What are some things you had to unlearn from your parents?

Shana67 · September 2016

Yelling at my children. My mother was a HORRIBLE yeller, and I hated it. I have never, not one time - yelled at my kids. Spoke sternly, yes. Yelled - never. It was just too hurtful for me as a child, and I won't do it to mine.

thisonetimeatthegym · September 2016

I'm trying to encourage more than pressure, but I see that there are benefits to both types of approaches, so I'm different in that I'm less less of a tiger mom but not the coddle mom either?

Now that I'm a mom, my own mother's "mistakes" seem to be less of an issue for me. Parenting seems really easy until you become one.

Pamela_43 · September 2016

@DeficitDuchess thank you!
@PowerMan40 no problem, piece of cake....oh lawd yet another thing that doesn't need to accompany every meal, sadly! Ha.

Pamela_43 · September 2016

Villae81 wrote: »

Unlearn? I'm still trying to learn how my dad can sit in a buffet eat about 6 plates of food and get hungry a couple hours later -.-

LOL, this is my daddy too! How he's not fat is a mystery!!! Haha

AskTracyAnnK28 · September 2016

newmeadow wrote: »

AskTracyAnnK28 wrote: »

newmeadow wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

Just one for me................religion.

Was it the First Confession that did it? The CCD classes?

Or being dragged to weekly Mass when the good cartoons were on?

I was constantly told I'd burn in Hell. But I made sure it backfired on the messengers. I figured that, if my mortal sins were unconfessable and unforgiveable, I'm already damned and should do whatever I please - aggressively and unrepentantly. I wised up much later on.

I'm getting flashbacks of my traumatic church-going childhood....where on Halloween night, while all my friends were Trick-or-Treating, I was in church by force.

Right. All Hallows Eve, one of the Holy Days of Obligation.

But no trick or treating?? That actually does sound like trauma. Ouch! I would have been sobbing like Bette Davis.

Hopefully you at least got to dress up as Joan of Arc and enjoy Hershey bars and cinnamon donuts in the church basement after Mass with the clergy and the other strict parents.

I was allowed to trick or treat after school, but not at night because church.

When I turned 16 and started working on Saturdays (when we went to church usually), I'd 'pretend' to go on Sunday morning. Which means I'd walk into town, grab a magazine and sit at the park for an hour and run into the church when mass ended to grab the church bulletin as my evidence that I went. My mom would sometimes ask me "who served mass today?" and I'd say "I dunno - I sat in the back and couldn't see". I did this every weekend until I was 22 and pregnant. My mom said to me one Sunday morning "WHY AREN'T YOU GOING TO CHURCH??!!" And I was like "I'm an adult and having a child of my own. I don't have to go. Case closed." She told me I was going to burn in hell and I told her "cool - because my friends will all be there with me"

I think being raised in a very religious household can be...difficult.

km8907 · September 2016

My dad was the battalion chief in my town and being in charge of so many people in such a stressful job made him come home very angry most of the time and take it out on us. It's very difficult for me to not take someone's attitude personally. Fight or flight almost every time.

CajunTess · September 2016

Religion (Catholicism) and close mindedness. In fact, I am 47 years old, and my mother and I cannot discuss religion because it will turn into a big disagreement.