Being a parent comes with an incredible amount of responsibility. I mean, as a parent you are the first tangible stencil that your child has to create their own life picture. And with that, comes the particular obligation to not crush your child(ren)'s hopes and dreams with the things you say, like the parents in these next few stories.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
‘I Want To Ruin Your Life’
“It wasn’t from my mother or father (although they each have said some equally hurtful things), but from my mother’s boyfriend. To give a bit of a background, her boyfriend (now husband) was possessive and abusive towards me. My mother, on the other hand, chose to look the other way and deny anything was happening.
I was extremely depressed my freshman year of high school (considering the environment I was living in, that’s not too surprising). I tried taking my life January of that year. I was brought to the hospital, went through the whole process, and was eventually able to come home. As soon as I was inside the house, my mom’s boyfriend sat me down on the couch, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I want to make your life a terrible, so every day when you wake up you wish you were dead.’
Not exactly the thing you want to hear after leaving the hospital from a suicide attempt. My mom was angry with him but ignored it. He continued to ruin make my life for the next few years. It was certainly not something that’s easy to forget, but definitely, the most hurtful thing that’s ever been said to me.”
‘To Deny Me Is To Deny Yourself’
“‘You will always be my daughter, your mother’s half of you and I’m the other half. To deny me is to deny yourself.’
His words are still stuck in my head.
I had an abusive father with a battered mother. This went on for a couple of years and, to this day, we are still struggling to get him out of our lives.
He was careless, merciless, and would go on and on about my mom being promiscuous and him being the victim. He would abuse her in front of our eyes and would smoke in closed spaces with us inside. He slipped something into my chocolate milk once when I was only 12 years old. He made my brother watch adult films with him when he was just 8 years old.
He would often say, ‘You can’t hate me no matter what I do. I could kill your mom right now, and that wouldn’t change the fact that I’m your father and you will respect me. You have my DNA; my blood runs in your veins, my last name is on you. You can’t escape from me. You and your brother belong to me. To deny me is to deny yourself.’
To this day his words are still stuck inside me.”
‘All Your Troubles Are Because You Are Disobeying God’
“Older brother: Got a boyfriend, Pam?
Father: No, because she drowns them all.
This was said probably six months after my previous boyfriend drowned in an accident.
It was the dead of winter, snowing heavily, and nighttime in Fort Drum, New York. I was back home from college on winter break. My father had just picked up my older brother from the airport.
I left the house in tears and walked around the neighborhood. I remember seeing a wild fox in our suburb that night.
Father: Have you ever considered that all your troubles are because you’re disobeying God? Because you are.
I was visiting my family and taking care of visa-related paperwork about two months ago. My then-fiance came with me. Naturally, we were jetlagged; we had gone from Hong Kong to D.C.; going through Chicago in between.
I had confided to my father that morning about some of the abuse I had undergone with an ex-boyfriend over the prior two years, and about the measures, I had been taking to face my depression.
But I earned this comment when I decided it would be best that my fiance and I – both sorely sleep deprived – take a nap in my bedroom. No Bueno. My dad was saying that the reason I suffered from abuse and depression was that of … well, it was unspecified actually, but the comment was triggered by me taking a nap with my fiance.”
‘I Should Have Gotten An Abortion’
‘You’re the biggest mistake of my life’ or ‘I should’ve gotten an abortion’ from my mother.
Yeah, I was an accident, and it might be a bit generic. But it doesn’t mean it didn’t feel like she ripped my heart out and stomped on it when I was younger.
My mother has a long history with the bottle. She has been for most of my life since she got laid off from her job when I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. At the time, I was too naive to understand what was happening, but I grew to understand earlier than I should have by the comments people were making around me. It’s obvious when she’s had too many drinks. She gets mean and nasty, and boy does her breath reek.
For all of middle school and early high school, I was a depressed child. I was bullied at school, and then often had to deal with my mother at home. I frequently had to rely on her to drive me places even when she was gone. Unsafe, but what else could I do? I lived in the middle of nowhere, and my father worked all day. There were a couple instances where she swerved off the road, but luckily nobody was hurt. I would often not get dinner and had to settle for junk food because she was passed out on the couch or the toilet.
I eventually spoke of this to my guidance counselors at school, and they got the DCF (Department of Children and Families) involved. It didn’t solve anything, just got my mother pissed at me as if it was my fault. As time went on, I grew more and more bitter toward her. I started finding her drinks wherever she would hide it, and I would pour it all down the drain. She’d scream at me and go out and buy more.
From about the time I was 16, I was outright hostile whenever she would drink. We’d have screaming matches and exchange words. I never struck her, but I was forced to shove her away from me in self-defense a few times. In one case, she pulled a knife on my brother and me, and I had to shove her into the wall and forcibly take it from her. Otherwise, the worst I ever did was throw a glass of milk in her face when she said something particularly nasty to me. If I recall, she was insulting my recently-deceased cat for the sole reason that she knew it would hurt me.
This was all around the time that she began calling me the biggest mistake of her life, wishing she’d never had me and had gotten me aborted. It hurt for a long time, but eventually, I learned to stop caring. Any affection I had left for my mother died, to the point where I started referring to her by her first name whenever she was not sober because I no longer considered her to be my mother. The cops got involved a few times, with her calling them for ridiculous reasons. Once when I shoved her away in self-defense, once when I called her a certain word and wouldn’t ‘get out’ of the house, and one last time when she was trying to accuse my grandmother (father’s mother) of stealing from her own mother. When we tried to stop that last phone call, as it was nonsense, she freaked out and started throwing things at me. When my father tried to stop her, she started crying assault and made the call to the cops about him. She smashed her face against the wall to try and get him arrested for domestic abuse. Then when the cops show up, she makes it about me instead, claiming all of her bad behavior was my fault.
I finally packed up my things and left. I moved 1,500 miles away from home to get away from her, and my only regret is that I couldn’t take my younger brother with me. My hope is that he won’t have such issues with her because he’s much more passive than I ever was, and largely ignores or does whatever my mother says when she’s on the stuff.
I’ve exchanged a few words of text with her since leaving home, and then only to tell her I’ll come home and take my cat if she so much as thinks about putting him down just because he has a urinary tract infection. I have no interest in any continued communication with her and, aside from missing my pets, I’m quite happy where I live now, away from all the family drama.
My father cannot divorce her because she blackmails him, in a way that would cost him his job and possibly land him in jail if he tried to separate from her. She’s a leech that sits at home and drinks while he pays for everything. She cleans for someone and does some less appropriate things in order to get money for drinks because my father has taken her off of his bank account.”
‘I Don’t Like You That Way’
“‘I don’t like you that way.’
My father said that to me during my difficult teenage years. I was a troubled person, my classmates hated me, I was a bad student, I was clumsy and forgetful, I gave up on everything, and I fled into my fantasy worlds, no longer caring about my real life.
My parents saw the mess that I was in and they wanted to help me, yet since I was locked up in my fantasy and online worlds, they tried to be strict, in hopes that I would finally listen and get my life in order again.
Unfortunately, that did not help, and they became despaired. They told me to focus during class, to do my homework, to learn but although my logic understood them I was simply not willing to do what they told me to do. They even checked my notes that I made during class to see if they were complete or not. Sometimes I couldn’t explain why I didn’t write more since I forgot everything that I did during school. Whenever that would happen, they would punish me, take something away like my books, my game consoles, my money, and when there was nothing left to take away, they punished me by having a grumpy, hateful mood towards me for a couple of days.
Basically, after school, I would come home and be greeted by my parents with an icy cold ‘good afternoon.’ They refused to say anything else to me. That didn’t improve my situation, I fled even deeper into my fantasy worlds; they helped and cursed me at the same time. Nothing else existed back then in my life. I got held back in school, and it felt as if my real world was crushing me, yet all I saw were these shiny elves and princesses in my fictional world.
They would say, ‘I don’t like you that way’ at that time and it was horrible to me because to me, it meant, ‘I hate you.’ And I thought, great, now everybody hates me, even my parents. Why am I still alive?
In the end, I managed to get out of there. After I got held back, I met new people, and although I was never one of them, they didn’t bully me. I slowly started getting better in school and my parents started to see my improvements and stopped being so strict.
Nowadays, the tables have turned. I have friends (after getting held back for the second time), I invest so much time into school, and I even care to be one of the best students. I will have a boyfriend soon, and my parents are happy with me. And plus thanks to the dark times in my past I can cherish what I have even more and be grateful for my happy life now.
This might just be a normal life for anyone else – but for me, it’s pure heaven!”
‘I Need To Break You’
“‘I had to break you.’
My mother has never been the nicest person, and as such, I’ve never really gotten along with her. She is a harsh, unforgiving and sometimes violent woman.
Throughout my life, she’s told stories of my sister and me as children which she tells with a grin, and I hear with horror. She told us that when my sister became a toddler and began venturing around the house on her own, she kept coming back to my mother for a cuddle every now and then. Cute, right? Apparently, I was always really confused when this happened. At around even the age of three or four, I was baffled as to why anyone would go to my mother for care and affection when I actively avoided her.
She also tells of one time I’d made a mistake, and owned up to it to my mother, followed immediately by me sitting down and crying ‘You can’t smack me! My bottom’s down!’
I made a mistake, was very young and still learning about the world, but my initial reaction was fear because I knew my mother was going to hit me for it.
(I know, some people think that spanking is okay. I disagree, but let’s not get into that. The only experience of spanking I have is what my mother inflicted on me and I’d say it was probably more than that, coupled with systematic manipulation and emotional control).
A few years ago, I was talking to my mother about my sister and me as children (especially my sister) and asking if she knew from her behavior that my sister was going to be highly intelligent, with how easily she found her way around my mother’s rules and manipulations.
My mother said, ‘I guess. At the time I just knew I had to break you. I needed to break you down and rebuild you my way.”
That gave me chills. It chills me that someone can look at two innocent, tiny, new lives, and think ‘I need to break them’.
I think she succeeded.”
Those Three Words
“When I was in the 10th grade, I participated in something called the ‘Academic Rally.’ It was a series of tests on a particular subject, and like with sports events, you start out competing within your school, then regionals, then state.
I came in first in biology at my school, and in my region, so I went to the state finals and came in third in the entire state.
My mom’s response?, ‘Well, that’s disappointing’.
Those three words sum up my relationship with my mother.”
‘I Will Watch You Die Slowly’
“The words she said still ringing in my mind.
‘If you want to die so much, I will watch you die slowly.’
I was suicidal, and depressed throughout most of my teenagehood. I could not count the number of times I had anxiety attacks over my insecurities and suicidal thoughts and it was super awful. My hands tend to shake so badly and I will begin to physically harm myself.
It has been four years since my biological mother uttered those hurtful words. But I could still remember the tremble of her voice, and the heaviness of her sighs distinctly.
It was her first time witnessing one of my self-harm episodes. She knew I was sad, she was even aware of my scars. But right there and then, when she saw the river flowing out from my arms, I could feel a mixture of emotions that was too overwhelming – confusion, anger, disappointment and upset.
Maybe she said that phrase out of spite. And I know that she was hurt when she said that to me too. And even up till now – even when I had made tremendous progress in my mental health and my relationship with my mom got better – I could still feel the sharp knife poking through my chest when I had flashbacks about it every now and then.
And to all mothers out there, please be mindful of what you say to your children. Forget your frustration and think before you speak. Because even though I am a much healthier person now, I could never truly recover from the things that were once said.”
‘You Won’t Be The Only Odd One Out’
“‘At least you won’t be the only odd one out.’
These words were said to me by my dad upon receiving an invitation to a family barbecue.
A barbecue which was to be hosted by my 31-year-old (married) sister, her husband, and his family. A barbecue where (single) 33-year-old me would ‘at least not be the only odd one out,’ as my sister’s (widowed) 47-year-old sister-in-law would at least be there to make me feel like less of a single loser.
Although I know I am not a single ‘loser an odd one out,’ I am sick and tired of some married people and/or people in relationships making me – and all the other single people out there – feel like one.
If I had a dime for every insensitive comment or pity-coated look someone gives me whenever they hear that I am over 30 and not married or in a relationship, I believe I would be anything but single.
And if I had all these dimes and dollars, I would buy a megaphone strong enough to shout to all those deprecatory busybodies to rather focus on their own romantic relationships than express such concern over the non-existent ones of others. I would also tell those people that need telling, to think twice about making hurtful remarks when they have no idea of the path another has walked in their life. Most importantly, I would shout out loud that your self-worth is not determined by the ‘stamp of approval’ given by a romantic partner willing to commit to a relationship with you, but rather by who you say you are.
And what determines who I say I am, as a person, is firstly the relationship I have with myself, and secondly the one I have with everyone around me.
My dad’s comment, although as hurtful as it was, made me realise yet again that despite all the unnecessary and unasked for comments and harsh judgement we singletons sometimes have to endure, it is better to be single than in just any relationship for the sake of shutting the mouths of friends, parents, or society as a whole.
Above all, it is better to be single and sensitive towards the thoughts and feelings of others, than be in a relationship and be a jerk.”
‘Where Did You Read That?’
“My mother has said this to me on two occasions, both were completely devastating.
The first time I was quite young, maybe in the third grade. I was going through some gender identity issues and was desperately trying to explain this to my mom. My sweet innocent mind didn’t know that some people didn’t like to think about ‘those kinds of things.’ My mother had always been a figure that I’ve trusted and been completely honest with up until that point. I just wanted advice from her. Earlier that day, my precocious self had been paging through a ‘New Yorker’ magazine and I read through an article on gender identity in minors. This article opened my eyes and put a name to some of the issues I was feeling. When I went to my mother trying to gain her support, she dismissed me. She asked where I read about this. I timidly admitted I read an article and she gave me a look, nodded and said, ‘Ah, I see.’ That was the end of this discussion permanently. I got a clear message that she thought I’d made it all up because of what I read and I was just trying to get attention. For fear of more dismissal, I never brought up the topic again.
The second instance was even worse. I was depressed, and I knew it. I was having some dark thoughts and had been for a while, and I wanted to do something about it. So, I went to my mother. I didn’t tell her that I thought I was depressed, as I knew for sure she would completely dismiss me for trying to get attention, so I just listed off symptoms, headaches, inexplicable aches, and pains, overly anxious, feeling hopeless, helpless and lonely, not being able to enjoy things anymore, the list goes on. Again, her response again was, ‘Where did you read that?’ Nothing came of the conversation. It turns out I had and have depression and anxiety, which she finally accepted after things started to get bad. It took a lot of persuasion from both my therapist and me to get my mother to agree to have me take medication.
One last instance where she didn’t say those exact words but was also very dismissive was while I was in the eighth grade. I was getting ready for the SSAT’s, and I was struggling with the arithmetic on the math portion of the test. This was slowing me down, so I went to the school learning specialist and asked him what I should do. He said that I could apply for an accommodation if I felt I needed one. Later that night, I introduced the idea to my mother and she rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘You don’t need that,’ she said. ‘Plus, if you do need to take the test again, then I want you to study for it.’ I was a bit upset at this point so I tried to reason with her. ‘How about this,’ I suggested, ‘if the only thing I’m not happy with my scores in that I didn’t finish the math, then we can look into accommodations, otherwise I’ll go with your plan.’ I hoped this would satisfy her, but unfortunately, it did not. ‘No,’ she retorted, ‘then you’ll go slow on purpose so you can get the accommodations even though you don’t need them.’ I didn’t know what to say, after a moment I responded with ‘you know I’d never do that.’ I’m not usually one to run away from confrontation, but that was just too much for me, so I ran up to my room. She eventually apologized for what she said, but I still don’t think it was appropriate.”
‘You’re Going To Be Better Than Me’
” ‘No baby, you’re going to be better than me.’
I was little, only about 6 or 7 years old when she said this, but I can still remember my mother’s words. I can hear them clear as day in my mind. This might not seem very heartbreaking or hurtful to you but at the time it hurt me so much.
Like I said, I was little. I looked up to my mom. She was (and still is) my superhero, my teacher, my everything! I love her so much. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up! I told myself that I was going to grow up and be just as smart and as strong as my mommy was! And one day I decided to voice this sentiment out loud.
‘Mama, I want to be just like you when I grow up,’ I said to her. I expected to be met with one of her laughs, maybe a hug. But all I got was a sad, almost pitiful look on her face as she looked down at me.
‘No baby, you’re going to be better than me,’ she said. I was confused. Why wouldn’t she want me to be just like her? Shouldn’t that be a good thing, to be just like one of your parents? Or at least hope to become somewhat like them?
‘Why not Mama?’ I asked, still trying to understand why she would reject me wanting to be just like her. I don’t remember what she said after I had asked her this, but I do remember her bending down and hugging me afterward, still with that sad expression on her face.
She told me to go play so that’s just what I did. But her words stung. Was I not good enough to be just like her? Why can’t I be just like her? I kept on thinking how unfair it was to be treated like that. My own mother denying my dreams of becoming a strong woman someday of being just like her.
I didn’t understand why she didn’t want me to be like her until I was about 10 years old. That’s when a bunch of our family secrets began making their way into my ever waiting ears. I finally realized why she told me that, yet those words still stuck with me since.
I talked to my mom not too long ago, admitting that those words had hurt me back then. We’ve talked it out and we’ve both apologized for hurting each other’s feelings at one point or another.
Again this isn’t the most heartbreaking story in my life, but when I was little those words hurt. If I could go back in time, I would tell little me that it’s alright to be like my mom, but maybe be a bit more understanding when she says she wants us to be better than her.”
‘This Chapter Between You And I Has To End’
“It must have been when I was 9 years old when my mom stared at me after she had too much to drink, and said I looked exactly like my father. She looked away and ignored my existence for the next two days. But that wasn’t the most hurtful.
Or maybe it was when I was 20, when she said she didn’t regret inflicting hurt on me as a child. She didn’t hit her other children, but she made it a point to highlight that she wasn’t in the wrong. This wasn’t the most hurtful either.
The most hurtful was when I was 12, and it was two years after my parents had divorced. My mom was living with her boyfriend, and I was living at her friend’s place.
I had a fever and I pestered my mom’s friend fervently about wanting to see my mom. It had been about two months since I heard from or saw her.
I remember waking up to my mom touching my shoulder, asking how I was. You have NO IDEA how happy I was to know that my mom was there and that she loved me!
While caressing my shoulder, she gazed away and said:
‘This chapter between you and I has to end. It’s like a book – I need to start a new life. Please be a good girl. We can text, but don’t ask me to meet again.”
Then she left.
What hurt me, was how much she loved her boyfriend’s niece, who was my age but so, so beautiful. My mom would send me vacation photos with the niece them as if it were her daughter. She rambled endlessly about the niece. To my mom, I was never beautiful and never smart. I know better now – but what she said, and what she didn’t do, broke my self-esteem and it took many years to build back up.”