Making Peace with Our Parents

fureverywhere

fureverywhere

beloved friend who will always be with us in spiri
Location
Northern NJ, USA
Not so much putting up with them but in your own head. Finally accepting that they are who they are and you are who you are. I kind of had an epiphany of sorts tonight about my Dad. He IS 93...he's still independent, G-d Bless. But also become more than a bit delusional about the real world. It's understandable, even way younger than that it's easy to be bewildered.

But it makes him cranky too. When I mentioned in passing all the applications I had to do online. He just sniped " Oh you're online filling out applications? Don't be ridiculous, that's the easy stuff, what you need to do is find a few offices to march into and convince them to hire you!". Of course with the way of the world now. If you marched into an office for a job...not only won't they give you a job...security and the police might be escorting you out the door.

I understand he doesn't like dogs. He never has and he never will. But knowing how much they mean to me. But I guess he can't understand that either. But if he were a stranger...If I showed a stranger a picture of my beautiful boy and they said " You must be out of your mind, when do you think a dog like that is going to turn on you? It happens all the time, I see it on Judge Judy, everybody thinks oh he's a great dog, we've had him for years and he eats one of their children, that's what's going to happen".

If a stranger said something like that to my face I might have my first assault conviction. But it's my Dad and I think it's time for me to get off the phone now. Ditto for housekeeping, since getting the dogs he hasn't been in here for years. But it's like an apartment I had in Pennsylvania at one time. I had furnished and decorated on my own and I was darn proud of every detail. My Dad came to visit. He looked around briefly and mentioned I still had those filthy cats and I was making my kids sick with all the pet dander.

Tonight right there in a store parking lot I realized **** it. I will never please him in this lifetime. And I don't have to listen to his opinions. When he goes off on a tirade simply " Okay Dad that's great I have to go now, I just remembered I have to brush the cat's teeth, but you take care now CLICK". Really, you just have to. I'm sure many of us have the same problem. Just because we grew up...they don't see it.

Whew, I feel a bit better, thank you;)
 

I can really relate to you. Even though my parents are gone now they really did used to get under my skin. My dad was always trying to tell everyone how stupid they are and really just because it was done to him by others and maybe his parents, I'm not sure. Sometimes I sit here and wonder why I am getting myself all upset about something my dad said when he is gone. It's as if he is still alive in my head I guess. I saw a therapist for awhile about many things including my parents and one thing she taught me is that just because my father says something doesn't mean it's true. I guess my fear was that he was somehow right when he wasn't. When I went back to school as a middle age college student he told me I really didn't know anything new, that all I learned was already known by others. That hurt me to no end. I just couldn't get over that. Yes, it still bothers me. What else can I say but that I know how it is.
 
I always think the Spousal Equivalent's head is going to explode every time he gets off the phone with his mother. She is the sweetest thing alive, but she's like a pitbull. She gets something in her mind and there's no explaining anything to her. She's not particularly senile, but she gets the most gosh-darned notions. Once she handed us a handful of ordinary English coins that an English sailor she dated once in the early days of WWII had given her. She decided that she would like those coins returned to his family. Now, mind you, she's a little shaky about his last name (it might have been Williams and it might have been Wilson and it just might have been Wilkins) and she can't remember exactly where he lived in England but she's just sure that we can "get on the computer" and find his family. This went on for months and finally he told her he had found the family, returned the coins and "read" her a letter from them about how grateful they were. That settled her. We use this method with her quite often. I hate lying to her, but what else can we do?
 

Ain't that the truth. I am only working through my family/parental issues. Sigh, sometimes one lifetime just isn't enough. Lol. Still they always teach us something, even if it is who not to be.
 
My parents are gone.. But I'm still dealing with them.. For me it's complete ambivalence. One day loving them and understanding... the next remembering bad things.. I guess it will always be like that.
 
WOW! I'm sorry that some of you had such bad parents. I can't complain. They weren't perfect, except my Dad, just ask him, he'll tell he was. Anyway, I would really like to have them back. My Mom was like Mrs. Cleaver until she went to work after I went to 4th grade. She said that she wanted her own money. Dad protested, but Mom won out. I missed coming home after school and not having her there.

My dad died in a fire just a few years after retiring from the military. My Mom lived to be 87.
 
oldman said:
WOW! I'm sorry that some of you had such bad parents. I can't complain. They weren't perfect, except my Dad, just ask him, he'll tell he was. Anyway, I would really like to have them back. My Mom was like Mrs. Cleaver until she went to work after I went to 4th grade. She said that she wanted her own money. Dad protested, but Mom won out. I missed coming home after school and not having her there.
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1 ditto.gif...Best parents ever...
 
I'm thankful I still have my mom. My dad passed years ago but is deeply missed. I have had issues with my mom, but in the end I love her and I just let things go. Why hold on to the negatives? Someone told me...just remember parents are just people...not gods. It's not necessary that we agree about everything.
 
Karen99 said:
I'm thankful I still have my mom. My dad passed years ago but is deeply missed. I have had issues with my mom, but in the end I love her and I just let things go. Why hold on to the negatives? Someone told me...just remember parents are just people...not gods. It's not necessary that we agree about everything.
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I agree, Karen.....my dad has been gone many years, I still have my mom...my mother has always been very strong and the glue that held us altogether, but now sometimes I have to be the adult in the room, if you know what I mean.
 
Some time after my marriage my mother made it clear to me that when I visited her I should come alone and not bring my wife.

Not wanting to ignore fer wishes, I stopped visiting her. So did her only grandson, a teenager at the time, despite our urging otherwise.

That was more forty years ago.

I have nothing to make peace for.
 
I'm sorry Laurie...I have daughters like that but it's their choice not mine. Something I do notice is while I understand Dad less and less I find myself cheering for my Mom's spirit. I wish I could tell her that now. I was so mousey as a kid and my Mom was a tank. But while that scared me as a child I realize she was really a dynamic woman for her time. In her family women perhaps finished high school and got married. Maybe a bit of employment but then you became a wife and kept house.

Besides following my Dad around in the service Mom was determined to go to college. She did it without her family blessings and graduated with honors the same year I was born and her mother died. She went on to teach for decades. You can't believe the hundreds of condolence notes from people who's lives she touched.

Best I can do is channel that strength. Know she's on a cloud somewhere next to my aunt. Drinks and smokes in their hands having a grand old party into eternity.
 
I can relate to most of the comments here and especially to fureverywhere's because I came to the same sort of epiphany a few months ago. It doesn't take the sting away entirely when that parent is being difficult but it has made it easier to calm the pounding of my heart :) and I've learned too, to just listen, don't bother trying to continue talking when she talks right over me mid-sentence and never correct her. Three things that make it a little easier. Not perfect, but easier.


And equally importantly, I'm making mental note of all of these things with the goal of not doing it to my girls and we'll see how that goes in the future :rolleyes:.
 
What I have figured out over the years... particularly after having raised my own children.. My parents did the absolute best they could given the tools and the knowledge they had. I don't believe that most people intend to harm their children.. They really try to do what they believe is best... Sometimes it is good... sometimes not.. Such is life
 
I had a few "conflicts" with my parents in my teen years....and then I went into the military, and grew up. After a few years in the military, and away from the folks, I began to understand their "wisdom". Once I returned from overseas, and gained some maturity, our relationship was Much Improved. Then, I really began to appreciate their teachings when we had our children, and they reached their teen years. If a person is lucky, they are able to build upon the lessons learned from prior generations, and become a better person, as a result.
 
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I think that is one of the most important points made right there. That most parents across the board do try to do the best they can with what they can. Really, they could have done better they could have done worse. But for those of us who have done it ourselves. Each offspring does not come with it's own instruction book. My first boy was born just before I turned twenty one. No experience with babies, and I made so many mistakes he was lucky to make it to adulthood.

But he did and he's a handsome, go-getting, amazing young Dad...and you know he doesn't know much more about babies than I did. But he will learn like we all did. Then there was the oldest girl. She came into the world screaming and never stopped. The polar opposite of her brother. Moody, vindictive, unforgiving, and that was just her toddler years. In later years she tried to blame me for everything from the Spanish Inquisition to the Crisis in the Middle East, the Holocaust? Yup somehow that was me too. See how ridiculous it can get?

And maybe no matter what I had done with her the story would have turned out the same. I dreaded the youngest turning fourteen. The age the oldest was when she basically decided her birth mother was somehow a sham. Dang I put up with fourteen years of nonsense to only be your " birth mother"? I had some choice words for her one day regarding that. But they're all individuals. The youngest will be fifteen soon. None of her sister's drama at all. She still thinks her Mommy is the greatest thing since sliced bread and totally devoted. I am blessed.
 
I didn't have it easy growing up but I don't dwell on it really. At lest not very often. I think intent of the parents carries a lot of weight in a child's memory. My mom was depressed and sick all the time and lived in sort of a fantasy world about being a writer and didn't take care of our basic needs, but I have no ill will towards her in my heart because she was a good, kind person full of love. My dad, even though I loved him a lot and especially enjoyed all the stories he'd tell me about his childhood had a lot of problems. He was a thief and proud of it, mean and very negative and into tromping on people's dreams. Seeing what my husband and I had to live through in our childhoods makes me have little patience for the things my kids occasionally want to bring up about the way we raised them. And that's all I have to say about that.
 
fureverywhere said:
Not so much putting up with them but in your own head. Finally accepting that they are who they are and you are who you are. I kind of had an epiphany of sorts tonight about my Dad. He IS 93...he's still independent, G-d Bless. But also become more than a bit delusional about the real world. It's understandable, even way younger than that it's easy to be bewildered.

But it makes him cranky too. When I mentioned in passing all the applications I had to do online. He just sniped " Oh you're online filling out applications? Don't be ridiculous, that's the easy stuff, what you need to do is find a few offices to march into and convince them to hire you!". Of course with the way of the world now. If you marched into an office for a job...not only won't they give you a job...security and the police might be escorting you out the door.

I understand he doesn't like dogs. He never has and he never will. But knowing how much they mean to me. But I guess he can't understand that either. But if he were a stranger...If I showed a stranger a picture of my beautiful boy and they said " You must be out of your mind, when do you think a dog like that is going to turn on you? It happens all the time, I see it on Judge Judy, everybody thinks oh he's a great dog, we've had him for years and he eats one of their children, that's what's going to happen".

If a stranger said something like that to my face I might have my first assault conviction. But it's my Dad and I think it's time for me to get off the phone now. Ditto for housekeeping, since getting the dogs he hasn't been in here for years. But it's like an apartment I had in Pennsylvania at one time. I had furnished and decorated on my own and I was darn proud of every detail. My Dad came to visit. He looked around briefly and mentioned I still had those filthy cats and I was making my kids sick with all the pet dander.

Tonight right there in a store parking lot I realized **** it. I will never please him in this lifetime. And I don't have to listen to his opinions. When he goes off on a tirade simply " Okay Dad that's great I have to go now, I just remembered I have to brush the cat's teeth, but you take care now CLICK". Really, you just have to. I'm sure many of us have the same problem. Just because we grew up...they don't see it.

Whew, I feel a bit better, thank you;)
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I really feel for you Fureverywhere, my dad was negative like yours. Mine died when he was 52, back in 1972. I remember when our oldest son was 3 or 4 and so proud of himself because I taught him to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano. He could only play it with one finger, but so what? It was the first thing he learned. He played it for my dad and he said to me shaking his head "He can only play with one finger!". :( Would it have hurt so much to have something NICE to say about your grandchild playing the piano??? Grrrr....OK, I'll stop now. I could go on all day but I won't.
 
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Like Laurie,I have nothing to make peace for.my stepmother was more iiimportant to my father than his abused child.they say forgive so you can be free...I am free and I don't forgive.2 years ago I cut off ties and have not regreted it.
 
I still struggle to forgive, not for them, but for me. Bit by bit, I chip away at the pain. Difficult to accept you were never loved/wanted. Although I know the fault was theirs, the hurt remains. But less and less as I strive to release it. Once I stopped

wanting "justice" for the appalling way I was treated, a huge weight was gone. At least I no longer feel guilt for not loving them. Perhaps one lifetime will be enough to free myself of the "great lie."
 
Linda said:
I really feel for you Fureverywhere, my dad was negative like yours. Mine died when he was 52, back in 1972. I remember when our oldest son was 3 or 4 and so proud of himself because I taught him to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano. He could only play it with one finger, but so what? It was the first thing he learned. He played it for my dad and he said to me shaking his head "He can only play with one finger!". :( Would it have hurt so much to have something NICE to say about your grandchild playing the piano??? Grrrr....OK, I'll stop now. I could go on all day but I won't.
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He sounds like my mom. I think the result of having a mom like that though was good in a way because with my girls I was the opposite. Trying to always find the great thing or idea in everything they accomplished and encouraging to keep going.
 

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