One of them doesn’t listen at all. He’s also dead so I’m willing to overlook his blatant lack of enthusiasm.

For almost all of my life I’d have said no. But after over a year of family therapy I think I now have a mother who sometimes listens. She needs to follow it up with an emotional guilt trip, but she does actually sometimes listen first. Baby steps I guess, but it’s more progress than I expected. And my father is… well… still my father. No chance there.

My dad was like that, he was my safe person and would always celebrate my success, had wise advice and truly cared for my wellbeing. When I became a parent, many things from the way he taught me were passed on to my own kid. Then he died. That was ten years ago and I miss him everyday.

My mom was abusive all through me and my sibling’s upbringing, she stills is, mind you but I am very low contact/ on the brink of no contact now. As a mother myself, I have done the exact opposite of what she did to me so my kid is treated with respect, compassion, genuinecuriosity about their interests, acceptance and grace. They will not know what not being loved or unwanted feels like.

My dad softened a lot lately, seeing his parents go made him realize how important the relationship with his own children is.
On my mum’s side, I’m afraid she will always be tone deaf and self absorbed, but I learned not to resent her for that

I have parents that are kind and will listen without judgement and be supportive.

My father is reliably discreet. My mother is a gossip, though, and I can’t tell her anything I don’t want the entire family to know.

One hit and one miss, although the trustworthy one still has issues, as most people do.

This thread is kind of depressing to read. What a privilege it is to have supportive parents.

Makes me realize that I shouldn’t put off having a quality phone call with my parents so much. There will always be more work, but there won’t always be more quality time with them.

Nice yes, listening no.

I will never be judged for or attacked by the things I tell her but ten seconds later those things have been overwritten in her mind by different things that she also won’t judge for or attack with.

It made for a complicated childhood.

My parents always discouraged me from trying things and gave me self-serving advice.

Parents are humans with their own flaws and backstories. They’ve had (presumably) 20 years of the worlds bullshit flung at them before you entered the picture. Can they be nice? Sure. But as you become an adult try to forgive them for the times they failed. Chances are they were doing the best they could with what they had at the time.

As a parent I try to listen with an open mind and admit when I’m probably a little biased. I still get called out and grump about it.

If there’s anything you want to share, I’m willing to listen.

Not anymore. I dunno exactly when it happened but after I left for uni I no longer see eye to eye with my folks.

They raised me and I feel they did a good job: respect others, be kind, help people, everyone is equal. All the good stuff.

Nowadays though my dad has gone hard into conspiracy theories proper tinfoil hat stuff, moon landings fake, vaccines cause autism and have microchips, fluorinated water causes something, COVID was a Chinese plot or fake or just flu (despite half his kids working in healthcare and telling him first hand experiences). He’s gone proper racist Britain for the British bullshit, hates immigrants and anyone not white. He’s dragging my mum into it as well but she’s not exactly innocent in her views either. I’m glad they live at the other end of the country now so I can choose how much I see them, holidays used to involve staying with my parents but now we camp kinda close and just have a meal out together a couple times.

I struggled a lot with coming to terms with the huge change, our relationship used to be fantastic especially with my mum, could talk for hours about anything. Now we have a very very narrow range of safe topics and I have to say no I’m not talking about that with you quite regularly.

I even debated cutting contact because of some of the horrible stuff my dad was posting online, fortunately he’s stopped that and now just consumes the hate instead of tagging me in it. I decided that I wanted to keep my parents in my life but set some firm boundaries and just don’t engage with any of the delusions.

Mine are excellent listeners. They just can’t respond anymore though.

No. Where are my r/estrangedadultchild buddies at?

My dad’s a complete douche since he found out I was gay after losing my virginity and coming home late. He has issues with his sexuality and takes it out on me to the point he just decided to sabotage every chance I had at success. We can’t speak a second language in the house we couldn’t cook non American food until last year. He projects on me and humiliates me everywhere. He made my mom a shell of herself and he’s so blind he can’t even buy his own underwear. I wish I had a nerd dad or a pussy sad. Not some military abused hippie.

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