My mom and I actually talked about this. We love each other very much, but, outside of horror movies, most of our interests are different. On a car rise we went thought some things. Favorite song, movie, etc. As I’ve gotten older and gotten the language for it, I’ve explained what overwhelms me and when I need to be alone and our relationship has gotten way better. We actually had a fight last week and it was pretty… Normal. I had said something snippy, and told her soon after I didn’t even feel that way because I was upset and was snapping at her, which is why I wasn’t ready to talk to her. She actually let me cool off and we spoke later, explained ourselves, and made plans for if the situation happens again.
My mom has put a lot of work into understanding me and giving me the space to make mistakes. I learned a lot of her quirks and preferences through trial and error as a kid, but she had to do that with me as an tight lipped adult. It’s not 100%, there are still things I prefer to discuss with someone else, but the work as really been paying off for us.
However, this only works with certain parents. 👀
“Ya” is such a pet peeve of mine. Yeah or yah.
I’m not saying a parent knows your inner feelings, but I am saying that after watching repeat behaviour patterns you notice stuff. And with younger kids they don’t really connect these dots. So yeah, to some extent we do know our kids better than they do
But this all has limits. And expiration dates.
They “know” their kids through the lense of their experience. So they’ve experienced more therefore they feel they know more.
They’re making educated guesses outcomes. That’s not knowing.
They’re making educated guesses outcomes. That’s not knowing.
Oh shit do we need a crash course in epistemology here
No but it sounds like you could use one I’m coming decency.
Honestly that was uncalled for.
We’re all making educated guesses including about ourselves.
It doesn’t really matter if you think you know yourself, external behaviors do.
You’re not wrong
heckacentipede isn’t as clever as they think they are. As a grown adult I find myself biting my tongue in every interpersonal relationship I have to avoid making others feel bad. It’s not a superpower, it’s an application of basic emotional intelligence.
This just makes it seem that in order to enjoy tumblr, you had to have shitty parents.
Seems about right.
Aw shit. My kid is constantly on Tumblr :/
Well, this is awkward.
We’re sorry you had to learn this way
Hmm, I bet my mom actually could name some of my existential dreads. I should ask. I bet she’d love that text at 8am.
Lucky. My mom can’t even name my gender, sexuality, or name, much less an existential dread or phobia.
Escalators. Those things freak me out. They’re just waiting to eat my flip-flops, which I don’t wear, or catch fire.
I really am incredibly lucky. She’s the type of mom who will adopt people when their own parents are shitty, too, so we could share if you want.
And that’s fair - I’m ok with escalators when I’m in closed toed shoes but I do get a little iffy in sandals. My one real phobia is wet paper (like very wet, I don’t panic if I spill a little on my desk), so it’s way weirder than escalators.
Let’s do more shitting on parents. They’re not people, they can take it.
:(
There’s a time and a place for some intellectual humility, and that swings both ways. There are a lot of things we just don’t know about the people we’re close with, and at the same time there are a lot of things we don’t fully understand about ourselves, that the more objective outside observer may be able to identify pretty easily.
And that goes both ways in a parent-child relationship, a sibling-sibling relationship, a friend-friend relationship, or even a spouse-spouse relationship.
My wife certainly knows certain things about me that I myself have blind spots about. And vice versa.
That last one feels to real
“I know you better than yourself” my parents say like it didn’t take them 5 years and my therapist outing me to realize I was serious about liking guys x3
No way
How horrible was that
It was certainly an interesting conversation haha :3
(I thought uhoh, meant to come back and edit and say “wait that should probably be treated as rhetorical!“)
heh thankful that particular crap’s past!
“You’ll get bored of this thing in a week and then it’ll just go unused.”
“No I won’t, gosh mom, this is not a phase”
*the exact thing they said would happen did indeed happen
Except Pokemon. That just became a cult.
Alligators crocodiles and a brain aneurysm
My mother was constantly telling me what my thoughts, feelings, and needs were when I was growing up. She never tried to get to know me. When I would explain my actual feelings or opinions, in detail, she’d accuse me of lying. I think she was actually just projecting everything she didn’t like about herself, and sometimes her mother and sisters, onto me. Some of the qualities I supposedly had were mutually exclusive, or just didn’t make sense when applied to the life stage I was in. She was telling me she hated how haughty and arrogant I was since I was 3 years old, at least. When I was a teen, out of nowhere, one day she started to tell me how sad it was that I was so insecure. I was like, I thought I was arrogant. How can I be arrogant and insecure at the same time? She said I’m arrogant because I’m insecure. But, she’d been characterizing me that way since I was a small child. What small child thinks or acts that way? Little kids are notoriously honest and straight-forward. What 3 year old has the emotional sophistication to behave arrogantly to cover up insecurity, and what does a 3 year old have to even be insecure about?
Sounds to me like she was potentially jealous that you knew who you were, didn’t hide your thoughts and feelings, and her being insecure herself interpreted that as you acting like you were someone you aren’t. Your description comes off a lot like she was projecting. She probably has a lot of insecurities and feels like, herself in your shoes, she would have to act arrogant and haughty in order to mask her own insecurities to present herself similarly to how you present yourself.
Yes, I think there’s a lot of truth to that, sadly.
Yeah, that ranks pretty high on the fucked-up scale
Eh, I get it. But our parents (those of us who where lucky enough to have ones who were trying and loving), they did know us better then we thought.
Better than we know ourselves? Probably not. Of course at what age that becomes true is different for each kid and parent.
