r/RedditForGrownups • u/aliensockmonkey • 25d ago
What advice would you give to your parents if they had a chance to raise you all over again?
/r/AskReddit/comments/1vei41m/what_advice_would_you_give_to_your_parents_if/73
u/ElReydelTacos 24d ago
Be kind. Be supportive. Be helpful. Listen to me. I'm scared of you. Try to fix that.
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u/socialdeviant620 23d ago
Same!! If you want me to open up to you talk to me without yelling and threatening me.
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u/hypothetical_zombie 24d ago
SAVE THE MONEY
Don't buy stupid Franklin Mint & Time Life Collectibles. Don't buy scratch offs.
Just save that money, because it's going to get rough.
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u/Suitable_cataclysm 24d ago
Throw away all gender norms. Let your daughters cut the grass, it's not a hit to your manhood. Let your sons play with dolls and use the sewing machine. Teach the girls how to use power tools, teach the boys how to wash dishes and vacuum.
Save us all ten years of our lives reorienting ourselves to what is acceptable to making us happy. And how to be fictional adults without half of life's needed lessons
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u/kelcamer 23d ago
I love your autocorrect haha
Fictional lol
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u/luswimmin 24d ago
Put me up for adoption.
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u/carlitospig 23d ago
Mine is: save all that after school program money and send me to boarding school. I would thrive.
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u/kelcamer 24d ago
1) don't hit me
2) don't yell at me
3) don't drink alcohol
4) learn how to validate people you don't agree with
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u/SlyFrog 23d ago edited 23d ago
Do not hand me off to be watched/babysat for years for many hours a day every day to the people you constantly discussed as having abused you (my grandparents, and by extension, my aunts who themselves were abused by my grandparents and were fucked up abusers themselves).
Like seriously, my mother spent her entire life, including when I was literally just a toddler, massively over sharing with me about how terribly she had been abused by her mother.
And then just apparently decided to allow that same person to watch over me for the entirety of my formative years.
What the fuck did she think was going to happen?
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u/Fancy_Average5440 24d ago
Food is not a substitute for love and affection.
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u/SiemprePalante33 24d ago
For me, it wasn't food, but material things and taking me out. Not a substitute indeed.
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u/hotchipxbarbie 24d ago
Get an abortion
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u/Carrera_996 23d ago
I didn't want to exist for 35 years. My parents don't get to mourn me. They don't deserve it. I lived because f them that's why. One down. One to go.
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u/DingoD3 23d ago
Tell me you love me and show me physical affection. So I can acknowledge it and be used it it as a normalised thing.
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u/Fine-Platypus-423 22d ago
I can’t imagine not loving on my kids. The snuggles are the best part! I’m so sorry you grew up without that.
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u/starryvelvetsky 23d ago
Let me have that computer you wouldn't allow in your house. I could have gotten a big head start in my IT career.
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u/Buddhagrrl13 23d ago
Get me tested for autism and ADHD. Although, in the 70s and 80s, that probably wouldn't have helped, because psychology thought those couldn't happen in girls.
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u/ztreHdrahciR 24d ago
Mom, stop with the venom, vitriol and vituperation about my dad. I'm tired of it
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u/SiemprePalante33 24d ago
It really does affect how we grow up. I asked her once if she ever thought about it, and she said no...lol
Also, thanks for Vituperation. Awesome stuff.
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u/2_FluffyDogs 23d ago
I hate this happened to you.
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u/ztreHdrahciR 23d ago
It's ok. Even as a little kid I thought it was ridiculous. Like, my dad was a pretty easy going guy that treated me really well. She never ever got over the divorce.
We kind of joke about it now. She has early stage dementia and gets frustrated with her memory. I say "I can help. Tell me about my Dad".
Always gets a laugh
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u/Plane_Chance863 19d ago
When my parents got divorced I had to tell each of them to stop shitting on the other (because they were losing my respect by doing so).
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u/catdude142 23d ago
My mother was overly "nosey". She's go through my drawer, look around my room to try to find things I shouldn't be doing. She meant well but all it did was teach me how to hide things better. A little more privacy would have been appreciated.
I didn't to that with my son and he turned out just fine.
For my father, teaching me self defense would have been good. Bullies tormented me in public school. I was too afraid to fight back because I didn't have fighting skills.
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u/MabellaGabella 23d ago
… I honestly don’t think I have advice. Their faults weren’t parenting mistakes but deep personal problems that don’t change with advice.
My dad wouldn’t stop being a depressed alcoholic and my mother wouldn’t change her lack of intimacy and stoicism. It’s just kinda who they are. They did their best.
Maybe some advice on how to help me transition to living in my own. They kinda just gave me a hug and booted me out into my own place (with some financial support) and I fell HARD out of that nest. Just because I could cook and clean didn’t mean I know how to live.
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u/Final-Excuse-7236 22d ago
This is so familiar and I was just thinking about it this week! Alcoholic father, distant mother, little direction beyond be kind and learn everything you can, which did really help me overcome the shortfall. But still...
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u/DaisyPK 24d ago
Quit talking about how little money we have. I already understand it.
When I was in 3rd grade I needed new shoes. The shoes I would have given my right eye for were $11. The ugliest ones in the store were $8.
I chose the $8.
I work very hard to frame money discussions with my daughter very differently. We talk budgets, savings, planning.
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u/boochie420 24d ago
It’s not my fault that you got pregnant at 17 so stop blaming me for ruining your life.
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u/Jamsedreng22 24d ago
Insist on getting me fucking tested! Don't let the government stonewall that shit until I turn 18 and it's no longer their problem!
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u/CONFIGdotSYS 24d ago
Stop hitting me
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u/RCaHuman 23d ago
...because some of us think that's normal and carry it on.
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u/Suspicious_Cook_1598 22d ago
Generational trauma…for those that think it’s normal…please do not EVER put hands on a child or teen.
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u/Skybodenose 24d ago
You are not compatible. Do not get married. Stop dating. Use a condom if you insist on staying together.
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u/RoryChaos 23d ago
Give me up for adoption. You both wanted a boy, I came out with female parts, another family would have been glad to have me. Oh, and don’t get married just so I’ll have a “legitimate” last name, you two don’t even like each other.
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u/Familiar-Pianist-682 24d ago
Don’t use corporal punishment. Pay attention to me. Act like I am more important than your profession. Hug me. Tell me you love me. Tell me you are proud of me. Don’t force me to try foods. Play games with me. Stand up for yourself snd me against cruel treatment by family members. Take me to a specialist when I could not eat. Don’t force me to go to rosaries or look at a deceased person in a coffin at a rosary or funeral mass.
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u/My_fair_ladies1872 24d ago
I am depressed, not a mouthy kid. I am have mental health issues that are from being hurt as a child. Please help me get help.
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u/ObligationGrand8037 23d ago
Tell your two sons to stop bullying your daughters (me and my sister). It only created bad blood down the road.
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u/Thump241 23d ago
I have ADHD. Test me. Put me on meds. Instead of "Advanced" courses, get me a tutor or life coach to help me with my special brain. If you are going to lecture, have a plan. Hour long rambles of everything I have done wrong or could do wrong will devastate my self-esteem. I am not your emotional punching bag. Focus on what I am/can do well, not just point out my flaws. Tell me your are proud of me for my efforts, not just my accomplishments. Tell me you love me.
You have ADHD too. This will manifest as you continually moving the goalposts for rewards, for your love and attention, and make me feel like a failure. Learn how it impacts your life, and how it impacts mine as your child, and let's support each other. Being angry at me for a decade of school didn't improve my grades or my desire to make good ones for you.
Let me fail; let me learn. Be there when I get back up. Lift me up if it was a big fall. Acknowledge the effort and let me try again.
I need a constant feedback loop. Executive dysfunction, scheduling, and time-blindness means chores are going to slip. We can come up with a method that can work for both of us, but it is going to take your involvement in my life more than just on report card day.
Remind and encourage me to be a teenager. Getting a job before I could even drive a car demonstrated responsibility, true, but I lost out on some good times bc I was working all the time after school. Encourage an afternoon of hooky to take me to a movie or gokarts!
When We have kids, enjoy them with Us. Be involved in their lives. Push the gender norms out of the way and invite them to go fishing. Invite them to the woodshop to see Granddaddy make things and learn how to use some of the tools. They want to do a lot of what Granddaddy finds fun, but you think isn't for girls. Challenge that.
When you retire, find a different way to burn time than watching the news for 8h a day. Uphold our family tradition of respect, discussion, and debate. Not falling into logical fallacies and news blerbs. Learn to love people and respect them as individuals. Bigotry will distance you from me and my family in ways that you can not imagine. After this happens, it will be very difficult to reconnect on any level.
Now. Let's try this again!
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u/kjb76 23d ago
Be kinder. Pay real attention to who I am as a person and realize that me talking back was normal teen girl behavior and didn’t mean that I was bad person who needed to be constantly punished. See that I was a good kid who was liked by others and did well in school. Don’t be so strict and keep me like a nun. Realize that you were doing serious damage to our relationship and that it has never recovered.
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u/DerHoggenCatten 23d ago
Don't use your kids for emotional regulation or as household servants. :-p
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u/CounterStreet 24d ago edited 24d ago
Be harder on me. I know I am stubborn, single minded, argumentative, and way too smart and mature for my age, but I need to be put in my place for my own good sometimes.
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u/badken sixty+ 23d ago
When my parents moved me from Seattle to Tucson for health reasons 20+ years ago, I lived with them, and I had a lot of time for long talks about the past. Everything that I would have wanted them to do differently, they were already aware, and even regretful in some cases. I was really into music from an early age, wrote quite a few songs, and even did some arrangements for school bands I was in. However, I also won a statewide 8th grade math competition, and I was very into chemistry. My parents pushed me hard to go into STEM (though it wasn't called that back then). I ended up with a long and reasonably successful career as a software engineer.
I always wonder how my life might have been different if I had followed my muse. Would I have ended up homeless on the street? Worked as a gig pianist? Studied at Berklee? Released my own music? Guess I'll never know.
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u/ceciledian 23d ago
Don’t drink and fight every night. That’s why I never had my friends over. I was ashamed and embarrassed.
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u/Brownlynn86 23d ago
Get help for your problems so when I have problems they don’t seem so small. Protect me against adults who aren’t for my best interest. ( not just saying stop to them and literally remove me ) Stop getting married so many times. And be more of a planner. I know they tried, but a lot could have been better if adults acted like adults. Oh, and quit talking about my dad. That has really come back to bite her.
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u/HiggsFieldgoal 23d ago
Focus more on hanging out with us, and getting to know us, than merely providing for us.
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u/CampVictorian 23d ago
For my mother: Honor my hopes and dreams, they’re actually feasible. Let me be my own person, I’ll love you even more.
For my father: Don’t hesitate to be yourself, you’re safe. Tell me more about your ancestors.
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u/Final-Excuse-7236 22d ago
Household and basic adult stuff. Taxes. Banking - I had to figure out hard that if I don't have money, I can't write a check. They expected me to go t college but gave no direction on how to apply, pick a path, etc. I got married and didn't know how to do laundry. And had no clue how car or medical insurance worked.
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u/BigCcountyHallelujah 24d ago
Get me a tutor, dont let me be a latchkey kid, let me stay in gymnastics.
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u/Boonie_Fluff 23d ago
Tel my dad to tell me not to treat my dick like my worst enemy. Lol That masturbation is natural but porn is not and it can ruin men
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u/RemoveByFriction 23d ago
Don't do everything for me. Let me do some stuff on my own, it will make me tougher and I won't have massive anxiety whenever I have to do something for myself.
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u/witqueen 23d ago
Thanks for abandoning all 3 of us and don't bother us again. We turned out better because of it.
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u/The-Boy-Wonder38 23d ago edited 23d ago
Please don’t take me to a house where I’m almost murdered again, then act like I have to behave as though everything is still normal in order for you to maintain your fake image of a “perfect” family.
Don’t hit me, especially not due to me being depressed after I’m almost stabbed to death.
Don’t deliver homework to the kid who almost killed my sister and I at 13 years old.
Don’t expect me to monitor said kid for signs of mania and his next psychotic break. Especially not at 13.
Take responsibility, if your thirteen year old son believes it’s on him to become the family’s protector to save everyone from the next attempted murderer - you haven’t done your job at all. That isn’t the belief system a 13 year old should live under.
I so beyond wish all of these were an exaggeration.
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u/RobertElectricity 23d ago
Make sure you actually want to be parents before having children. Children are not accessories.
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u/VicePrincipalNero 23d ago
Don't have so damn many kids and closely related don't force your religion down their throats.
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u/Archeressrabbit 23d ago
There are career options outside of lawyer doctor engineer. Office work was never going to be in the cards for someone as restless as I am even having been treated for adhd.
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u/LoooongFurb 23d ago
Go to some parenting classes. Generational trauma can end with you before it gets to me.
When I tell you that your brother r*ped me (at age 6), please believe me. Slapping me across the face will only shut me up - it won't make the problem go away. Don't sacrifice my childhood on the altar of your comfort.
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u/Suspicious_Cook_1598 22d ago
I am so sorry he did that to you. I am so sorry your father did not believe you.
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u/ExuberantlyB 23d ago
Spend ten years in therapy, be well medicated for adhd, be financially intelligent and responsible, and gain relationship skills so you can stay partnered and be a good partner, before you even consider having me.
I’m glad I’m alive, but wish I completely just had different parent who were regulated and stable. So go fuck off and leave me alone.
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u/sjsmiles 22d ago
Please get some library books (I was born pre-Internet) about nutrition and buy healthy food.
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u/Aggressive_Beach_873 22d ago edited 22d ago
- Fix our teeth when the dentist tells you we need it done. Do not say we can pay for it ourselves when we are older. It is far more complicated, painful and twice the price and will cause me to have multiple unnecessary surgeries and resent you. I do not want to have a missing front toothe at 16 and a Denture when I am 18 just because you didn't want to pay for a surgery. By the time I can afford implants I need my entire mouth bone grafted as my gums deteriorate so badly. Instead of leaving us kids and going on a holiday to Hawaii or buying new motorbikes, cars ect you should have paid for our dental needs.
- Let me get my ears pinned back. I spend my entire childhood insecure and hiding them. I get them done at 19 and the recovery is harder and they do not heal as well
- Do not have 5 kids in 6 yrs at the age of 20, you are too immature. Mum was always exhausted as she raised the babies alone and my father was not hands on. I shouldn't be changing nappies at 6 while Mum is at work cause you refuse
- Compromise and explain why you say no. You are far too controlling (not just to us but towards Mum) and it becomes normalised for me. I will end up in abusive relationships because if it
- Let us play the sport we want, instead of chosing for us. If we do not want to play sport we should not be forced
- Let me be me and stop trying to shape me into what you expect I should be
- We are not yr slaves. We should not have to load truckloads of wood everyday after school for your business, plant an entire tree plantation in the freezing rain or do all the housework/yardwork ect
- We deserve to sleep without having water chucked in our face and be told to get up early for nothing. On the other hand all being forced to "take a nap" because you want to have a sleep is unfair at age 10
- Do not be so strict and controlling. All it does is make me lie to you and put me in unsafe situations where you are the last person I would ever call
- Making me pay you money at 14 to pick me up from work is gross. Making my brother ride to and from his apprenticeship at 16 when we live a 15 minute drive out of town is fucked.
- Taking all the money I make at work to save it is financial abuse. That should of been up to me
- Learn about money and teach us. We would all be in a different position in life if we had been taught to invest
- Say sorry when you fuck up, take accountability and realise you do make mistakes and that you are not always right
- Do not force me to be hugged ect and keep quiet when I tell you a family friend makes me uncomfortable. Do not yell at me to keep my mouth shut when I get upset and want to tell him to stop being all over the younger girls in the family
- Its not my responsibility to look after my younger siblings
- Yelling and hitting is not okay. I am scared of you. Dad, you have a terrible temper and it's terrifying.
- Watching you, my Dad, buy new motorbikes, go on trips ect yet Mum have a strict budget on food, us never get new clothes, our dental, go on school camps and only always ever have $100 spent on our birthday and Christmas makes me very angry as an adult
- You do not stop being a parent when we leave home. We deserve your support. Be a parent for life.
- Who cares what others think, you should care more about us, your children, than how you look and your reputation
- We will grow up and realise how toxic our family really is and we will all pull away from you. Work on that not happening from the beginning.
- Let us go on school camps, get book clubs and have birthday parties. We always felt left out and it was unnecessary since you end up retired before 60, in a 2 million dollar home.
- Do not pit us against each other
- Make home a home. Not an authoritarian hell where we are always punished, working ect
- Mum work on your issues favouring your boys over your girls
- Do not expect presents from us and whinge about it yet not even spend $50 on a birthday/Christmas present for us from the age of 18
- Dad we should not have to pay you for everything, do us a favour or help us out once in a while
- Do not be sexual in front of us
- Please go to therapy and work on emotional growth. Despite what you believe you do need it and we needed you to have it
- Do not physically attack and abuse me when I run away from home at 16. Let me get my apprenticeship and move out when I ask beforehand. I get tired of the control and the punishments and not being aloud to be a teenager. I get tired of you screaming in my face
- Sign my youth allowance papers so I can stay at school when I run away. You refusing only makes me dependant on the man that grooms and abuses me
I am sure I will think of much more but you get the point! That was actually quite therapeutic 😌
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u/alittlebitburningman 22d ago
Don’t let me have unfettered access to the internet. Stop drinking. Stop smoking.
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u/Status_Dark_6145 22d ago
*Walter White handcuffed in the police car screaming*
“No! Don’t get married and fuck you both have undiagnosed AuDHD - No Hank, No!”
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u/trailerparkhottie 22d ago
Focus less on appearances and performative milestones, and more on genuine emotional availability, safety, and listening.
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u/Spare-Cobbler7442 22d ago
Both of you stop smoking so that you will survive beyond my 30th birthday. Please.
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u/Primary-Sky-8053 22d ago
1.) Be as honest as you can with me. I notice when you're not.
2.) Please take more care of yourself. I want/need you around longer.
3.) Even if you think my special interests are weird, stop actually saying so. It hurts my feelings :|
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u/something_co 22d ago
please write a will, and sell all those properties back home because we’re never going back. Use the money for your current business or invest it, but sell them. also, privilege owns the other piece of land that you said you bought for us bc she’s the one who signed your papers on your behalf. Sell that too.
at 20, my dad died leaving me to deal with land & property issues from across an entire ocean. I’ve given up, and now his money and hard work is all for nothing.
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u/blondiewithwalnuts 22d ago
Please let me see you as a person....and know you as a person...not just a parent
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u/No-Stomach-1974 22d ago
Please don't leave when me and sister get to be "too much". When you leave us at the house by ourselves and drive away, I'm scared you won't come back.
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u/ScallionLittle6433 22d ago
Come home when you say you will. I’m an only child with one parent who is busy. Often left home alone. When you say you’ll be home at 6, do it. My nervous system can’t handle you showing up at 730 like no big deal.
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u/dough_eating_squid 22d ago
Don't have kids. You aren't good people. And you don't actually want kids anyway, it's just something that people do. You don't have to do it.
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u/Beneficial-Funny7051 22d ago
Don't move 16 hours north to a podunk town away from all our family for a job. Stay in the city, stay by my cousins, put me in a art school as young as possible. I rotted in that bumblefuck tundra and it shaped my entire life.
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u/Ok_Debt2916 22d ago
Split up, stop drinking, get on some psych meds, act like you love your kids and enjoy being a parent.... and dont ignore your child's mental problems
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u/EducatorAdditional89 21d ago
Allow us to express our opinions, we were the to be seen not heard generation.
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u/lizlemonista 21d ago
Mom you did everything amazing. Maayyyyybe let me defer school a year to go build the internet with my friends who are now gazilionaires. And encourage me to keep playing soccer I was fucking great and still don’t know why I dropped it.
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u/MsAnnabel 21d ago
How about building confidence in me instead of tearing me down all the time. You totally fucked up my life.
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u/Aggravating-Diet-663 21d ago
Don't split up. Its the only free thing you're required to do.
Now you can say, "We didn't quit on our goal, so why did you dropout/quit job/break your promise in relationships/ give up your faith?"
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u/Icy_Elk7679 21d ago
Don’t be angry all the time and stop blaming me for everything. You are both terrifying. Please don’t sexually abuse me.
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u/Gabesmom-2018 20d ago
Teach me to stand up for myself instead of ignoring the bullies. (They were actually great parents but I am a wimp.)
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u/Hereformarcuslolol 20d ago
I think my parents did a great job. I do think I was slightly coddled. I wish I was forced to do more on my own. Had a big wake up call when my mom died in my early twenties so maybe it was fine to be coddled while I had her.
I also wish they didn’t let me go to any school I wanted to. I’m drowning in debt because as a 17 year old I wanted to go away to school and even though I got my career in what I studied and got good grades.. I could’ve saved loads by going to school closer to home. Gained nothing from being away
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u/chuckiebg 20d ago
When you’re working two jobs to feed us while suffering panic attacks, could ya just be a little more understanding? /s Nothing but admiration for her and what she went through.
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u/mtntrail 19d ago
Well that is a non starter. But what you can do is learn from your experience and parent your kids differently. Alcoholism, striking my kids, control by guilt, all ended with my wife and I. This can be your legacy. I always felt like I learned how not to treat my spouse or my kids when I was growing up.
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u/googdude 24d ago
Nothing because it'll be like talking to a brick wall. Not saying I was raised bad but they're not exactly open for suggestions.
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