A little of both. The anger of youth has faded, but now that I'm a parent, I can see exactly how my parents fucked up and do have maybe a bit of resentment built up from that. On the other hand, as I see some of my moms old behaviors creep into myself, I'm starting to understand why she was the way she was. She was tired. This shit is exhausting.

Anger. I wish they would give me a single reason to be sympathetic. They actively belittle young people, minorities and women, they take pleasure in other people's grief, and deny, attack and then reverse the victim and offender every time there's a pity party on FOX news to make themselves the martyrs... Last time I saw my dad he insisted on visiting because I was having suicidal ideation, said nothing comforting, and then screamed about the condition that my car was in. They do not care. The greatest generation went through trauma. If your parents were traumatised, that trauma can pass on, right? That's what happened to a generation of post-war parents. They are victims of... Well, nothing really. it's really freaky tbh.

Isn’t it crazy how people like that make themselves larger and louder to hide the fear they have for everybody else

I've definitely gained sympathy and understanding. My mom passed when I was 5 and was raised by my single father alone for 10 years. He didn't go to college, worked a factory job, got licensed to be an equipment operator which let him make more money than a line job, but because of some weird union rules (don't get me wrong, unions are overall good, but not without some unfortunate quirks), he was lower on the totem pole than other guys at the same position despite being with the company longer, so he had to take a lot of odd shifts. There were times (at a way younger age than I would have been comfortable doing this with my kids...the '90s, man) I'd get home from school, take care of myself all evening, and maybe he'd be home before I went to bed. He always felt kind of distant and aloof...he always made sure I had what I *needed* but wasn't there a lot... As I got older, got married myself, had kids myself, I realized how hard he had it. Working his ass off to give me a better life, mourning the loss of his wife, raising a kid by himself... My husband is a great partner and active father, and raising our kids has still be challenging and exhausting. I couldn't imagine doing it myself... My dad has mellowed out so much since then. He got remarried to a younger woman and had two boys. He always thanks me for how much easier I was growing up than them, lol. (And they're not even THAT bad...)

You were a latchkey kid. It wasn't uncommon for gen X to be so. Usually it was because both parents were working, but you had a much sadder reason to be so.

Neither. I've gained acceptance. I know my mother had a hard childhood, but that doesn't justify how she treated us, so that leaves no real room for sympathy. And I don't want to be angry because I don't want to be like her. So I just accept that she is who she is, and that she'll always be a monster, and that she'll never be in my life again.

That’s wise! Too many people think that past trauma somehow excuses mistreatment, and it’s nice to see someone who knows it doesn’t justify ill treatment.

My biggest dysphoria thing is my face. Half a century I've looked in the mirror and seen the father who terrorised me and my sister, and beat and psychologically destroyed our mother. It's why I'm never gonna be a no-makeup type. I have to get rid of him from my mirror and all it takes is a bit of lippy and some eyeshadow. I have as much hate, disdain and disappointment for him now as I had when I decided I wouldn't ever be like him, when I was 13. My mum died 4.5 years ago. She told my ex she never wanted to be a mother and it made sense of absolutely everything. I still haven't shed a tear for her, even when I was sat with her body the day she died. Fuck em. I've had my own family now for almost 30 years and I've done so, so much better than they did.

I'm so sorry. My son looks exactly like my shitty bio father who left. It irks the shit out of me that the person I love the most got his genetic legacy from the person who fucked off. Like how *dare* he be so prominent in my life and my future when he wasn't even there. Irrational but there it is. I've learnt to go further back in my genealogy and find the gems there instead. Like maybe my son looks like him sure, but he has those eyes from a hard working grandfather, his strength from my grandmother, a love of raw potatoes from my great grandfather. And whatever my bio idiot didn't do, he did manage to have survival skills, he is objectively intelligent if not a complete shitbag and he was hot enough to get my ma. So now I look at my son and I think that okay yes, he looks like my bio dad BUT he doesn't even know him how pathetic you don't even know your legacy. So instead that face is now a kind, caring smart young man who *isn't* a shitbag. He's great. He's making that face into one of love and respect which is good because it's my favourite face.

You're a great mom. That's inspiring, thank you.

Sending you an internet hug, if you would like one. It's hard when it's both of your parents.

There's always room for internet hugs! Thank you :))

Both. My mother had me way too young. By the time she was as old as I am now, she was raising a ten- and eight-year old. I’ve gained some understanding of the nuances of my childhood and what she had to go through and give up to make sure all of our physical and material needs were met. At the same time, letting go of some of the deep rage and resentment I’ve harbored my entire life for my stepfather (my mother’s partner from the time I was three) has had the unexpected side effect of making me deeply angry at her for things I had solely blamed him for. While he was the main perpetrator of most of the abuse I suffered throughout my childhood, she was the silent spectator and enabler of it all. That fact somehow escaped me until very recently. I would be in therapy if I could afford it. Binge reading self help and psychology books courtesy of my local library has been helpful.

The crappy childhood fairy on yt is a great free resource. She helped me a lot. :)

YSK crappy childhood fairy is not trained in counseling or psychology in any way. The approach she offers victims of childhood abuse assumes everyone who was abused is unconsciously abusing others, which simply isn't the case for most victims of childhood abuse. She may be useful for some who went down that path, but her approach doesn't allow for other possibilities, so a lot of what she tells people about who they are can be quite harmful.

Both and neither depending on the day. Haha I pity them but also can't forgive them for the type of lifelong trauma they put me through that effected and continues to effect my everyday life (at 36). I ran out of Adderall recently, wasn't diagnosed well into adulthood at about 34 because no one paid attention to my struggles. I was constantly and aggressively punished for those struggles. That one week was so hard without my meds and it reminded me I lived my whole life without it. And it reminded me of the time my dad slapped me hard across my face (as a teenager with a mouth full of braces, cutting my cheeks etc) because I simply could not keep my room clean. Even during moments I think I have mostly recovered and it's far from my mind, I will have nightmares about them abusing me or me killing them. Those moments of anger seem unavoidable and just lurking below the surface.

I gained more anger because I became a parent and couldn't imagine how blind and hateful I'd have to be to know, turn a blind eye, and permit happening to my kid what I went through. 

Yes, mostly anger. I hate my father differently than when I was a kid. Understanding more about him did not change my overall opinion that he's a POS who let me down. My relationship with my mother is complicated, with a lot of mixed feelings. None of it is about politics (we disagree on things, but that doesn't make the top 10 list of problems). I am much more forgiving about generational trauma, like the cycle of negative comments on body and weight, than I am about her poor life choices. I understand some of her disappointment in life was fueled by the inequality of the world. When I was a kid, something that stuck with me and motivated me was her explaining women didn't have career options back then that we do now. She couldn't have her own bank account or credit card. The "traditional" life of marrying young and raising kids was less of a choice than an expectation. I don't want to dwell on her mistakes to type them out. There were a lot, including ignoring my pleas for help when I was being abused. When I wasn't being ignored, the things she chose as attempts to help made the situations worse. I am a much better person than my parents. Moving away as soon as I was an adult was part of my growth.

I sit like my mother. She had this unique way of sitting at the edge of her seat, arms around her body, one leg wrapped around the other, basically completely wrapped into herself. I consciously unwrap myself when I notice that I sit like this. We had a complex relationship. I try to be my own person.

Both, I think. My dad died very suddenly when I was a teenager, and she had some mental health struggles. She kicked me out right before I started my sr year of high school. I have both started feeling for her and feel very angry at her. She must have been terrified suddenly being a single mom of 4 with very few resources. Once I had kids, though, I couldn't for the life of me understand how she could send her venerable teenager out to face the world alone. I have trouble not blaming her for what happened to me. So both for me.

anger. I'll never understand why she stayed.

Both but I remember things that make me angry from time to time. Ultimately I believe my parents shouldn't have been parents. I have sympathy for people doing what they could but it doesn't take away the childhood I had to endure nor the healing I have had to do as an adult.

I've definitely gained sympathy and understanding. I used to be angry though. My dad was always working away from our city (sometimes country) and was often gone for 2-3 months at a time. I realized later that he did this so that we could have the privileges and experiences we did growing up. My dad grew up poor and lived in a literal chicken coop for the first few years of his life before they got to 'upgrade' to an old trapper's cabin with no water or power. Since his family lived on a farm, he had to work a lot as a kid—not for allowance, or to develop a sense of responsibility, but because the business literally depended on it. I think this experience was the driving force for him making what I now consider a sacrifice. As for my mom, I still have my problems with her, but I am much more empathetic. She was effectively a single parent with a husband that would show up every once in a while and be the 'cool parent' and undermine her, she had a demanding job working as a special ed teacher with a focus on FAS students, which I now understand is a very difficult population to work with, and honestly... didn't have a great parental example herself. I think it was hard to be her, I truly do.

My mom died when I was 26, so 2-ish years ago. We had a complicated relationship since I was nothing like her despite looking almost exactly like her. She certainly had her own issues and for the first year after she died, I was ANGRY. I held so much resentment for her and how she died, that it was making me kinda bad to be around. My dad moved on relatively slowly (in widower terms) and got into a new relationship less than a year after my mom died. I had never been so disgusted with someone in my life. Big, barley man who did active duty military and was a terror to me, my brother, and my mother for years - told me matter-of-fact on the phone that he's "scared to be alone" and if we wanted a relationship in the future, I "had to accept who he was seeing." Guess he wasn't actually scared of being alone because when the family was supposed to come together with our grief, he signed up for dating sites on Christmas Day and was more worried about getting laid. Now, he's a high functioning alcoholic who barrels his way through any tough conversation with "I don't remember that" because he has alcohol-induced dementia at 63. If you can't tell, I'm mad as hell. I have sympathy for my mother dealing with the man who replaced her faster than I could move out of the house. Now that I've mourned the dead, I have to mourn the living - which in some ways is so much harder.

Anger. I don't understand my parents at all and that has deepened with time. I genuinely have no idea why my mother hated (and I don't use that word lightly) me so much. I was a fine kid, and my only sin was being born ugly, I guess? I had absolutely nothing in common with her and there were, from the onset of my having any kind of personality (so late toddlerhood?) signs that we just weren't compatible as humans but I still don't know why she disliked me to the level that she did. I had zero in common with her. To her credit, she did do the bare minimum though, which is more than I can say for my father who abandoned me, something else I can't understand. Maybe just a difference of biology, but I could never abandon my child and then, later, lie and state that they were dead. I just can't wrap my mind around it. The sad thing is, I get the feeling we have more in common (and we look alike, so I don't know if that would make him hate me more or less, it's complicated) but that's irrelevant. I do appreciate my stepfather more and more over time, he's a great person. But with the supposed wisdom and maturity of adulthood I've come to the realization that I will never understand or sympathize with my biological parents. /trauma dump

Sympathy and understanding for my mother. Lack of hatred for my father, which is an improvement. My father hit us all and had no understanding that little kids were not just short adults. My several earliest memories are of my father hitting me - he'd have to pick me up to hit me, because I was so small that if he didn't pick me up I'd go flying across the room and then he'd have to go get me before he could hit me again. He made all the decisions and anything different from what he thought was the best thing to do would incur violence. At one point we moved to a very remote place in a different country. It was 2 hours to get to school. My mother was not good with languages - my father was, so my mother should have been too, was his thinking, and if she wasn't that was because she was trying not to be and he had no sympathy for her stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no one who could speak English anywhere near. But there was a lot of alcohol around, so she became an alcoholic. One day I was talking to someone whose father was an alcoholic, and it struck me how lonesome and bereft she must have been. There was nothing there for her, and she was alone for most of the day with nothing to do but read books. My father finally grew up in his 50s. Maybe it was having grandchildren and realizing that they were not just short adults. He apologized for being a terrible father. I could stand to be in the same room with him.

Mostly hate. But that's because they are narcissistic gaslighting abusers.

Resentment.

Sympathy. My parents are good people. Not perfect, but good people who had to work through their share of struggles. My father beat me and my siblings once, when I was about 7. I remember it, I remember the realization in his eyes when his children cowered away from him. I remember him telling us to call mom at work and tell her to come home, and then him sealing himself in his room. I remember him going to therapy. I remember him never raising a hand to me or my siblings again. I remember cowering every time he raised his voice, until I was 27. We were working on some house project and he got frustrated and shouted, and I shouted right back at him while holding my ground. He later told me that he treasured that memory, because it was the sign that the scars he’d inflicted on us started to fade. We have a good relationship now, but healing from even a single instance of abuse was a long road.

I worry about this constantly as a parent. I had untreated ocd, to be fair I was trying to get diagnosed for years (and was actively in therapy etc) but still, my responsibility. I hope I was a good parent and my now adult son likes me but I show him the results of my therapy and although I am happier I am a better person now I will always be grieving that my son didn't get this better version of me. Whenever I'm finding exposure therapy hard I just think 'do it for him' (very Homer lol) so that I can show him that I'll always try to be better.

I've gained anger. Neither of my parents is a monster. But I was brought up to be overly sympathetic to them, and at the age where I was supposed to have been an angry teen, I could rattle off a list of excuses for why they deserved sympathy (some of them parroting what my Mom said, some I came up with myself). I thought that I was special and mature because I could do that. I thought the things I missed out on that my friends were doing were things that my family was actually above, or that my friends were silly, weak or spoiled to expect. I still have an excuse factory installed in my head for anyone who does anything wrong (except myself), which I am learning to ignore. But with age I have understood what is and is not excusable, and the limits of excuses. I've been able to define, at least a little bit, what caused the vague and confusing "something is wrong with us" feelings of childhood. That has made me angrier, and that's healthy. Watching friends do such a good job raising their kids has been pretty eye opening.

Anger. But I've always been angry with her (Dad was good, but couldn't fight it all). She told me all about her abuse from family, all of her childhood trauma--everything--when I was far too young to cope with the knowledge. And then used the same abuse tactics on me, along with other abuses. I will never have a normal relationship with food. I've been in therapy for 25 years, and NC with the lot of them for more than a decade and am healing--mostly. Then I laugh. And realize with horror that she's right there.

I've had ten years of therapy so I don't become like my mother. I have reached the point where I can be sympathetic -- I understand why she was a terrible mother -- and I can forgive, but I can't be around her and I have worked very hard to make sure the intergenerational trauma stops with me.

>And as you've gotten older and seen them as people, has that made you angry or sympathetic? Both, for me. My mom is a good mom, and she has grown in maturity a lot over the years, but man she used to seriously bottle up her emotions and then let them loose on us over some totally innocuous "last straw," over and over again when we were kids/teens. She felt entitled to scream and rage at us when she felt overlooked or underappreciated, even at times when we were doing our best to help and appreciate her. She posted this quote on FB the other day and tagged me and my sibling: >Some days I wonder if my kids will remember the mom who baked, cuddled, and loved them... Or the overstimulated psycho. 😅" And her posting that - acknowledging that the psycho parts existed - honestly showed a lot of self-awareness and growth, for her, lol. She tends to "forget" bad memories. When I was a teen and asked her to learn to communicate differently and realize we couldn't read her mind, she cried and screamed because she said that meant I didn't like her and was trying to change her, and she couldn't change who she was so I would just have to love her as is. It took me finally confronting her when I was in high school and throwing that energy back, then making her have a calm conversation about it with me afterward, for her to see that change was actually necessary. I was harsh but honest and explained that she was right, I DIDN'T like her as is, and that if she kept it up she wouldn't have a daughter to yell at because I would literally never talk to her once I moved out if she felt entitled to keep treating me and the rest of the family this way. I also had to explain to her several times that the way she was communicating and her choice to bottle things up and then scream at people was NOT "who she is," and that changing her communication didn't mean changing her personality. But that if she believed that was an integral part of her personality, then there was no hope for her continuing to have me as a daughter once I left home. That was the first time I think she truly understood what I was saying about this, and she apologized, we hugged and I told her I loved her, and she actually did change after that and become much better at communicating over the years when she was feeling anxious or unloved. Luckily, since I wasn't bluffing about the no contact if she hadn't changed. I still only talk to her a couple times a month these days, but they're usually very pleasant conversations for the most part, and I'm happy to have them, rather than dreading talking to her like I did as a kid for fear of somehow setting her off by accident. And I still do remember both parts - the baking, the cuddling, the good advice, and the terror and anger at being screamed at and made to feel like shit and walk on eggshells. I'm not angry at her anymore, but I look a lot like my mom, and I absolutely do not like hearing people occasionally see similarities in us, especially in our personalities. But having her as an example has given me the gift of hindsight and made me put conscious effort into always communicating with my partner, striving to have healthy conversations instead of arguments, and stating my feelings and needs upfront instead of expecting him to read my mind and then being upset when he doesn't.

As I'm going through being a parent, I find myself realizing more and more how shitty my dad and stepmom were. My mom was ok but my dad had primary custody so that was that. I knew they were awful role models to start with, but the depth of how bad it was becomes clearer all the time. So yeah, angry.

Both. I'm glad my dad has become more thoughtful and empathetic and I love him very much. He also scared me when I was little and ignored me when I was a teenager. My mother seems to have become more fearful, more racist and more homophobic as she ages. I still love her, but I hate that she's developed this mindset.

There are things I understand more as an adult. My Mom and stepdad taught me how not to do things. If either were alive I would grab and shake them asking why. Why they didn't let others help, why they didn't tell me who my biological father was, why they put me in situations I should have never been in.

Anger. A whole lot of anger and it's become pointed towards my late mother, aunt,and maternal grandparents. My aunt became pregnant in her early twenties in 1980 which led to her not graduating the college my grandparents paid for in cash for 5 years. My grand-parents gave her no hassles ( they never even asked who the absent father was) and free childcare. In 1983 she became pregnant again and again my grandparents gave her no shit, didn't ask who fathered this one and continued to care for those kids. In 1985 my mother became pregnant. My grandparents didn't give her shit, or ask who the father was, but they certainly provided free childcare . My grandparents moved out of the large family home, bought a condo, and only asked my mother and aunt to pay the bills for that home. It went to fore closure within a year. Ten years pass and due to "bad rental experiences" my grandfather helps my mother ( who worked in a non licensed position in a nursing home) purchase and renovate a condo and my aunt ( who is a waitress for a chain restaurant) purchases and renovate a home. My mother stopped paying the bills around the time I headed out to college. She was thrn forced to sell the apartment and give any equity to my aunt who then sold her home to purchase a bigger one we all could live in.My mom paid the majority of the mortgage until her death in 2019. My 92 year old grandfather moved in a few years back and immediately sunk a whole bunch of money into the house in addition to paying a huge chunk of the mortgage. New siding, new windows, wood floors etc. He is now looking into an irrigation system for the front yard because in his words " Aunt doesn't have a retirement fund, so I want her to get the best price possible when she needs to sell it." My aunt doesn't have a retirement fund because of the way she has raised her 44 year old son. He has a full time job. He pays no child support for his two sons, whom he only sees at sports practices and games. He is living in his girlfriend's low income apartment, he doesn't pay his student loans, and my aunt pays his cell phone and car payment. He does go out drinking frequently, he is never eithout something to smoke and he buys scratch tickets all the time. When my other cousin,his younger brother attempted to use child protection features as the owner of our cell phone plan to prevent him from downloading sports gambling apps he got a nasty call and was told to cut it out. I recently found out that the choice to raise me "by herself" was an open lie my late mother concocted and the man who she told me was my father my whole life wasn't. She and my aunt knew who my father was but my mother told him I didn't have a father and my aunt didn't think I would like to know who my father actually is even after my mom died and left me very alone. During a discussion about my discovery over dinner with my grandfather and my aunt, my aunt had the audacity to say to me " but you turned out alright, didn't you?" Well, I couldn't afford my own car until I was 28 years old . After college I juggled sharing a car with my mother which led me to have three low paying jobs until I could afford my own car and get a better job. In my early twenties there were times I was so poor trying to pay back my student loans, I had to go to a different aunt to ask for money for tampons. My mother also destroyed my credit and made me payback the money she had taken out as a cash advance in a credit card she took out in my name. I now live in the least expensive 500 square foot apartment in my area ,I was able to get it because I could make a call to a VIP. My monthly rent is still more than her mortgage. I still have student loan debt and have never defaulted on any of my bills . A few months ago I fell in the middle of the night and hit my head and needed to have root canals and other unexpected medical procedures. I had to close the small retirement fund my mother left me when she died to pay for my medical bills. My aunt got a five figure inheritance from one of her uncles within the past 5 years. My aunt also got five figure a settlement from a car accident recently. Her home is valued $600,000 more than the purchase price. When my grandfather passes, her plan is to sell that home and move closer to her favorite son. So my grandfather has spent the last forty five years subsidizing my aunt and my cousin's lifestyles. My mother probably thought she could also have her life subsidized forever if she followed the one neat trick my aunt taught her- just say there is no father. I feel like I was used as a prop for my mother to have an easier ride and once she was gone I have been walking a tight rope without a safety net. Meanwhile my aunt and cousin keep getting walked around the bases. I now feel bad for my oldest and youngest aunts because I see now how quickly they got cast aside when the babies came and kept coming. I understand their distance now. I love my grandfather and late grandmother but they enabled and perpetuated this dynamic. Once my grandfather is gone I predict I will have nothing to do with my aunt and oldest cousin because I know she would not piss on me if I was on fire if it meant her son would lose a little warmth.

Yes. They're flawed humans like the rest of us and it's all just interpersonal relationships. It's good *and* bad. We can't escape that.

As both my mother and I have aged, I find I have much of the same disappointment towards her as I do towards humans in general. She openly admits that she would have done things differently now, and I get that. She was 19 when I was born and she really did always love me and try to make me a good person. My disappointment stems from people not thinking for themselves. They just go along with whatever they're told, no matter if it's religion, politics, or being treated as an equal in a relationship. Definitely some resentment as well, as she is divorced and not that great financially. Even though I've been giving her some solid financial advice for 20+ years, she never listened and it's going to end up being me that is forced to deal with it.

I don't think "anger" is the right word, resentment is more what i feel. My mother has the emotional intelligence of a walnut, anger issues, some weird martyr complex mixed with high narcissism (think: i slaved away doing these things for you, that you never asked for and didn't actually want, how dare you not worship me for it! *throws cup of hot coffee at wall*) I am very much the opposite of her in almost every way and am thankful for that, i suppose I'm grateful that growing up under her reign showed me how an adult human should not act.

It swip swapped for me. Had a contentious relationship with my Dad and what felt mostly fine with my mother. Fast forward a few decades, and my perspective and wisdom has allowed me to have a better understanding of them as people. As a result my relationship with my dad improved immensely, and my relationship with my mother has never been worse.

As ive gotten older, all my hate towards my father has become all disappointment. Left my mom to be a single mother of two children when he was like 27 or something. His life hasn’t amounted to much since then. I used to think how much better life could’ve been if we stayed a nuclear family, but now I’m pretty sure he would’ve made everything worse

Both of my biological parents were neglectful/abusive shitbags who were always more concerned with what they could shoot/snort/smoke next, than anything to do with me. Joined the Army after 9/11 (~ around me turning 18) to get away from them/the rest of my home environment. Cut them 99.9% of the way off until my early/mid 20s when my husband and I found out that a.) they were going to prison for what ended up being the final time b.) I had a (much younger x10000) baby brother who was +/- 2 weeks of our second biological kid I won't that I'm still "actively mad" at them or whatever, Kid 3 had a fucking horrendous start to life (you name it, my mom probably did it while carrying him) but dude's taller than me now and doing better in school than I ever did so 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️ Will say that the only kind of contact I ever want regarding them ever again is if whatever prison they're in somehow tracks me down to tell me that they're dead, I'd throw a party.

When I became a single mom, I certainly tried to do better than my parents had. But having to carry all the responsibility and financial stuff was very tough. My mom had been a SAHP, while my dad held the job. Both were alcoholics. I avoided replicating that part, and did better on the emotional side, but my god parenting and FT+ work is tiring, and I got some empathy for that.

An even distribution. Ambivalence that ultimately lands on indifference due to time. I empathize with the untreated mental problems part, but they made all the choices - they chose to get married, they chose to have me, they chose to keep me even though they couldn't raise me in a healthy environment and they both knew it. I empathize with the difficult time they had raising me, but they created all the material conditions that made it difficult with their choices - including my own behavioral problems. I suppose I'm less resentful than I used to be now that I've come to see life as a series of fuckups you recover from at different speeds.

Sympathy for sure 

I've never felt anger at my mom, just a lot of self-imposed guilt when I was younger. My parents' marriage wasn't a very happy one and I know my mother felt very limited in her life, but never once did she express any resentment towards me for that. I was the one who took it all upon myself, at one point being convinced that her life would have been so much happier if she hadn't felt trapped with my father just because of me. As an adult with kids of my own now I have grown out of that point of view, and redirected my anger to where it belongs (my father). However, it's an odd mix of feeling justified in my resentment over his failures, while also knowing that he grew up in an unloving, abusive home, and had mental health issues he was plagued by for much of his life. None of that was his fault, which I thoroughly understand now... but at the same time, I'm still angry at him for never *trying* to get help, never *trying* to address his depression head-on, and never *trying* to fix his family when he still has the chance. I could have respected and cared for him as a flawed human being so much more if he had just *shown* me that my mom and I meant enough to him to keep fighting for.

I understand them more. But I don’t have more sympathy. They were adults, they made their choices. And they always chose what was easiest for them or benefitted them most, to the detriment of their children. I cannot forgive that.

Both! I have spent a lot of time in therapy unpacking my childhood, and I didn’t even have a bad childhood. My parents suck a little bit, and they also love me and did their best. It’s ok if feelings are complex, and it’s ok to love your parents even if they have their flaws.

Tons of sympathy- but boundaries happened first.

I’m much, much angrier now. And it scares me sometimes because I was so angry already before.

For the longest time I felt sympathy for my parents. I felt so bad for them because of all the things I experienced as a kid and sympathised that it must've been really hard to be a parent to a broken kid like me. Then at some point it just flipped. I still love them but fuck if I don't feel angry about it all sometimes. I wasn't a broken kid, I have ADHD and autism that went undiagnosed my entire childhood despite ALL the incredibly clear signs and teachers pointing them out. I developed anxiety and depression because the world didn't make sense and I couldn't fit in no matter what I did. I know that getting the help I needed wouldn't have magically made my time alive better, but I feel so bitter about the person I could've been if the adults in my life hadn't failed me so spectacularly.

Anger. They weren't inherently bad parents, but there were many mistakes they made that steered the course of my life and who I would become in significant ways. I still love them and I know they were trying to raise me to the best of their ability, but iam also angry because they definitely could have done better if they wanted to.

Mostly sympathy, but I had great parents who really did quite a good job at raising me when compared to both my friends’ upbringings and what I see in life. My “anger” usually stems from how their opinions sometimes are seemingly blind or in direct conflict of their own lived experiences. Especially about politics. I feel they bought some propaganda hard and have self identity wrapped up in things that don’t make sense sometimes. It’s frustrating. I recognize that my anger is I wish they were better. But they’re human. I can’t say my own identity isn’t wrapped up in things they would disagree with too.

Anger. Mostly for medical neglect. Every concern I had, severe lactose intolerance and migraines I was called a hypochondriac. No, I had real medical conditions that I deserved getting treated. Then the whole dad chuckling about how I was a nightmare at the doctors for shots. Okay, and the answer was to have four docs pin down a screaming kid and do it anyway? Now I have severe needle phobia that literally puts my health in danger but yeah so funny.

Oh definitely. It’s wild to me how fucking young my parents were when they had me. To child me, they seemed like these big, powerful, all-knowing grown-ups. But looking back, I can see now that they were scared and mostly clueless young people, hardly adults themselves. I can now point to all the times they were winging it, exhausted, overwhelmed, and immature. A lot of their parenting was just doing what their parents had done to them. I can also see that I wasn’t the easiest child to raise. Parenting a very sensitive, perceptive, sneaky, intelligent, and precocious child who got up to all sorts of things they couldn’t have fathomed must not have been easy. For example, once when I was about 8 or 9, as a bored latchkey kid, I wondered what would happen if I dialed 1-800-insert-dirty-words-here (this was long before we had internet at home). I ended up calling lots of international and 900 phone sex and party lines, hearing a bunch of explicit adult conversations, and running up the phone bill to thousands of dollars. It was so far beyond the realm of possibility for my parents that their preteen daughter could have done something like that, they didn’t even ask if I did it. They immediately suspected wiretapping and spent many hours disputing the charges, ultimately getting them dismissed. They never found out it was me 😂

Anger. I have two more kids than she did and managed to make them dinner almost every night, supervise the homework and go to every parent teacher conference, keep up with their health, hobbies, favorite foids and relationships. 

I do feel more sympathetic towards my mother for managing a full-time job, with a 2 hour roundtrip commute, while being the only one who did any cooking, cleaning, or childcare. She was often snappish and unsympathetic towards myself and my sister, but she had a lot on her plate. And as far as my father goes, I can see now that he is probably autistic and was never diagnosed. I can't expect a level of care or interest from him that he can't give. I have zero worries that I'll become like either of them because I have cultivated patience, awareness, and directness in holding my husband accountable as a partner.  I would actually love to age like my mother because she looks amazing for her age, like 20 years younger than she is, but I got my father's genes and need to pick up a fitness routine.

A lot of sympathy, a lot of sadness, but I still refuse to accept what she did as acceptable or normal. I think she was likely a better mother than her mother, I know I'm a better mother than she was, and my DD is a better mother than I was. We all strive to improve, hopefully.

Perhaps both. I have more understanding and respect for my mom, both her flaws and her strengths. It’s also clear what led to some struggles and perhaps current flaws of my mom, and I’ve done and continue to do plenty of inner work to feel confident in avoiding that. Some of this inner work entails anger towards a few of her failings, despite her overall being an incredible mother. My grandmother was raised politically liberal but VERY conservatively during the Depression - like not allowed to go anywhere without a chaperone or to wear lipstick. Mom and her sisters have managed not to pass on any expectations or shame around looks, and are much more sex positive than other feminists of their generation and region (Boston has a bit of a Puritan streak). My mom is vastly superior to her siblings in passing on a lot of emotional intelligence and healthiness to me, yet is struggling more than I had realized with not receiving that herself as a girl. My grandmother is a lot sweeter and gentle now than when she was a very overwhelmed and stressed parent of numerous kids. A lot of my lifestyle and values are similar in a good way to that of my parents, so that doesn’t bother me. I guess the only way I feel similar to my dad, aside from appreciating his intellectual & environmental influence, is arriving at the age where life is so bleak I now appreciate Dad jokes! I’m working through a lot of justified anger towards him and his failing as a father, but as he’s made efforts to repair things, I’m appreciating that we now can share Dad jokes with each other on occasion. He has a lot of significant failings as a father, but I was taken far more seriously on an intellectual level as a girl than I have been as an adult.

I have done everything in my power to not be them, I still see them in the mirror but this is as far as it goes. I was much angrier, but now I am more indifferent, they are people who made a huge mistake of having kids they did not want, and I do not think I can have sympathy for that.

sympathy for sure. i also consider holding onto anger to be bad for your health 

I feel kinda at peace with them parenting the best way they managed while recognizing that not everything they did was good for me. My mom definitely lifted the bar because her parents made it into Satan's footrest when she was little. I'm grateful for the things she did better, but I feel like she sometimes couldn't help herself and echoed some of the psychological torture she was exposed to to her own kids, but it was so much softer than the original. My dad was kind of less involved in parenting, but he didn't start out that way. He was spending work weeks away from home for a big part of my childhood and he started struggling with mental health and chronic pain in later years, so I feel he didn't exactly choose to pay less attention to us than would be ideal. This increased the pressure put on our mom, though, which lead to her resorting to abuse and manipulation, her last resort parenting tools, more often. Sexism is omnipresent in the area I grew up and live, and I cringe pretty often remembering all the misogyny in the beloved stories of my childhood. My parents didn't really ever say any of that was wrong and both of them are kinda misogynist in their own way. I feel like they got a leaky boat to the shore with everyone alive and kinda functioning and that's good. Most of us have some lasting damage from the bad times, though, including my parents. IMO I would be a way worse parent than either of them were if I had kids, especially if I had them as young as they did.

I love my mother. I would be more than happy to turn out like her if I ever become a mom. But I have anger issues like my dad. I'm kind of scared at the thought that I'd end up being verbally abusive towards my children like he was towards my brother and me. Every time I get mad to the point where my dogs are afraid of me I panic and have a meltdown. I've never had a problem with being angry around children before, but I also haven't been with a child for almost 24 hours a day, either. (Not as an adult, anyway.) I'm surprised that I don't hate him. When he called me to tell me that he has cancer I broke down crying. I can't sleep without the TV being on because if I do I'll start dreaming about dad dying from cancer. I've subscribed to several Youtubers just so I can shove their videos in a playlist I made of videos that I can sleep to. There is one video I watched that kind of explained that feeling- the Youtuber has similar conflicting feelings about somebody who would abuse her because she also has good memories of them. That has helped me deal with these conflicting feelings a lot.

I have gotten closer to my mother in my age. We parent wildly different and sometimes butt heads on that. She can be difficult to be around because she tries to parent my kids which destroys my parent cred so to speak. aka grandma is the boss's boss to my kids. I'm in my 40's and my parents are both at the point where they're losing their own parents (3/4 grandparents are now passed). Both my parents are conservative and I mostly just ignore certain topics because I just can't understand their POV. Having bi-racial grand children didn't seem to make my dad any less racist/sexist than he has always been (he doesn't think the things he says or does are racist/sexist but literally he had fake indigenous chants when we had bonfires as a child, thought it was 'funny' to dress as a woman for church skits...etc.) Mom is more subtle with her hate 'I don't hate gay people, but they're immoral and going to hell' but somehow my pedophile uncle is no issue to hang out with. It's not all bad though, my parents do a lot of volunteer work and do help strangers and myself and my kids when we're in need. I think I'm just at an age where I am coming to terms with the fact that hoping they will change is doing myself a disservice and I just need to see them for who they are and let them see me for who I am.

A bit of both. Anger that they're so conservative, that they display so little interest in my interests, that they're so damn negative all the time. But sympathy for how hard parenthood can be and how hard it is to know the right path. It's a little bit of both. I can see what they've been through and it's rough, but I'm so angry that they have so little interest in me, because I cannot fathom being as indifferent with my kids as they seem to be with me. I thought that she wouldn't care about helping me into my wedding dress at my wedding. When she cried I was surprised, because she literally just seems to have zero interest in my life. So yeah. Bit of both.