“I’ll Never Do That To My Kids”: 30 Things Boomer Parents Did That Traumatized Their Kids

Later they're like "Why do my kids never share their feelings with me?". Because it's your fault for not caring about their feelings.

"I didn't have enough food when I was your age! I had to work in the field, I never had time to play, I had to [insert whatever] - and you are so ungrateful". Dear boomer parents, your child was neither your therapist, not your recycle bin for emotional burden.

oh yup my mom STILL does this to me. i tell her something that i'm dealing with and she goess off on "well when i was married to your dad...." or whatever. when ever i tired to talk about anything as a kid "well i had it MUCH worse " ok, but it wasn't a competition. i think i said that once to my kids as a joke and my son goes "yea comparing isn't healthy, isn't the whole point of raising kids to give them better lives than you had" yes. yes it is.

You can acknowledge but also put things in perspective. Nothing wrong with that.

My mom (born in the late 1920s) was always one upping me. God I hated that woman.

THIS!!! F*****g hell. I worked my a*s off so hard in high school. When I got my diploma exam results back with 100% in both Physics and Chemistry and my f*****g family complained "Yeah, he spends all his time studying, of course he got 100." F**k you! I EARNED that!

Oh, hey, welcome to, like... every single Asian kid, ever (until recently, I think). It's why I cringe when people were on that whole 'Tiger Mom' thing - like... no, that is NOT a great parenting method to emulate... BALANCE, people... BALANCE... extremes are not good.

My dad asked why I got a B in a class one last time. I went on a full rant basically asking every question I could think of as to why he wasn't living up to his own standards. Never happened again.

Arséhole narcs,I emancipated from them and this,is a joke to them

My aunt is and my grandma was the exact same. Any accomplishments I made waset with, "but why didn't you..." "You're cousins are better than you."

I experienced this along with being pulled into every fad diet my mother did plus commenting on my body all the time. I was on "counting fat points diet" in kindergarten, on WW as a 7 to 8 year old and so on. I was never enough. It was always my fault being too fat, even though my mother can't cook. She always used Maggi-/Knorr-bags, vegetables weren't in the house until we got rodents and then it was forbidden for us to eat those vegetables. I was beaten when I didn't want to have those disgusting lentil or pea stews (made from dried lentils/peas), was sent to bed without food regularly and on the contrary praised for being good by fast food and sweets. If you opened a bag of anything, you'd have to finish it all. My brother is an extremely picky eater nowadays, I developed severe eating disorder phases: night eating, anorexia, binge eating, orthorexic behaviour. It's no wonder that food is not just food for me but a constant war against myself.

I agree with this... we have a system at our house of each kid has a container. If they can't finish their food or they aren't hungry at the moment we tell them to put their food in their container to have later. This way we don't have to cook mulitple meals and they don't have to feel forced to eat when we are eating. Because of this our kids eat when their bodies tell them to and they are all a healthy weight and very happy. It has also led to very peaceful meal times!

I'd go my friends house and eat so fast! The food was well prepared and I couldn't help myself. I wasn't starved at home but all this canned food. No spices, no herbs.

being forced to finish everything is why my Mum has lived for over 60 years with eating disorders. children are allowed to dislike certain foods too, and forcing them to eat things that they find repulsive, or to eat beyond when it feels comfortable is only asking for problems

Even as an adult, there are things that I Don't have to taste, to know that I dont like. Like oysters and some local dishes. I eat with my eyes and imagination as well. So I didn't even make my children taste, let alone finish. Today, as adult, they are not picky eaters.

That's disgusting. I am sorry she did this to you.

Modern tech makes this so much easier to do and to do 'worse' (as in more exposure). My mom only did something like this once. Pre-internet, me a young adult. I told her something personal that was bothering me. A few days later she tells me how she asked the prayer chain at church to pray about it. I WAS PISSED. I made it very clear it was meant just for her. AFAIK she never did it again. On the whole she was a great mom. Also, I should say, she almost certainly didn't give them details. It's just that I didn't want it mentioned at all. I can't evern remember what it was now. Probably a relationship issue or something.

This is abuse. So sorry this happened.

Facebook wasn't around when Boomers' kids were children.

Beeatch.

Don't kill a child's interest and enthuisasm, or you'll just end with a depressed teen who cannot take initiative to do anything, or you will break your child's trust in you and drive a wedge between you resulting in you not knowing what goes on in their lives. That rids you of the change to assist, guide an help them. Not only will that make their lives a lot harder and less fun, but it can also ruin your relationship with them.

Both my parents thought that mocking me was funny as well - including in front of and with other people (who also found it entertaining). My appearance, my school performance (although I was a very good student), my puberty sings, the clothes I wore, the things I liked. This went on even for some years after I became an adult (until I moved away). Now they wonder why I went low contact with them, and how I can be "so ungrateful".

That's the way my dad was. Even as a kid into my pre-teen years he would mock anything I liked that wasn't "adult", citing as such. 10 year old me frequently heard that grown people don't act like (fill in the blank), and I was expected to snap-to and fix it - and it was never a "private" moment.

Thank heavens my parents supported me no matter how odd my interests were. I remember getting upset when Barnabas Collins "died" on Dark Shadow (original show). Instead of mocking me, Dad told me that vampires can't be killed unless their head is chopped off. They could pull the stake out and he would come back. That wasn't what happened on the show, but I was impressed at my Dad's knowledge of vampire lore. I didn't think he was paying attention to the show even! Home support is important and if you can't give your kid that, don't have them.

SAAMMMME

Oh, please. I can remember doctors smoking in the exam room. One sat on my hospital bed (post-op) smoking while he examined me. Ashtrays in dressing rooms, smoking in any seat on airplanes, smoking grocery stores. Basically, anywhere you could chew gum, people smoked and nonsmokers who complained were treated like they were crazy and inconsiderate. When smoking bans began, we didn't think anyone, especially in NYC, would abide. I was born in 1965

I was so happy when the law changed so that you had to go smoke outside in public places... We were always dragged to the smoking area even though my father, sisters and me hated it. At least, my mother was never allowed to smoked in the car.

I am a smoker and have been one for 25 years, but even I hate the smell of cigarette smoke! I don't smoke in the car, never did, and don't smoke in the house! That smoke (and smell) gets stuck everywhere and in hot days would smell like an ashtray!!!!

This is ME. I used to wet towels and place them at the bottom of my door so that my parent's friend's smoke wouldn't seep into my room. My parents never drank or smoked but their friends and our extended family were the complete opposite.

I feel like that was child abuse.

Millennial here. Was born a feminine gay boy in the deep south where in 2024 the civil war is still called "the war of Northern aggression" got sent to conversion therapy a pray the gay away camp... Psychological torture, physical punishment and pills... Conversion therapy is not First Amendment freedom of speech or freedom of religion, electrocuting a kids genitals, whipping them, drugging them and traumatizing them does not "fix" them. Luckily I didn't have genital electroshock therapy. This is why I hate religion as a whole.