View Full Version : Do you have a close relationship with your parents?
Shaka_Khan
04-15-2009, 10:26
Some years ago, I was surprised at my cousin's cousin who constantly hugged his dad. I couldn't imagine doing that to my dad even when I was a kid because I was afraid of him. He was very strict and conservative. He wasn't the type of dad who'd take me to an amusement park or somewhere. Also, I didn't think a dad is someone you'd have a close relationship with.
This makes me wonder what the other parents are like. Am I alone in this forum on this?
pevergreen
04-15-2009, 10:31
I doubt I will cry at my parents funeral.
"Its not so much that I want to kill them, more like I want them to not be alive anymore."
I doubt I will cry at my parents funeral.
"Its not so much that I want to kill them, more like I want them to not be alive anymore."
:yes:
My dad seems indifferent towards me, and my mom well she sorta cares too much I think...
My father passed away a few years ago, we didn't really get along, conflicting characters, but I loved him anyway. I am all good with my mom.
rory_20_uk
04-15-2009, 10:42
My parents are a massive part of my world. I love them more than I do myself. I'd consider dying for them, and if pushed I'd most certainly kill to protect them.
~:smoking:
Shaka_Khan
04-15-2009, 10:45
The recession is becoming a factor. I saw my dad come from work being all cranky. Last month, he told me that business wasn't going well.
Luckily, I'm independent so I could stay out of home for a long period of time. ~D
Wow.
My oldies and I really get along perfectly. I visit them every 2 days for lunch, I still get a lot of support from them and yet they treat me like the adult I am.
I can understand that some people don't like their parents, but for those who do; Get to know them better, because one day they might be gone forever. Sounds cheesey, but...
Shaka_Khan
04-15-2009, 11:52
Get to know them better,...
I tried that with my father many times before. That didn't go too well. I get the feeling that he likes me better if I have less contact with him as much as possible. Anyway, after he threw me across the room and talked to me mainly in yells during the few times that he talked to me, I feel wreckless if I dare to interact with him.
InsaneApache
04-15-2009, 12:17
Your relationship with your parents changes as you get older. My mam lives about 40 miles away, I see her two or three times a year, we talk on the phone half a dozen times a year. I see my dad* perhaps once a year, I speak to him on the phone about the same as my mam. I do IM with him several times a week, it was me that took him to buy his first 'proper' PC.
It's funny but when I was a nipper, like some others, I was wary around my dad. This was because it was him that administered the punishments. As an aside my first wife tried that one on me but I didn't bite. I wasn't going to come home from work and start on the kids for something they'd done hours earlier. I told her that was both our jobs, not just mine. I wasn't going to fall for being the 'nasty' parent. That 'wait until your father gets home' bollocks wasn't for me.
Now as a grandad I don't really think of my parents as parents. You'll know what I mean when you become one. If you do become one. When I go to see my dad he often tells me off and tells me what to do. Of course I laugh and stay naughty! He laughs too but I understand what he means when he says the he can't stop being a dad. I'm the same with my lads, one's 29 t'other 26. Both with kids.
Interestingly my elder brother, who never had kids, gets quite upset when dad does the same to him. Must be a 'having kids changes you' kinda thing. I tell him to either ignore it or laugh it off, he can't do either, so he sulks. He's 53 BTW. :laugh4:
I s'pose I'm closer to my dad than to mam but that's probably down to having interesting conversations on a wide variety of subjects. My mam on the other hand just moans. I guess he's a lot happier than her.
Make the most of them while you got 'em kiddies. They won't be here forever. :yes:
*Dad lives on Corfu. I live in Yorkshire.
Rhyfelwyr
04-15-2009, 12:53
I've had a non-dramatic, gradual falling out with my parents. I've never had the stereotype teenager argument stuff, I just mostly ignore them (even though I live with them, but at least I've got Teh Org). Don't get me wrong I appreciate I still get a roof over my head but we don't get along.
Get to know them better, because one day they might be gone forever. Sounds cheesey, but...
Kinda saddens me that my father never got to know me, he has only seen the worst of me, which is in my case pretty damn bad, completely different person now. Died way too young, he was only 55.
My parents have always been awesome and continue to be awesome. I look forward to hanging out with them whenever possible.
Strike For The South
04-15-2009, 13:56
I love my folks. They are the ying to my yang. My family is the most important thing to me. The things my folks taught me I will treasure forever. Although I come from 2 large extended families and I have a very big immediate family (8 people!) So you learn to live with people I guess
Although I do feel differently about them. Love them both to death but.
I'll explain it like this. When the saints call for Dad it will be very sad and I will grieve (But not cry, the man beat the girly emotions out of me and I thank him for that)
When Mum dies I'm ascending up to the pearly gates, kicking the hell out of St.Peter and bringing her back down. I don't share my mum. I'll be straight up inconsolable when she goes. That day may ruin me.
I think IA is right not because my mum passed off all the punishments to our dad. It was just that he carried out most of them. He also yelled and that scared little SFTS. Now I know the discipline was part of growing up and I love the man for all he sacrificed.
LittleGrizzly
04-15-2009, 18:27
My Mum, yes, she is probably my only family member I care about deeply and there is no person's death I can imagine that would affect men worse... in the words of SFTS I'll be straight up inconsolable when she goes. That day may ruin me.
My Dad on the other hand I have never really been that close to.... up until the age of about 16 I called him Richard rather than Dad. I call him Dad now but now were pretty distant. Its mainly because my parents are split up, i used to go a few times a year to visit him and he'd come down now and again and i used to cry my eyes out every time we would leave him or he would leave us, up until about the age of 12...
I think this is when i decided to stop caring slightly, and basically now i very rarely see him, he occasionally rings up asking if i want to go up there or my mum offers to take me up to see him, but i can't be bothered with him these days....
In part it may have started out as a revenge thing for him making little effort to come down and see me, so i thought why should i make the effort to see him.... In part its because the last two times i went to see him he had a go at me, don't get me wrong the things he was having a go at where perfectly legitimate, but this was the first time he had seen me in about 2 years, he forfeited the right to have a go at me when he stopped seeing me regularly
And lastly i don't bother partially becuase i would rather stay home and go out with my friends and do my own thing, this seems kind of mean but if he had bothered to maintain a relationship i would probably make the extra effort...
Although saying all this he asked me what i wanted for my birthday so i could be getting my first birthday present off him in like 7-8 years...*
*he is possibly trying to buy me off as i have been kind of ignoring him, not answering his phone calls and the like...
Half and half. One good parent, one bad. The good one is dead, unfortunately.
Banquo's Ghost
04-15-2009, 19:02
Both my parents are dead, sadly.
My father was very much on the austere, Victorian model. A great deal older than I, and not into children. If any of you know "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh, he was just like Charles Ryder's father - and even more so like the characterisation portrayed by the wonderful Gielgud in the ITV adaptation.
I doubt if he spoke three words to me until I was twenty-one. His study door was the ultimate in forbidding statements.
When I came home from Sandhurst after first term, he came to the door, smiled warmly and invited me into that sanctum. Wreathed in the smoke from his aromatic Latakia blend, we actually had a conversation and were firm, if somewhat distant and emotionally awkward, friends ever since. I miss him and his wisdom.
I don't intend to write much about my mother, save I loved her beyond measure. Losing her was, is, still beyond comprehension. I manage through counting all the blessings she was for me.
Yes, it wasn't always like this but if we're not counting geological (though I visit them every second weekend), I have a very close relationship with my parents.
Ironside
04-15-2009, 20:36
Friendly relation with both parents, meeting both of them (they are separated since long) about 7-8 times a year, but it's a bit tougher with my mother (whom I previously was closer) as her mental health haven't been the best for the last few years (mainly a depression). While visiting her makes her cheer up a bit most of the time, it's a big drain on yourself to visit her.
I doubt I will cry at my parents funeral.
"Its not so much that I want to kill them, more like I want them to not be alive anymore."
HEY THATS STEWIE GRIFFINS QUOTE! :stare:
and I laugh everytime I see it :laugh4:
Half and half. One good parent, one bad. The good one is dead, unfortunately.
same, minus the dead bit :yes:
There is a line from the Terminator TV show. "Close doesn't mean happy." And that describes my relationship with my parents. Like most of you I have one ironfisted do what I say at all times tyrant of a parent, and one wishy washy wants to be your friend parent. Unlike most of you the former was my mother, and the latter my father. Never once in my entire childhood did my mother resort to the "you wait till your father gets home!" line. She'd have been too busy kicking our (that is my brother and I) asses to even think it. Though I'd never put myself in harms way for either of them, that kind of thing I reserve for my siblings. Whom I'm much closer too than either parent. Another observation is that my brother and I are both a LOT like my mother in terms of personality.
GeneralHankerchief
04-16-2009, 01:27
Well, I thought my relationship with my parents was about average until I read the thread, and now I think I've got it pretty good. :yes: I'm on good terms with both the folks, especially my dad. Aside from having the whole parent/kid bond, we're also pretty good friends. We watch a lot of the same TV, both talk to each other about sports, etc. My mom not as much, but she's still a great person and we're good with each other.
After almost a year at uni in which I question the authenticity of my friends' attitudes towards me, it's always refreshing to go home and be surrounded by people that I know are happy to have me. I can't imagine life without them.
Don Corleone
04-16-2009, 01:53
I had a really good relationship with my parents when I was young (<14). Then when the testoserone started kicking in, my Dad and I grew apart. I felt a need to challenge him and assert myself, and being the stereotypical mediteranean-American type, he was rather emotional and demonstrative of his dislike of that. There were times when I'm not sure the police shouldn't have been called.* But through at all, we've managed to talk.
After I made the first big mistakes of my life (won't get into that here), I expected my father to sour-grapes me. Rather, he was the one who helped dust me off and was adamant about me getting back on the horse before I became afraid to ride. That was the beginning of a renaissance for the two of us. Now we're actually pretty good friends. He's more of a mentor, and I actually seek his advice, as he's pretty wise about a lot of stuff.
My mom has been great from day 1. The only trouble I've ever had with her came recently, with the advent of my daughters. It's not trouble with her, per se, but she doesn't always agree with the child-rearing decisions the missus and I make, and that can cause friction... of a seizmic scale at times. You see, my mother's family, being Irish-American and having a strong military tradition, has always been rather matriarchal. I gave her her first grandaughter, which in many ways is as much her legacy as my own.
But I couldn't have asked for a better set. They've always been in my corner, when I'm right, there're there to back me, and when I'm wrong, there're there to call me on it. I can only hope I'm half as good.
*On me specifically, more often than not.
CountArach
04-16-2009, 03:13
I suppose I have a pretty good relationship with my parents overall. I get along with them just fine and we have our own little in-jokes. However, my big problem is that I share very little in common interest-wise with either of my parents. I also struggle to talk to them about personal issues because I just don't know how they will react and I rarely feel that I will get the sort of response I am looking for. I've noticed that I'm getting closer with my dad in recent years though and I have started to see him more as someone I can just talk about random stuff with (Mainly politics).
So I dunno.... I guess so, but not *really* close.
seireikhaan
04-16-2009, 03:51
We get along pretty well.
Like Rory, I would kill for my parents if necessary. I speak to my father every day on the phone, sometimes multiple times. I call my mom usually 1-2 times a week. When I'm home from college, we are extremely close.
My mom had a pretty crappy childhood and likes to have her family around whenever possible.
Strike For The South
04-16-2009, 03:58
I had a really good relationship with my parents when I was young (<14). Then when the testoserone started kicking in, my Dad and I grew apart. I felt a need to challenge him and assert myself, and being the stereotypical mediteranean-American type, he was rather emotional and demonstrative of his dislike of that. There were times when I'm not sure the police shouldn't have been called. But through at all, we've managed to talk.
My head called, you've been evicted.
Crazed Rabbit
04-16-2009, 04:16
Well, I thought my relationship with my parents was about average until I read the thread, and now I think I've got it pretty good. :yes:
Huh, me too.
I love my family. Heaven knows we've been through some rough times, but I can't help loving them. I would do whatever it takes to protect them. My mom raised me with the words of her father, "Family; you don't have to like them, you just have to love them."
Both my parents have been extremely supportive all my life, and we remain close.
CR
Seamus Fermanagh
04-16-2009, 05:33
Always loved them, didn't always agree with their values/beliefs. Dad died about 18 months back, I still feel a bit at a loss when I think on that. I still say Rosary for him (which he'd have thought a well-intentioned inanity as he was about as religious as Pizzaguy).
Megas Methuselah
04-16-2009, 06:15
My mom's a single parent and I'm an only child. I can't imagine having a mother who would be indifferent towards her children. I don't know my dad too much, but the few times we met in my life were enjoyable.
My grampa, my mom's dad, was the father in my life. He was everything a dad could be; greatest man I ever knew.
HoreTore
04-16-2009, 07:11
Yes I do. They split up some 10 years ago, but I'm still very close to both. If I ever need help, I know they'll try their best, no matter what. Also, they've let me do what I wanted, they have never pushed anything on me. I get to live my life the way I want to live it, and I'm very thankful for that.
The only negative thing I can think of, was my mom's behavior when I brought home womenz back when I lived at home... It was slightly annoying to wake up with a hangover and hear my mom scream "awwwww, who does that blonde head lying next to Erik belong to?? This is sooooooo nice!!!! Do you want to stay for breakfast? What do you want, I can make some etc etc"... Way to spoil my fun when I get lucky, mom....
Incongruous
04-16-2009, 09:43
I came to accept the fact that kids who don't like their parents (me about three years ago at 17) are *****, truly. The amount of time for each other my parents had to forgoe for my sake is legend, I really wish now, that I had been nicer to them.
In the end, you will miss 'em.
HoreTore
04-16-2009, 10:30
Well.
Some people are cursed with parents who are absolute bastards... I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Fritzl disagrees with you, Bopa ~;)
Shaka_Khan
04-16-2009, 10:53
I came to accept the fact that kids who don't like their parents (me about three years ago at 17) are asses, truly. The amount of time for each other my parents had to forgoe for my sake is legend, I really wish now, that I had been nicer to them.
In the end, you will miss 'em.
You might change your mind if you meet them again. ~D Or maybe you have great parents. I know some other parents whose temper gets worse due to the imbalance of their hormones.
From what my dad has said to me, I get the feeling that my dad doesn't want me near him. He is still the yeller of the family. My mom, my sister and my friends are afraid of him. One thing he improved on is that he stopped coming home drunk everyday. Fortunately, I get along very well with my mother.
Louis VI the Fat
04-16-2009, 11:27
Family; you don't have to like them, you just have to love themHey, that's really good. Wiser than it looked like at first sight.
I get along great with my parents. I've got a close contact with my mother. Less so with my father. Do love 'em both.
Hosakawa Tito
04-16-2009, 16:58
You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends, choose wisely. Growing up I didn't really realize how fortunate I was to have the parents that I did. I guess I just assumed most everyone else's relationships with their parents were pretty much the same as mine. Once I got out on my own I discovered how wrong that assumption was. My parents weren't perfect, but then who is. My father was an impatient, suffer no fools, workaholic, but his heart was in the right place. And if he was hard on me sometimes it was because he loved me and wanted me to grow into a productive & happy adult. He wasn't always right, but most of the time he was. He grew up during the Great Depression, worked hard all his life shucking steel at the steel plant sometimes working two jobs to provide for 5 kids & a wife. Yet somehow he found time for us on the weekends to play baseball, go camping, fishing, hiking, picnics, etc... I still don't know where he got the energy to do all that.
He never finished highschool, but he was a highly skilled mechanic and could fix just about anything. He died at the age of 51 of a stomach cancer, and never got to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor or get to know his grandkids. Such is life sometimes, and I'm thankful to have had him as my guide on. :bow:
Well, I thought my relationship with my parents was about average until I read the thread, and now I think I've got it pretty good.
I would have agreed up until I went to law school. It seems like I've met a lot of people since then that have serious difficulties with one or more of their parents. My wife doesn't like her mother at all, and many of my friends and coworkers have similarly dysfunctional relationships with one or both parents. It's not a lawyer-only thing either, because this includes numerous people I know from other walks of life.
That said, most of the people I know tend to be pretty intelligent and well-educated (institutionally or self-educated). That trend tends to be similar to my notions about the average Org member: namely that they're smarter (or at least more intellectually curios) than the average person. That's probably even more so for Backroom regulars. It occurs to me that perhaps the reason for this unexpected trend is that higher levels of intelligence result in an increasing likelihood of parental conflicts. I can see some basis for that, simply because it seem reasonable that the more intellectually oriented a person is, the more likely they are to either break from the family 'mold' or otherwise deviate from the type of behavior that their parents expect of them.
If we have any psychologists back here, I'd be interested to hear their take on this.
He never finished highschool, but he was a highly skilled mechanic and could fix just about anything. He died at the age of 51 of a stomach cancer, and never got to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor or get to know his grandkids. Such is life sometimes, and I'm thankful to have had him as my guide on. :bow:
That is pretty much exactly the same for me, 55 years old BAM cancer and 3 months later dead. Also never finished any school, but knew just about everything.
Dutch_guy
04-16-2009, 21:29
Have a great relation with both, always been the case.
:balloon2:
KukriKhan
04-16-2009, 23:16
I adored them as a child, reviled them as a teen. I hated our poverty, and blamed them for it.
Once I left home (at 18) they seemingly suddenly got a lot smarter. :beam: Somewhere in my late 20's, I realized they were the finest people I knew, sacrificing everything for the sake of their kids.
I try to live up to their standards of love, duty, sacrifice, hard work, independence, and liberty. The only thing I've done differently is try to introduce more laughter in my own family.
InsaneApache
04-17-2009, 00:24
You know, I never hit my kids. I took that from my experiences as a child. I'd remembered that the worse thing about the punishment was waiting for it!
So I used to give, what my eldest son called, 'the look'.
The implied violence was a more more effective method of policing than actually giving them a clout. :laugh4:
Now I'm unsure of whether I've damaged them psychologically. You just can't win as a parent. :wall:
I think it's difficult to state at my age exactly how much you owe your parents, but I do think I have some of the best parents in the world. I know that they care for me and love me and I'm very grateful for that.
Strike For The South
04-17-2009, 00:37
You know, I never hit my kids. I took that from my experiences as a child. I'd remembered that the worse thing about the punishment was waiting for it!
:
See thats the problem with you Gen Xs. You got to soft on your kids. I got hit with everything and as each successive sibling came they hit them less and less
Of course I am the only sibling who has been arrested and but I can't blame myself now can I? ~;)
ajaxfetish
04-17-2009, 02:34
I'm not the best at staying in close touch, but I'm close to both my parents. I love visiting them when I get the opportunity and seeing them when they come to visit me.
What's really weird, though, is that I'm almost as close to my in-laws! :dizzy2:
Ajax
Hooahguy
04-17-2009, 04:31
closer ti my dad then i am my mom. my dad, while very strict and demands a lot, he is much more understanding than my mother, mainly because my mother is almost constantly occupied with caring for my 2.5 year old brother.
ICantSpellDawg
04-17-2009, 04:43
I love my parents. I like my dad more and more everyday and he is an easy going guy. My mom is very difficult to get along with if you disagree, but she is a genuinely good person, albeit a bit extreme. She is the "manager" and my dad is the "worker". That means my dad makes the money and does the house work while my mom criticizes every little mistake he makes in those endeavors. I call her on it often, but she adopts kids and looks out for children everywhere so I feel guilty about ripping her apart afterwards.
I was a real jerk kid to them, but now I think I am the one they look towards as a role model for the rest of the kids.
Kukri's "love, duty, sacrifice, hard work, independence, and liberty'" hit the nail on the head with my parents. They are the finest people I know. Self-less to the core
Samurai Waki
04-17-2009, 11:27
My dad passed away a few years ago, and he was probably the best friend/mentor a guy could have. Real easy going character, but someone who worked hard, and wasn't afraid to use his hands and do the job himself if he had to. Its unfortunate my daughters will never be able to know him, he would've made a great grandfather.
My mom, is touch and go. I'll always be her child, and she'll always be my mom. I love her unconditionally, and I think so does she we just rub each other the wrong way. I'm like my dad, right down to the image, and they divorced early on.
HoreTore
04-17-2009, 11:54
What's really weird, though, is that I'm almost as close to my in-laws! :dizzy2:
THAT, my friend, is a bloody miracle.
My mother is just too good to be true. She's a saint, really. She deserves a statue.
As for my father, I had a difficult relationship with him when I was younger, but nowadays, I think I can safely say that he's my best friend and, looking back, he did an outstanding job dealing with the difficult personality I was as a child and teenager. He deserves a statue as well, next to the one of my mom.
THAT, my friend, is a bloody miracle.
Well, here's miracle n° 2: I have an excellent relationship with my father in law, his second wife, and the children of both my father in law and his second wife (my wife's mother died of cancer at the age of 47, I never got to know here, sadly; 12 years later, my wife still misses her).
Strike For The South
04-17-2009, 19:30
Were a bunch of mommas boys. :laugh4:
My mother is just too good to be true. She's a saint, really. She deserves a statue.
So does my mum. She needs one also. My father also.
Both are examples to me. My mum taught me how to live, you know, do this and do not do this. My father was what everyone would call the stereotype of "middle class worker". He wakes up very early, he doesn't go to work, he doesn't have an office, his office were the cellphones and his car. Every morning I wake up and he is using the cellphone. I missed him when I was very younger, he traveled a lot and sometimes he didn't appear in a whole week. Now, I live in my parents home (it is mine also, but I prefer to say my home to my flat where I study) and they care about me and my problem. They are married at the day, and I wouldn't tolerate if they were going to divorce. I hope they won't divorce. Our family did not had good times (see the crisis of 2001, we had some cheques that were worth 0), and still they are toghether.
Were a bunch of mommas boys.
:yes:
Megas Methuselah
04-19-2009, 21:43
Were a bunch of mommas boys. :laugh4:
Mummy loves to go shopping with me. :smash:
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
04-20-2009, 01:29
I have a difficult relationship with both my parents. Both are emotionally closed off, pessimistic and somewhat judgemental. Of the two my father has by far the worse temper, something I have inherrited, though I'm not quite as bad. I see many of my worst qualities reflected in one parent or the other.
My father is a man with a violent and explosive temper, intollerent, threatening and emotionally intense as well as closed off and non-comunicative. He is completely useless if you need advice or any kind of emotional support.
He is also intelligent, honourable, loyal, charming and well read despite a very poor education. Looking back at my childhood I can see that he struggled to conect with his own children after being brought up by a heartless and manipulative mother and a Victorian father. Overall, our relationship did not realy improve until I was 16 or so.
My mother, on the other hand, is the one I now have a difficult relationship with. Although I do love her I find her almost intollerable for any length of time. She is obsessive, overbearing and even manipulative. All because she tries to do the best for her son and her daughter.
Overall, I would say neither of us turned out as our parents would have liked. Proud as my father is of my academic achievements I know he is dissapointed by my physical weakness. my mother would like me to be more emotionally independant.
Samurai Waki
04-21-2009, 08:48
Man, after reading all of these posts as a parent I've decided that the only quality I want to pass off to my children is for them to have a good sense of humor, oh, and to be... responsible. :inquisitive:
pevergreen
04-21-2009, 09:43
I think my problem lies with my parents being out of touch.
Not with the current generation, Dad works in telecommunications, so hes tech savy and mum works with kids, but they expect me to want to go out and get drunk all the time, like my brother, yet I stay home and play games, and if i do meet friends, I dont drink. Getting my license isnt important to me, which they can't understand, it was such a big thing for them.
Ja'chyra
04-21-2009, 13:04
Were a bunch of mommas boys. :laugh4:
This to be honest
Seamus Fermanagh
04-21-2009, 13:57
I think my problem lies with my parents being out of touch.
Not with the current generation, Dad works in telecommunications, so hes tech savy and mum works with kids, but they expect me to want to go out and get drunk all the time, like my brother, yet I stay home and play games, and if i do meet friends, I dont drink. Getting my license isnt important to me, which they can't understand, it was such a big thing for them.
You have a world quite literally at your fingertips -- no car needed. Nobody in my generation has absorbed that at the sinew-deep level that all of your generation accepts as a norm, even though we use the internet well and accept it as a commonplace. You have the freedom you need to establish your own sense of self -- your folks desperately needed to get out of the house to accomplish the same thing -- hence the licensure's import.
If you have also already discovered that an occasional drunk is fun but that as a regular activity it's pretty shallow, then so much the better for you.
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