What do you wish you could talk to your parents about?

My mother is super sensitive, so I don't want to talk to her about anything that may set her off. It's woefully easy to make her cry (for sadness, rage or joy). We have some issues that have been passed down through generations, in one way or another. These are learned behavior (I think) more than genetic disposition. I can discuss some of it, but not the stuff that really freaks me out. I don't trust my emotions and I know that she would be in periodic tears for weeks (maybe even years) if I got into it in any kind of wrong way with her.

Anything.

My dad's ferkin hopeless he wants to talk about things but he's so intense about everything and so prone to interpreting and drawing conclusions on what to me looks like projection more than anything else, so I prefer to just not bother. Takes me enough of an effort too.

My mom's dead, and I wish she wasn't.

no reply. my parents are dead.

My mom does the cry thing and my dad does the dead thing and I wish they would both knock it the hell off.

<sigh>

I'm going to read along for a bit.....

But it is nice to know I'm not alone. Maybe we can get our parents (dead or alive) to read this.

Well dad can be talked to moreso than my mother. She seems to not see things the way my father and I do.

I wish I could talk to my parents about anything. They're both dead, and I wish they weren't.

Dad died in 1990, Mom in 1997. I wish they could see my son now. That would be the most important thing we could talk about.

My father refused to discuss his second wife with me. I wanted to know about her, who she was, when and how she died, but daddy clammed up like never before and would not talk about her at all.
I could talk with my mother about anything and everything. And did.

My folks both passed away in the last year and a half. While we were cleaning out the house, we came across a bunch of old photo albums with pictures dating back to the mid 19th century. No one in my family knows who any of those people are... Our family historians are all gone, and I feel like hell about it.

Well, with my paternal father I would like to know about the other side of my family. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, I don't know. Anything I guess. My parents were divorced when I was very young and because of things I was told as a child I cut off all contact with my real father. I just started getting to know him a few years ago. I don't even know if he has any brothers or sisters. I never met his parents.

With my mom I guess I don't know. We've made a lot of progress over the last few years, but to be honest I don't like sharing anything personal with her. As hard as she tries she just can't seem to stop herself from saying things like, "I knew this would happen." or "I told you so." That's just not very helpful when you are hurting. Even though I know she's not trying to put salt in the wound.

Honestly speaking I would give anything right now to feel like I could go to either one of them and just cry. To feel like I could tell them how I really feel, how much I hurt sometimes, and know that they wouldn't judge me or criticize me because I made a mistake. But they would just hold me, like a parent does when their child is hurting, and tell me they love me anyway.

First, my condolences about your parents, LionTamer.

That's really too bad about the photographs. Are you sure there's no one who can identify your ancestors?

Thanks eoe,
That whole generation of my family has moved on to the next world, except for one aunt who is fuzzy on details.
I just kick myself for not paying closer attention to all those "old boring stories" as a child.

Liontamer - that is sad. I wish I knew more. My aunt knows lots of family history, but her 2 girls don't seem keen to carry the info. Plus, she's been busy caring for my vegitative grandfather and her senile mother-in-law. Maybe now that those to elders will be in 'homes' she can compile some info. My sister also pays attention, but her thing is more strictly geneology.

Are there names on the photos? Not just relative's names, but photo studio names? Sometimes just getting the city IDd can be helpful.

I'm sorry you have such unfulfilling relationships with your parents, heph. But even those of us who are/were close to our parents still have gaps. For instance, I never heard my parents tell me they were proud of me. They may well have been, but I never heard it, and it bothers me to this day.

i can talk to my mom about anything. almost. she's a marriage counseler and she's been there for me ever since i noticed boys as species. and she is, frighteningly enough, always always right. at least i learned to accept that and act accordingly, not against her advice.
dad is tough. he is older, old-school professor type. there is lot of respect, but it takes a special occasion to talk about 'stuff'. usually we use mom as a transmitter. my sister went on a few road trips with dad, so she got to talk to him more. i envy that. although i'm a bit more introverted than my sister, so the trips might not change much.
in any case, both my parents are fantastic and there's little i regret or would change.

Thanks Eva. LOL I was just having a moment there... I needed to see it for what it is. It was hard growing up, but it's better now. Though they weren't in the spot they should have been, or could be now, and quite possibly may never be, that is life. I am grateful for what I have now. It is a lot more than even five years ago. It's not perfect, but then again, who's parent's are perfect anyway? This was an unexpected trigger though. I didn't even see it coming! LOL

I can talk to my dad about anything. And I do. He's one of my best friends
Ah, my mom, I've had a very traumatic childhood because of her.

I'm afraid i dislike her and I avoid any serious or meaningful conversation with her. It does disturb me though, to know that I dislike someone who gave me life

My dad died in 1976, but out of the two of them, he was the one that I could talk to about anything. My mum only really got involved in a chat, when she could steer it round to talk about her favourite subject (herself). Lovely lady, so don't get me wrong....but never one that you could ever call selfless.

My mum is now 84, is as nutty as a fruitcake, and telephones me at least ten times a day to ask me if I can take her home.

Last night, she was stuck in a ballroom somewhere, and all of the dancers were ignoring her.

She never HAS gone anywhere, but it takes at least half an hour each phone call to convince her of that.

Sometimes I wish I DIDN'T have to talk to her for a while..........


...re. the old photos thing.....I have been researching our old albums, ever since I fished them out of mum's rubbish bin a couple of months ago, and took them home with me. Alongside the albums, I also found all of her life policies, her false teeth and half of her jewellery. I took all the stuff home with me for safe keeping, apart from the teeth of course (even though they would make a fine crimped edge to any home made pie)

I have always wished I could talk to my mum about my feelings and the things that are important to me as a person. Even now, there is a part of me that just wants a mummy who will sit beside me and listen. Let me be a little girl who gets her heartbroken. Simply to be acknoledged for myself. I know she has loved me the best she can, but I don't feel like she knows me. I just want for us to get to know each other, but she can't do that. It will continue to be onesided. She is still wanting to be the child in the world.

I dearly miss my daddy, but he is dead. He listened, he was interested in me, he spent time with me. We had so much fun together and shared the same sense of spirit. I miss my stepdad as well, and he is also dead. There is nothing in the world that can replace that feeling of having your dad smiling proudly at you. I wish I could have talked to him about the men in my life.

Hmmmmm....my father was far too narcissistic and self obsessed to talk to about anything, at least after I was a tiny kid, though we could argue abstract stuff ok sometimes. I simply stopped expecting any kind of emotional support from him after I was about five, and indeed could count on torrents of well meant abuse.......although he was sometimes very supportive in practical kinds of ways when I was young....although this, too, was dangerous territory, since one tended to pay dearly for anything in terms of emotional blackmail, Sigh...he meant well, bless him, but I cannot express how traumatising he was, without any conscious malign intent. His death at 87 was an immense relief in many ways....though, after 14 years, I still have nightmares that he is still alive, from which I wake very distressed!


My mum I never got to know as an adult, since she died when I was 14. She was deeply but courageously depressed for most of my young life, since she was dealing with the slow death of her first child, and then its aftermath, and was emotionally often unavailable to me, because of her preoccupation with my sister's illness.....though in many ways she handled a very difficult situation, (with no meaningful emotional support from her husband available), with enormous grace, creativity and incredible courage.

The downside of this was her emotional unavailability, and occasional bouts of what would now be considered child abuse, when her stress levels got the better of her. It is odd to recall that when I see kids coming in to where I work with injuries that are taken very seriously as child abuse, that I would certainly have suffered for no good reason sometimes.

I think she was just coming out of this depression the year or so before she died, and we did begin to be able to talk more. For instance, she shared her agnosticism with me...but she was very narrow minded in many ways and hyper critical and quite cold....(I always wonder if, as she blossomed, and as I did, this would have changed? She died in 1968, which was an incredible time, and she would have faced constant challenge from me about her beliefs and mores...but I will never know).

I truly do not know to what extent I would have been able to talk to her, but I would have liked the chance to find out, especially as I see the enormous love and care and interest my friends have for their maturing children, and the ever deepening communication they have with them.


But then again, we might have fought and got on 'orribly! Who knows.