There is no such thing as being a ‘perfect’ parent—it’s human to make mistakes. However, some decisions and parenting methods have a far more negative impact than others. And if those mistakes occur frequently enough and pile up, you might hear folks whispering about what a bad parent someone is. Unfortunately, in some cases, that reputation is entirely justified. And these people’s kids are left to deal with the emotional fallout for years and even decades to come.
Redditor u/VastPurpleSky asked people to take a look back at their childhoods and share the things that they now realize were examples of truly bad parenting. Read on for their open and honest stories.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the thread, u/VastPurpleSky, and they shared their thoughts on parenting red and green flags. Read on for our full interview with the OP.
#1
Three words:
“Boys dont cry.”
I dedicate this comment to my school counselor and my PE coach who both helped me get off the road to becoming a psychopath by telling me very much so that boys can and do indeed cry.
Image source: GetOutOfTheWhey, Lucas Metz
#2
Made us feel like they were doing us a favor by raising us. For a long time I felt like I was always indebted to my parents and nothing I could do would ever be enough.
Image source: tsagdiyev, Pixabay
#3
My family still believes beating a kid is a great form of discipline instead of just sitting down with and talking to your child. Who would’ve thought that Beating your child when they’re young, and barely getting to know them when they’re a teenager, would lead to them almost never reaching out to you when they’ve grown up and moved out? Mind blowing right??
Also, I absolutely CANNOT stress enough how important it is to show up to your child’s extracurricular activities. I played tennis all 4 years of high school and did marching band as well and I can count on 1 hand how many times they even bothered to show up. Your job is never going to remember you worked there, but your child will *always* remember you *weren’t* there.
Image source: Windebieste_Ultima, RDNE Stock project
#4
Nothing I did was good enough. Like, if she asked me to fold laundry and I’d do it, and then she’d redo it because I guess I folded the towels wrong. I’d clean my room, she’d come in and redo everything I’d done. And she wouldn’t teach me how she wanted things done, she’d just send me away and tell me she’d do it herself. Taught me that I shouldn’t even bother trying to help because she’s just going to redo whatever I did anyway, because I guess I was just a failure.
Image source: deagh, Sarah Brown
#5
All the weight comments. I was always a chunky kid and definitely needed/need to lose the weight, but I’ve never been able to shake the idea that I don’t deserve to be loved, because of those comments. I can always look down and see 50 extra reasons to hate myself
Image source: sephoraobsessed, Ketut Subiyanto
#6
They werent bad parents at all, but:
Stop saying “just ignore them and theyll get tired of you” when your child is getting bullied
It doesnt work. Your child will just be a punching bag. I did however break somones foot in 5th grade and never got bothered again.
Image source: Mario-OrganHarvester, Mikhail Nilov
#7
Why can’t you be like…….?
#8
Buy ramen instead of nutritious food so that they could afford more cigarettes.
Mercilessly mock our insecurities and then say they were “just joking” and that we needed to “toughen up” when we got upset.
Refuse to apply for Medicaid or foodstamps because they weren’t “trashy” and let me and my sister go sick/hungry for their pride. (This one makes me extra angry because as an adult now I know they qualified and also my maternal grandparents were well off and could have helped but my mother would rather starve than accept their scrutiny)
Image source: Odd-Astronaut-92, Markus Winkler
#9
I’ve always known
I asked my mom if she was proud of me. She said I hadn’t done anything for her to be proud of.
I was 12.
Image source: Katdroyd, Pixabay
#10
Learning at an early age to bottle up emotions and not to show any. No one can hurt you if you don’t feel. Growing up, I was constantly needled about my emotions. I was only child, and at any point I wasn’t acting as they thought I should they’d basically bully and make fun of me until I either broke and cried, to which I’d be disciplined, or just go numb. Now as a adult I’m my mid thirties, I’m emotionally stunted and have a difficult time connecting with anyone emotionally.
Image source: agentorange360, Inzmam Khan
#11
My mom raised me to believe that what other people think of me is more important than than what I think of myself. Every action had to be accompanied by a thought of how it would affect the family (i.e. her). So of course I became depressed because I don’t want people seeing me doing something “wrong”. Even this response has been rewritten a couple times because I can’t stop myself.
She’s recently complained about how I never talk to them and I’m pretty sure this is gonna be unloaded this weekend.
Image source: Stone_Reign
#12
They didn’t allow me to go out with my friends at all. I was basically grounded by default. My weekend schedule was jam-packed with various lessons. As a result, I took longer to develop social skills.
Image source: horny_loki, Greg Rosenke
#13
Never ever said to me “. I love you”. Seriously, how f****d is that?
Image source: United_Crew_4554, Alex Green
#14
My parents moved house basically every other year. For them it was a new job, new opportunities … for me it meant regularly losing all my friends, new school, etc. I never built up a circle of friends and have problems to do so until this day.
When I had a kid, I made sure she can go to the same school from kindergarden to the final exams (which start next week, BTW), so she doesn’t have to go through this.
Now she’s very keen on finally getting to know a different environment when she’ll start uni in autumn. Probably she’s around here, complaining that her parents stayed at the same boring place all her life… ;-)
Image source: saschaleib, Jeswin Thomas
#15
my dad trauma dumped all these really dark and twisted details of what he went through on me as if I was his therapist
Image source: iwilltakeurlife, MART PRODUCTION
#16
responding with “do this because I said so”. seems harmless, right? it can teach stubborn kids respect and obedience. My mom would often use it. I wasn’t allowed to question things or point out mistakes. Now as an adult, I developed an inferior mindset. I’m often extremely obedient when interacting with people. I find it hard to find my own voice
Image source: bland-soup, Andrea Piacquadio
#17
my dad would always buy my brother and i whatever we wanted if he hit or yelled at us. realizing now that i’m older it was just so we didn’t tell our mom
Image source: Inevitable_Leek_1622, RDNE Stock project
#18
Read my diary
Image source: itsdestinfool, Alina Vilchenko
#19
Laughing at me for various s**t even though they were joking. Music, hobbies, girlfriends, my body. I understand they were joking but it took a lot to get my confidence back and they also wonder why I don’t tell them anything about my life.
Image source: beansff, cottonbro studio
#20
First – Being inconsistent. One day mom would overly obsess about my homework, or how clean my room was, or what I was going to “do with my life”, etc., the next day it was all forgotten as if it never happened.
Second – If I mentioned wanting to do anything, I was given a long list of why it could and would go wrong to the point where I felt beaten down and didn’t want to do it anymore, then I was accused of never sticking to anything.
Third – Telling me I wasn’t trying, or not trying hard enough, when in reality I was trying as best I could. It simply made me realize that there was no point in my efforts, so why bother at all.
Image source: FinnbarMcBride
#21
Growing up my father micromanaged everything to a point that he would decide how much time the window in my room will remain open, I wasn’t allowed to open or close the window as I wish. This goes for everything, I had to take his permission for every little thing, I had no free will home was basically a military camp. I felt so suffocated in that house.
Image source: SuvenPan
#22
Lots of yelling and bulling, spanking, then go to church like a good little Christian family wtf 🤷♀️ very confusing upbringing that’s all I’m saying
Image source: Individual-Spirit-75, adrianna geo
#23
Ignoring my autism diagnosis and acting as if I’ll be fine in life if they treat me as they did my siblings. Turns out, a huge part of learning to navigate the world when you have autism involves learning coping strategies (that sometimes might not work for most people) and thus I was pushed into situations that caused meltdowns but without any coping strategies that actually worked I just became an anxious and depressed mess.
Image source: Dragime84
#24
Making promises and not following through on them.
Image source: anon, Phil Nguyen
#25
They stayed together “for me”, my mum made me her therapist at the ripe age of 10, my mum talked to me about our bad economy, my mum wouldn’t teach me how to talk care of myself at all until i was 16, my dad laughed and made fun of me when i failed at stuff, my dad used to jokingly almost drown me and put me in situations where i was afraid, my dad would call me a pig for eating a lot, my mum always felt the need to point out my acne even when i didn’t ask, they fought in front of me and used me to their advantages in the arguments, they only ever congratulated me when it came to grades and sports. When i was younger i never realised how bad all this was because it was all I knew, it wasn’t until I was 16 i realised how f****d up it all was
Image source: Lobstermeat420
#26
had money but never let us kids have regular medical check ups/ never got us braces no matter how bad our teeth are and said its our responsibility to do those things when we’re older :// They did horrible things but this realization often made me tear up. For context, I have a lifetime illness that needs checking up every 3 months
Image source: vent1te
#27
So I just want to preface this by saying that I had a good childhood, my parents loved me, and I believe they really did try their best.
One of the things they did that I think is bad parenting is they constantly tried to make sure things were “equal” between me and my siblings. For example, for awhile they experimented with paying us extra allowance for good grades. I was always good in school, so I almost always ended up with all A’s, so I got a lot of money. My sibling was (and still is) a lazy f**k so they would hardly get any except for PE. Despite that, my parents found ways to “even things out” so they would still have some spending money. It created an incentive for my sibling to continue being a lazy f**k, and disincentivized me working hard. I still did because I wanted to go to college, but it definitely created animosity.
I think parents should treat their kids equitably, but children are not equal and should not be treated like they are equal. Each is an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses, and what works for some may not work for others.
Image source: False-Guess
#28
They isolated and neglected me.
Image source: anon, Ivonne Lecou
#29
– Never gave me any encouragement to do anything. Anything I wanted to do was met with negativity and criticism. Looking back, I think they were trying some reverse psychology b******t, but I’ve never worked that way and now I just don’t try to do anything, really.
– My Dad was the youngest of three brothers which obviously made him think that little brothers are naturally superior and always told him that he didn’t have to listen to me or do what I said. Which baby brother took as wholesale permission to do whatever he wanted – go to my room and start wrecking s**t, take any of my stuff he wanted, etc and if I told him to stop it’s always “I don’t have to listen to you! I don’t have to listen to you! Ha ha!” Unsurprisingly he also ended up getting into trouble at school a lot. We had a really bad relationship until I moved out for University.
– Used to punish me for telling the truth, which just led to me lying and hiding things and never really telling them anything at all to be honest.
Image source: Apprehensive_Bug_826
#30
Letting the TV be a babysitter.
Image source: ShroomerOfCatan, Victoria Rain
#31
Let me eat as much as I want, to the point that I weighed 131kg at my peak. Losing all s**t is hard man. But I’m down to 94kg now and let me tell you, there is no possibility that my future kid(s) will ever be obese.
Image source: Ukrainian_Tractor07, Nathan Dumlao
#32
Giving my brother a present on my birthday.
Image source: TheDood715, Porapak Apichodilok
#33
My parents weren’t bad parents but I would say they were kind of benignly neglectful. I was clothed and fed and loved but not guided in any way at all. Everything was up to me. If I did homework, if I brushed my teeth or bathed. if I went to school, applying for college. Luckily I’m pretty naturally a rule follower and self driven or who knows how I would have turned out.
Image source: 00Lisa00, cottonbro studio
#34
Put a lock on my bedroom door
Image source: McNamee93SAFC, Amanda Vick
#35
Completely shut down any kind of relationship conversation. It was a blanket “no”. Not up for debate. Ok, I grew up in a pretty conservative part of the world but that’s not an excuse to treat having a boyfriend as sacrilegious. ( In my all girl’s K – 12 school, a student could get expelled for talking to a boy over the school wall. )
Image source: dee615, Liza Summer
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