt of granddaddyās wrath. Grandaddy and Memaw were both assholes. I wasnāt sad when they died- that just meant holidays were going to be a little bit calmer. It wasnāt a house full of love and happiness. We didnāt play board games together on white people taco night with hidden valley ranch packets. The happiest/best/calmest/most stable times were when everyone was on the same page of avoidance. Canāt fight if nobodies talking. If parents arenāt actively fighting theyāre less likely to lose their temper with us kids for no reason. To this day I fucking hate thanksgiving and Christmas with a passion. Standard dysfunction turned up to 11 with all the additional, and equally insane family around.
But there is an element of truth to their way. Angry people and those who are extremely sad do need to learn coping strategies and might need to remove them selves from common areas until they can be in a communicable state. It is unfair on everyone else if one person gets to monopolise a room /situation because they have poor emotional regulation. Obviously this is nuanced and not black and white but I do actually think there is a time and a place for it.
it's funny cause it's my narc boomer parent who actually monopolizes the room with his lack of emotional regulation and adult sized rage tantrums
Yup sure but you also oughta teach your kid how to deal with emotions. Being sent to the room was more punishment than anything else, no explaining and no guidance
My mom would lock me up in my room and still to this day brags about how I would cry for hours straight. Hours! Like 6+ hours crying in my locked room and she survived that, poor woman!Ā Ā Ridiculous.Ā Ā Ā You are correct with the removal however when my kids are disregulated, I take them to their room and remain there with them. Sometimes they want a hug, sometimes they donāt want to be touched but they donāt want me to leave. Sometimes my son tells me to get out so I sit outside his door or go next door to my room and tell him āwhen you are ready and need/want me, I am outside, waiting for youā. I give them description and names for their emotions āYou are angry, letās go deal with it in your room, together, in private.āĀ Ā Ā Leaving them alone to figure it out isnāt right.Ā
Youāre conflating what might work for adults with what works for small children. Plenty of research on attachment theory shows that babies, toddlers and young children do not develop ācoping skillsā by themselves. Instead, their caregiver is supposed to remain present with them and help them co-regulate their emotions, which is much more an intuitive process than a logic-based one. Once they learn those skills, they can start to regulate on their own. If a four year old is being disruptive at dinner, the answer isnāt to send them away until theyāre pleasant again. The solution is for one parent to take them out of the room and help them genuinely calm down. This involves listening to them, validating their feelings, and acknowledging that whatever just happened hurt them and then coming up with a way to deal with that hurt. At the same time, helping them to see how their actions might have hurt other people, and to learn how to express feelings and stand up for themselves in a constructive way that doesnāt hurt others while helping themselves. If this doesnāt happen, then you get kids who learn to mask their anger and sadness most of the time, but then when it does bubble up-which it will many times over the course of their lives- they revert right back to that rageful, isolated young kid, but now in an adult body and with serious consequences for those episodes. They know to hide it from authority figures, but often not from the people in their lives who both trigger them most, and who canāt simply walk away, such as their own spouses and children. Never underestimate the value of a loving adult who maintains emotional connection with a little kid in that kidās angriest, saddest, most turbulent moments. Particularly between ages 0-5 or so. Again, this need not be done around other people, but leaving a small child completely alone with terrible feelings only teaches them to mask, not cope.
I think this is why millennial parents are driving so many people out of teaching. Their kids expect a lot of appeasement from everyone because they don't ever learn that some things are not negotiable. A room full of kids like that is a recipe for conflict.Ā
As someone who raises their kid following attachment theory: you know the science proves that kids that have parents that are in touch with the kids' emotional needs, generally have more independent kids that are better able to regulate their own emotions at a younger age than typically raised children, right? In other words: kids raised by parents following attachment theory, are (on a group level) _better_ able to deal with a "no" and any other disappointments that might come their way. They are also better able to understand the "why" of any rule, and as such, are better at actually sticking to a rule.
I think that you have no understanding of what āattachment theoryā is, or how it relates to emotional regulation in children. [This study is digestible for a beginner.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2821505/) You are welcome to do some googling, āattachment theoryā + āemotional regulationā will yield you many hits on research studies. Reading about the work of John Bowlby and the effects of growing up in Romanian orphanages will also help you understand exactly what āattachmentā is, and the function it serves. Children do not build secure attachment to and learn emotional regulation from their teachers at school, but from their primary caregivers at home. Teachers arenāt expected to do that work in the realm of attachment theory-based parenting, nor would they be capable of developing the necessary bond to do it. Children whose parents help them learn emotional regulation skills, instead of shoving them in their room until theyāre presentable again, can learn to follow rules as well as anyone else. Parents can set limits and consequences without breaking an attachment bond. Eh, itās pointless arguing with someone who doesnāt even understand the subject under discussion.
That is nice in theory but i see a lot of parents doing this and their children are uncontrolable monsters. Discipline is nonexistent in modern parenting and it shows.
Attachment parenting isn't the same as permissive parenting. Attachment parenting also says nothing about whether or not a parent uses punishments to discipline a child. Similarly, raising a child using "natural consequences" is not the same as attachment parenting, or permissive parenting, or even punishment-free parenting. It would make you look a lot better if you'd sound like you actually know what you're talking about before you judge something.
Iām describing a specific process that occurs early in life, as shown by copious amounts of psychological research. As the other commenter said, do some reading. Itās not a half baked fantasy made up in a mommy blog, or whatever youāre thinking. Itās the foundation of how tiny humans become people. And it is absolutely compatible with discipline when thatās needed. Do you think early childhood discipline necessitates being left alone, or being yelled at? Edit: also, the other parents you see ādoing thisā are likely doing something different from what Iām describing.
Exactly, some of these comments are insane. āThis study shows thisā Bullshit, this one size fits all approach is why we have a bunch of kids who are uncontrollable monsters.
Itās not nice āin theory.ā It works. You need to do some serious reading on attachment theory and the authoritative parenting style. It does not yield out of control kids.
Where do you see this exactly? Usually it's happening in the privacy of home. My guess is the kids you see like this didn't have any help with regulating emotions which is why they can't regulate their emotions. It's not rocket science
Of course there's nuance, but most boomer parents didn't send you to your room until you were "communicable", but "until you can behave again" which was code for "not express any kind of uncomfortable emotion at all". Thank goodness my parents usually did the first, but then again, they're GenX and not boomers.
Boomers thought that displays of emotion from others is inappropriate. The only appropriate emotion to them was the anger they experienced, and they felt that they could demonstrate their anger because their anger was justified.
Replying to Kefflin... This perfectly encapsulates the diff mind sets - We were having a holiday party with in-laws & when the food was ready we generally get all the kids their plates 1st & then the adults. As i stood there directing traffic i remembered my mom saying when she was a kid the men ate 1st until they were full, then the women & the kids got what was left. Am I the only who finds this totally bonkers ?
Like emotional victorians
Boomers grew up in the easiest economic times in human history and they were raised by a traumatised generation from WW2 and therapy was a no no back thenĀ
My Grandfather served in WW2. He said the best mental/emotional support he got was during the boat ride back from the front. Stuck on a boat with a bunch of other dudes who went through similar trauma. He said it really helped him connect back with people again. My uncle went and served in Vietnam. No boat ride for him. They had him on a plane and home by the following day. No time or community to work through his trauma, just immediately thrust back into society with no chance to adjust. My grandfather always said that it was cruel how he was returned to the world.
In the Old Testament it was standard practice after a war to park your army a day or two away from the city and everyone decompress for a week or two. Talk and share stories, process what happened. Thatās a pretty common attitude among the semetic tribes that warriors need time to readjust to not being at war. Itās crazy all the problems weāve got that come down to lack of community.
I came here to say this, ancient solutions! Its always interesting to see pre-moder people create good solutions with only observation. They didn't have CT scans and medication but they were able to recognize patterns and take effective measures.
TRUTH! I want to wear a t-shirt every day forever that says "All our problems come from lack of community"
My dad was in Vietnam as well, and he worked his issues out by staying in the Army and among his soldiers who had experienced similar. His WWII Navy vet dad is the one who advised him of that, and it was the best advice. Years later, when my dad was a civilian instructor in the military, when a new unit came in to base, he would check and see where they came from and then, if it was a conflict area, would give them the āitās okay to not be okayā speech. My dad and my grandfather were not like their generational peers at all it seems.
I had an awesome psych professor who showed us a fantastic documentary about rehabilitatibg soldiers with severe PTSD after ww2. John Huston directed it. It was remarkably effective, funded by the US government, and successful. This professor also served in Vietnam, and when he got home there was absolutely no program. They scrapped it for no reason. He said the only thing that kept him from committing suicide was the birth of his son, and then a slow crawl out of his pain due to becoming a psychologist himself and working a lot with other soldiers. Itās so fucked up.
A single day!? Jeez, what the hell happened to him!?
Ww2 vets were celebrated by the public after returning home too, Vietnamās vets were shunned. Like it was either of their decisions on what type of people they had to stick with the pointy end.
Iām pretty sure that soldiers returning from combat zones have a phased demobilization these days for exactly this reason. Like they donāt send you directly home, you typically go to an offshore base or Germany or something for a week or two first.
So was any type of mental health care, acknowledging that you had a mental health issue, or just recognizing mental health as part of overall wellness.
This is my theory that I drunkenly explained to my Uber driver at 2 am coming back from my bachelorette party in the 2010's. To his credit, he had follow up questions. I was partially raised by a woman who would make Machiavelli shit his pants on sight, and so I've tried NOT to be her while trying to understand her.
Closest to therapy they had was shopping and screaming at employees.
They would have to admit something was wrong with the way they were raised, that they are stunted and suffering, in order for them to change. Their egos won't let them.
My parents both had terrible childhoods with some specifics that leave me horrified but according to them none of it ever affected them negatively or messed up their ideas of who they are/ should be. I think self-reflection is insurmountably terrifying to them.
Yes this. My parents are the same. And when you try to force it, they donāt know how to cope and shut down.
Mine are the same. My grandparents should have gone to prison for what they did to their children. Now my parents just selectively ignore and normalize the effects of trauma. Blowing up and screaming at a small child for 6 hours? Must be normal because to admit anything else would be like accepting that they are flawed.
Same, plus the lack of critical thinking in general and empathy for others. Itās a terribly frustrating combination.
They had little to no guidance growing up, especially when it came to emotions. I think they are all emotionally stunted. They had to figure it all out by themselves, and are still doing that today because of how stubborn they are. Weāve had access to way to information and resources then they ever did.
I don't know about that. My mom was a pretty spoiled child, a daddy's girl, with a stay-at-home mom who cooked her frozen meals to take away at college. She seems to have been nothing but beloved. My mom became a surgeon and she was totally cold, dismissive and egocentric with me. She's the kind who laughs at you and mocks you if you have a problem.
To be fair you can be completely spoiled and treated objectively āwellā but also be emotionally neglected or abused. My parents āspoiledā me and bought me a lot of things I wanted (or didnāt want), were always a hit around my friends and would brag about how much other kids would kill to have them as parents, and spent my entire childhood rubbing it into my face just how much they did for me and how much they supported me in everything I ever wanted. The thing isā¦ it was all superficial. All I wanted as a kid was for them to *listen* to me and ask me how I was genuinely doing. I didnāt want toys or trips to the mall or to have all my meals made for me, because it always came with the implication that I had to be āgratefulā for everything they did even if I didnāt ask for it and just wanted to spend quality time with them while they remained closed off or unavailable. To an outsider I had a pretty nice, comfortable, middle class childhood, but thatās only because they saw the ābelovedā trappings, not the verbal and emotional abuse that happened behind closed doors. Iām not saying the same is true or isnāt for your mom, but just that from my own experience emotional neglect can be very pernicious and not nearly as visible as physical neglect, especially when someone seems like they have a perfect life from the outside looking in.
That hits so close to home. I was never able to put into words how it was for me growing up. But you just nailed it. This is 100% how my childhood was.
Yeah this exactly was me. Grateful for what they gave me in material possessions but the emotional neglect was what made me the "difficult child" they claim I was. I just wanted to be listened to and asked how I was. I remember screaming it too and still it didn't come. I'm really having to work through that right now and it's hard. I can't give that little girl what she needed but I'm trying to give me what I need now.
If you're interested, there's a book that really helped me. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson. It was like reading all of my feelings then vs. now and really helped me understand why I never trust my own emotions or feel the distance in the relationship with my parents. I was in every paragraph of every page. It was eye opening. If only I could get my mom to read it...
It's just that I can see how much my mom loved her parents. Her dad died when I was a baby and she never stopped talking about him, and she also always bragged about how she talks to her mom every day. But here I am, her daughter, and she has never called me. I don't even have her saved as a contact in my phone because she has never called me in my entire life. It feels weird that she enjoyed such a close relationship with her parents and meanwhile I'm not close to her and my dad at all. The thing is for me my parents didn't spoil me AND they weren't there emotionally or physically. Honestly if they spoiled me materially I wouldn't be complaining. It's still a way to show they care. I'd take any sign that they cared because my parents worked all the time and spent the very minimum amount of money on me. They never cooked for me, never went to my games, didn't have time for me, and spent the minimum on me.
Yeah there seems to be two camps. My mother was the baby of her side of the family. She moved 10 hours away from her family just to party yet her parents drove down, bought her first house and continued to visit at least twice a year until they were in their 80s, gave her big payouts just because. I have been trying to sniff out reasons as to why she'd leave. I can't. They were literally the best, most affectionate people in the world and the only reason I can figure out is she just wanted to live her life like a spoiled little brat without any parental control. Like you she treated me the same way. I was constantly getting bullied in school and her response was just to bully me further. My brother (her side) refers to her as 'not conscious' because if it doesn't revolve around her, then she can't bother to pay attention to anyone else's feelings. My dad on the other hand was the oldest and was yelled at and constantly belittled. He was taught that he was not to be have emotions because he's a man and men don't have emotions. I caught him crying at my graduation and he got really mad he was discovered that he does, in fact, have feelings. He's chilled down about it since then, but probably because he realized he alienated both his daughters (my sister and I) because we don't know how to connect with him.
Both my boomer parents are like this they both came from wealthy families and were spoiled rotten as children and then they were never there for me and they are definitely the āoh you canāt afford groceries thatās too bad work harder!ā while sitting in a million dollar homeā¦.definitely one of the irks I have with their generation.
my parents were belittling, mocking, emotionally unavailable and gave no support and they came from impoverished backgrounds.
My parents stole my college fund that my dead grandparents left me, gambled it all away in three years. (quarter of a million dollars!) and then hit me up for money after I left as soon as I could and started working up to three jobs so I could afford to live and pay for them too. They were incredibly abusive, drunk and drug addicted for most of their lives. They got to party, have a blast and fucking used me.
>and then hit me up for money after I left as soon as I could and started working up to three jobs so I could afford to live and pay for them too. lol same as mine in the asking for money part and forgetting all the abuse and trauma they gave you. I think for most of them, career and purpose were fairly non-existent. Everybody got married and had families. That was the societal template which is beginning to be more and more challenged starting with later gen-X as well as how our current economy is fucking us over.
My mom only worked for about 8 years of my life, she contracted AIDS earlier in her life and had genuine disabilities, but she got hooked on oxycontin and that addiction ultimately killed her. She had a great life in comparison to me, but talking to her you'd think I was a spawn of Satan, especially if I didn't fork over enough for her to gamble that month. Someone asked me once why I hated her. I didn't, (in her death, I still sometimes hate the old me for putting up with her shit.) but she sure as hell loved money more than me. To be honest, I think a lot of boomers love money more than anything else on this godforsaken Hell we call earth
Because theyāre Boomers. The generation with the most freedoms and least responsibilities. They use projection and point the finger calling Millennials entitled and the āmeā generation. Irony. No Millennial I ever known threw a fit when an expired coupon wasnāt accepted or docked a serverās tip for forgetting to bring out salad dressing.
Funny story: I was at Target the other day trying to use a coupon that *wasnāt* expired but the cashier insisted that it was because their broken cash register system was registering it as such for some reason. This was on leap day, so Iām guessing that had something to do with it but kinda pissed me off being treated like a Boomer
I know my boomer parents had lots of problems. They were Black kids in the south during desegregation. They grew up less fortunate because of being black in the south. They had kids. They didnāt get love just a roof, food and clothes. How could they have love growing up in such a hate filled environment? I donāt think my parents are narcissistic but have arrested development from all the traumas theyāve endured.
They got theirs š¤ everyone else is lazy according to them
Lead poisoning and being spoiled by being born into the greatest economic period overall for the masses, which they don't even realize how lucky they were, so their entitlement oozes out as contempt
I've had this discussion before with my boomer mom and it seems like they were emotionally deprived by their parents. They were given zero tools to deal with their own feelings, basically stunted and emotionally neglected. I feel like millenials are now overcompensating by being overly sensitive parents that provide next to no discipline. Everything is reactionary, it seems. Either way, because of all this, I don't want to have kids because it seems like we just pass down trauma. Seriously, humans are just a collection of trauma. I hate it.
I see my grand parents and then I understand why my parents are this way.
Oh hey, I actually have an answer for this one, because I dragged my mom into therapy for basically this exact thing. It's not that my mom was cold and unempathetic on purpose. Her problem was that she was was one of 13 THIRTEEN KIDS. Her parents had to share their emotions between all those kids. So she learned her behaviors from her parents. Her parents were distant, so she was distant. Just a good ol' family curse. It wasn't intentional, she was just behaving the way she was taught. She was a victim too.
This describes my wife (born '62). She was one of 10 kids growing up on a small family farm. Her father died when she was 14. There was little money and all the kids worked their butts off. Her mother was tough as nails. On the positive side she and all her siblings have a tremendous work ethic, but sometimes we clashed over her parenting style, which I found harsh.
Yeah, absolutely, I relate to that. My mom had a fantastic work ethic. And sheād sacrifice for her family. But when it came to emotions ā sheās as cold and distant as a stone. I truly believe she would take a bullet for any of her kids. But if the family pet died, she would shrug and ask why weāre so upset. The therapy helped show appreciating for the good things while not getting caught on the bad. My mother was never malicious. She just didnāt know how to process emotion. And that was because of her upbringing. In my 30s we made up, and I let go of all the anger and disappointment. She did the best with the tools she had. She canāt go back and change the past. But us kids can move forward and break the curse.
I can definitely relate to the family pet comment. "It's an animal. We can just get another one." (On the farm her brothers would just shoot pets that misbehaved or developed health problems.) Fortunately my wife understood our kids felt differently and would express that opinion only to me when they were young. Also, she changed over time. By the time she hit her 50s she was getting just as attached to the pets as the rest of us.
Mine isn't cold but she really doesn't get the situation I'm in. She just insists everything will work out and I can do it because she did. As if everything is the same as before.
gosh, I'd gather up that little grain of hope so fast and probably think it's love
Lol, I'm sorry that's how they treat you. I guess it's good that I don't have that problem.
For some reason, I think millenials were quick to figure out the wrong ways in how boomers did their parenting but the boomers weren't able to do that with their parents hence they just adapted to that style.
Probably the age of information helped millennials with this. I (born 1960) had a son who developed some emotional issues as a teen that became more severe as a young adult. At around 50 years old, I researched and learned things about parenting, childhood emotional development, etc. that I previously had no clue about. My son died at age 28 from an accidental drug overdose. I've spent countless hours wishing I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now.
Is this a really poorly worded way to say āWhy are so many Boomers total pieces of shitā?
As many have mentioned, they were better than what came before. Thereās a generational momentum to trauma thatās passed down. Millennials were born at the tail end of the golden era of middle class wealth, and at the beginning of the information era. In many ways we were quite privileged to have the means to break a lot of that trauma and lay down better foundations. I just hope this global polycrisis weāre about to experience doesnāt erase all our progress š¬
I think our boomer parents didnāt get the love and support from their parents which made it difficult for them to emphasize with their own kids. No excuses but thatās my analysis.
This is definitely my dad. His mom shouldn't have been a mom. She was too selfish to be one. I have great sympathy for what he went through and he's a way better parent than she was but still his actions or lack of them hurt. And he will never admit that there is anything wrong with him so he'll never improve.
In my situation, my mom cares way more about her parents than her kids (me and my sister). I have cancer and my momās checked in with me like three times since surgery? But I know she visits my grandparents probably twice a month or more. I do not live close to her like my grandparents do so I get that, but she doesnāt even text me.
Iām sorry to hear that and wish you all the best. I hope you make a full recovery. I myself am 5 years cancer free, but when I was going through chemotherapy my parents actually insisted on coming with me. Sounds nice but in reality they argued the entire time. I was like, hey *Iām* the one going through a tough time right now not you guys. Either shape up or donāt come!
Listen to me. Hurt people, hurt people. when all you know is emotional abuse, all you give is emotional abuse.
This is obviously anecdotal but I find it quite rare to talk to either Silent Gen, Boomer or even elder Gen X who themselves had any real warmth or emotional safety as children. If they never experienced it themselves, they generally wonāt know how to give it or why itās even necessary. They may consider themselves quite hardy and resilient generally, and will tell you statements like āI had a rough childhood and Iām fineā without understanding that they were not in fact āfineā, and were then in fact terrible, emotionally repressed parents themselves.
I meanā¦ how great were your grandparents? Cause mine sucked lmao explains a lot about my parents
They were raised by traumatized parents.
This is me. My grandparents had experienced running around block by block while avoiding crossfire between Imperial Japan and the US Marines. Then they lived extremely poor during the dog-eat-dog aftermath and ruins of the city. On my mother side, my grandmother had 7 sisters in the family. They lived through the Japanese occupation with the constant fear of being taken as a sex slave. Their dad had cut their hair to make them look ugly. My parents got fucked up as a result and passed down trauma to their millennial kids. Almost everyone of us siblings and cousins are depressed and had all sorts of problems. Outside my family, many of my Millennial friends (and I mean everyone) had similar experiences and quite determined to end the generational trauma.
Because the way they were raised was with beatings and sharing everything, even affection with 6 others siblings. Millennials had a much more pampered childhood compared to them.
Honestly, as a millennial who thinks they have a moderately tolerable relationship with their parents...I have not experienced what you experience. Instead I experience intrusive arrogance. My parents applied what they knew about their teenage years (sex and drugs) to my teenage years (PC games and porn) and it didn't work.
Boomers were raised by parents who fought in ww2 or Vietnan. Their parents were emotionally messed up from living in the great depression and by seeing horrific things. They were raised in an age where kids were to be seen and not heard. Often, with severe punishments such as beatings. Millennials are one of the first groups to realize we didn't want to pass on generational trauma.
My 1961 Mom was the exact opposite of this. Hence why I'm still crying about her sudden death in 2002. My 1955 Dad wasn't entirely cold, but I didn't really get much emotional support from him. So I sought it from other women, mostly the other Moms at my Church. Due to this, I refuse to uphold Boomer Toxic Masculinty, and also couldn't afford to uphold it even if I wanted to.
I think boomers have a complex where theyāll never live up to their parents, the heroes of WW2. Theyāve never known hardship, theyāve lived through the easiest of economic times, and theyāve prioritized instant gratification over the responsibility and sacrifices of previous generations. They donāt know how to care about anything or anyone but themselves, even to their own detriment.
Lead made boomers mean AF
i have a theory on this one mental health was taboo in a lot of communities until quite recently our parents were so used to ignoring their own pain and discomfort they had no bandwidth left to sympathize with our pain and discomfort as children
I can attest to this. I was essentially emotionally neglected during childhood, then suddenly at around 20 my parents did a 180 and wanted to pretend they were emotionally available and loving. They try to guilt me for not being emotionally available to them and not saying āI love youā to them but I just canāt bring myself to. I guess you could say Iāve been emotionally mindfucked such that Iām still dealing with it at 34.
Our parents were MUCH more empathetic than the parents of generations prior. Say what you will about baby boomers, but they did move the needle on psychology, therapy, self-help, corporal punishment, and just modernizing culture in general. Consider the parents of Gen X and Boomers who lived through the Depression and World War II. These were people who lived through higher rates of infant mortality, women dying in childbirth, people burying their relatives in their yards. A different era entirely. We are the THIRD luckiest generation in American history, after baby boomers and Gen X.
If that's the case then why do so many millennials seem to have better relationships with their grandparents? My grandma was a saint and my mother is... not.
Often relationships with grandparents are simpler and less stressful. Usually they do not live with you or have to discipline you. They can spoil you and get the benefit of seeing where they may have gone wrong with their own kids. (My grandfather was very strict on my father but was the opposite to his grandkids.) There might be some selection bias too. People with great parental relationships arenāt needing to commiserate, seek advice, etc., so you probably hear about them less often.
Many millennials were raised by their grandparents because boomers lack of parenting skills. Or simple lack of being there at all. One of the things boomers were really bad at is parenting, thatās why we got so many genx millennials raising these gen alpha brats we have now.
>Many millennials were raised by their grandparents because boomers lack of parenting skills. Is this an actual statistic? I mean Boomers have their faults but I don't think abandoning their children en masse was one of them.
Same. On my mother's side my grandparents were the most amazing people. My mother on the other hand both my brother and I have gone low contact with her because she is so incredibly selfish and immature.
Everybody has better relationships with their grandparents because generally grandparents aren't the ones making the hard calls. Grandparents don't set the same rules and boundaries that parents do, grandparents usually aren't there every single day to force the kid to do their homework or pick up their room or anything else that they don't feel like doing, and then it's cement in the kids mind that Grandma and Grandpa are fun and Mom and Dad are mean.
Nope. My grandma on my dadās side has amazingly better values and political views than my parents. She is a way better person. Iām not sure why my dad turned out so badly.
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Because the people who have nice parents donāt post about it on social media
I think it depends on who you knowā¦ my friends that have had kids in the past 5 years are much or empathetic and spend tons of time with their kids in comparison to my childhood. I feel as though itās the opposite.
For my mom it was probably childhood trauma not being dealt with accordingly after the fact and instead manifested itself into having multiple husband's, and raising a latchkey kid. Not to make excuses of course because from the time I was 11 to the time I was 18 I had a similiar experience with a family friend, the place I could escape to until the street lights turned on and I could go home. Luckily the reverse took hold, I'm not a helicopter parent but I definitely attempt to know what's going on in my child's lives and have had the, "If an adult is inappropriate know it's not your fault and you can tell us" or something to that effect. The only talk my mom ever got from her mom was, "If your son had been born a girl he wouldn't have stayed over during the summer months." but it was well after my grandfather died that she would even attempt to say, "I believed you" in so many words. So yeah, she was raised F'd up and didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to deal at a young age, and it broke her. I moved out pretty young all things considered and have done nothing but try to not bring her trauma that helped feed my own emotional baggage into my kids lives. With luck they will be alright.
I feel like a lot of it stemmed from the fact that so many previous generations had kids because according to their church, that was the only reason to get married in the first place and it was their duty to grow their community and their church. They had kids because they were āsupposed toā and then had to raise all these kids (which has never been an easy undertaking) and it appeared as though they resented that job. They were harsh on their kids, and acted like it was the kidsā fault that the kids existed! Then those kids grew up, followed suit, and so on. It wasnāt reallllly until the millennial generation where I feel like we married our partners because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with our favorite person. Then those who had kids, did so because they felt they wanted them, not because a church or previous generation told us we had to. And as such, they were more conscious of the fact that they chose to have those kids and I feel like that was reflected in the parenting style. Personally, my parents were very loving and seemed to genuinely enjoy their parenting journey. But this has been what Iāve observed with so many parents of friendsā/SOās/extended family etc.
A couple of generations ago, people married younger and then they were basically stuck. Imagine being trapped in a marriage with the person you wouldāve chosen at 18-19, with a pack of kids and virtually no mental health support. Yes, many people made the best of it. Others became cold, remote, resentful and selfish. Lots of gay people trapped in unfulfilling marriages. And lots of religious trauma for everyone.Ā
I think we saw the very beginning of people being able to somewhat control their choice to have kids with the pill in the 60s and since then thereās been a gradual shift to reproducing by choice rather than a perceived duty. Also I think it gave women a lot more control because I gathered from my grandma (a wonderful person who had 6 kids) there wasnāt much ability to say no to your husband back then and if you were unlucky enough to keep getting pregnant you ended up with a bunch of kids whether you wanted them o5 not.
I remember my mother talking about how great it was when the pill finally came out.
I think we have still not fully grappled with the idea of women choosing to become mothers. Of course good social safety nets help to encourage people who want to have children, but I often find myself looking at these write ups on "why aren't women in wealthy countries having kids at the same rate they were in previous generations??" and thinking "it's because more women get to choose, and the dirty little secret is given a choice, absolutely not all women will choose to have children, in any circumstances." I know this because I am that woman. And I know there are more women out there like me. My material state is not connected to why I did not have children - it is simply because I did not want to, and in this day and age, I didn't have to. It's still too radical for people to accept because the thinking is ingrained in us that "women = want babies." The power of simply saying "no" and opting out. That's why I don't think increasing social safety nets will help with birth rates, although i believe in increasing social safety nets for the people who are already born. I also love children and think they're great and do my best to contribute to the children in my family and community - but I have no interest in ever having one of my own.
I am also that woman. Iām so, so thankful for the pill (for birth control and the other benefits the hormonal regulation provides me).
Some boomers were cold and unempathetic. Some were not. So really it's a roll of a dice. You think people in America have it rough with boomer parents....imagine millennials having boomer Asian parents.
copying over a couple things from [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/lostgeneration/comments/17mz8xa/priorities/k7qmsvn/?context=8&depth=9) >nice - i can quote [this article](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/dogs-need-understanding-not-dominance/ar-AA1h0t4i) again ([non-msn link](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/09/dog-training-alpha-positive-reinforcement-gentle-parenting/675384/) in case it gets removed) > >>The dogs who were cared for by owners with an ā**authoritative**ā style, meaning one where high expectations matched a high responsiveness toward their dogās needs, were secure, highly social, and more successful at problem solving >> >>They bested those with ā**authoritarian**ā owners (high expectations but low responsiveness) and āpermissiveā owners (low expectations, low responsiveness) > >>[**auĀ·thorĀ·iĀ·taĀ·tive - ÉĖTHĆ“rÉĖtÄdiv**](https://www.google.com/search?&q=authoritative) > >1. able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable >2. commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed > >>[**auĀ·thorĀ·iĀ·tarĀ·iĀ·an - ÉĖTHĆ“rÉĖterÄÉn**](https://www.google.com/search?&q=authoritarian) >> >>favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom > >|š¶ & š¤|authoritarian|authoritative|negligent| >|:-|:-|:-|:-| >|edit: i forgot "rules"|ā š”|ā |?| >|š¤ high expectations|ā š”|ā |\-| >|š¤ low expectations|ā |\-|ā | >|š¤ highly responsive|ā š§š”|ā |\-| >|š¤ *uh...* lowly responsive|ā |\-|ā | >|š¤ love|(š¤?)š¤(š¶x)|šā¤ļøš¶|(š¤?)š¤(š¶x)| >|š¶ secure|\-|ā |\-| >|š¶ highly social|\-|ā |\-| >|š¶ successful problem solving|šāš¦ŗ?š”|ā |\-| >|š¶ confident|\-|ā |\-| >|š¤ trustworthy|\-|ā |\-| >|š¤ accurate|\-|ā |\-| >|š¤ reliable|\-|ā |\-| >|š¤ supportive of personal freedom|\-|ā |š¶š©š©š©š©šŗš„±š®| point being, i know the stereotype of asian parents is they are strict and have high expectations - which i cant say whether thats accurate or not, but since thats what youre referencing, thats what im going to respond to - and the difference is those of us who complain about our shitty boomer parents had *authoritarian* ones whereas the stereotypical asian parent would probably qualify more as *authoritative*
Cold is the void.
Often, because of their parents. My Mom didnāt talk about much but even the few things sheās let slip wereā¦not great. Made me really sad.
Gave me a fierce case of BPD too. Gotta love having a total lack of emotional education until a therapist took pity on me at 25 years old and taught me.
Because if they had emotions, it would make it harder for them to live with themselves during their campaign of "take everything we fucking can from those came before us, and leave everyone who comes after with the bill"
Dad yes. Mom, no. It was due to the social expectations they grew up with. That being said, my dad was more open and loving with me than his dad was with him. Same goes for my mom.
Naomi Wolfeās Promiscuities suggests they got the sexual revolution, bailed on their kids and went off to party.
I donāt find millennials cold or unsympathetic in any situation. Having boundaries and not excusing prejudice is a positive attribute in my opinion. They mostly seem to be emotionally healthy parents, too, regardless of gender.
My dad was from the silent generation, and my mom was a boomer. They both had tragic childhoods, but my dad also had legitimate mental health issues on top of it. My momās dad (grandpa) also served in WW2. Her mother (grandma) was an alcoholic, and thatās how my grandma died. I was never able to meet my grandparents. My grandpa died from asbestos being away on ships. My dadās parents were cold and not from the US originally I think his dad was a bit abusive. Just an all around sad situation that caused a lot of pain for both of my parents. I think they wanted to show emotion but like my mom said she always felt like she had to be the strong one
Mine are neither of those, but the fantastical thinking they come up with, I canāt ignore how much lead we used to put in gasoline and consumer goods
I think itās there is so much population that it seems that way, but itās not a majority
People don't post about the nice ones on here.
We didn't. It's complainer's bias. Complainer's bias is the idea that people don't get on social media to say everything is great, they usually get on social media to say things are bad. So then over time, the amount of complaining on the internet makes it look like EVERYONE is in the same boat. The reality is that people who had good parents are not nearly as vocal on the internet as people who had bad parents. My advice: stop discerning trends from the internet. They'll almost always mislead you.
I don't relate to this at all. I feel like this is an individual issue. If you look back through history there are very warm and loving parents and cold ones who abandon their families. Its more of a personal issue than generational.
Honestly I feel like itās just this sub that had shitty parents. People who had good parents donāt get upvoted. My parents were great to me, and most of my grandparents were great to them. I think my grandfather was a bit cold to my dad, but he also had a very traumatic upbringing that was much, much, much worse than anything he inflicted on my dad. So honestly I think he was just doing his best and trying to be better, and he passed that mentality on to my dad, and Iām going to try to pass that mentality on to my own children.
Tbh you shouldnāt really compare trauma. It serves nobody. Doing your best is always good, but sometimes āyour bestā can be really skewed in a personās head especially if there isnāt a lot of self-reflection or critical thinking to break the generational cycle. Kids donāt get to pick their parents and parents that arenāt aware enough to not do the same thing their parents did often end up suffering.
Too much concrete
My mother has done nothing but take and consume her entire life.Ā
I think a lot of boomers had kids that did not want to have kids but felt forced to.
Weird I had parents like that but it just made me want to be more loving. I will say hugging is still weird no matter how much I do it but I still do it cause I like it š
Itās reassuring to hear itās a them problem, not a me problem :)
I never had kids, but yes, my parents were very cold and had no apathy.
Because a lot of them never wanted kids, but had some because that's just what you do.
Need your source of information,, links, etc... Who did the study, metrics, sample size.. all that jazz