• grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 hours ago

    Mom always thought she was a good person and not racist. The cracks started to show when she’d express options on Facebook, like that sure, black people go to jail for much longer that white people for the same crimes, but it’s their fault for being criminals.

    Lots of little things like that. I started therapy in my late 20s for anger management. A couple months in, my parents and brother came from out of state to visit. It was a Bad Time. My mom and brother kept needling me constantly. They mocked my opinions. They told me I was wrong about local facts. They asked a local for directions then mocked him for having a Boston accent. In Boston.

    The several-day visit ended with me driving them back to their hotel room and my mom telling me the whole trip had been a waste, we were probably the sort of family that should only see each other at funerals, preferably hers.

    Poor dad was hard of hearing, so missed a lot of what was said. He apologized for any part he played in it.

    A few years later in December 2020, my mom brought COVID home from what she described as a mandatory work Christmas breakfast potluck. My dad caught it from her and spent a month in hospital. I don’t know how mandatory that potluck could have been, tbh–she retired a few months later after my dad died. She was all shocked Pikachu that my dad, who was known to be immunocompromised, could die from COVID.

    She also lamented to me, the week before he died, that dating as a widow sucks. Either you date too soon and everyone thinks it’s inappropriate OR you don’t and everyone thinks you’re sad. (Not saying she shouldn’t have thought ahead to her widowhood, but don’t say these things to your kid.)

    Anyways, she sucks and is blocked on my phone. She could email if she cared. My dad was the Good Parent and he had his warts, but he at least tried to relate to me and explain things instead of just assuming I could read minds.

      • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 hours ago

        Thanks. The scars are still there, but things are getting better.

        The best thing to come out of my dad’s death was me becoming closer to his sisters. They’re mostly lovely. Like, they have blind spots, but they’re minor and sometimes adorable. (Example: one of them kept talking about her daughter and her daughter’s roommate. After a couple months of this, I asked directly “are they dating?” Yes, yes they were. They’re now married. My aunt was just awkward about saying her daughter was dating a woman because she lived through times when that could have been a fight, and I think it was habit.)

  • Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    When I was in college and everyone was talking about where they grew up, and I realized I only remembered bits and pieces of growing up, and those were always when my parents weren’t around. Some online searching later and a talk with a therapist, and I don’t talk with my parents anymore. It’s better that way.

  • bizarroland@fedia.io
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    10 hours ago

    Messy story, I’ll do my best to lay it out in a reasonable way:

    For my mom and stepdad, it was the kidnapping tied with lifetime of neglect and abuse.

    And I call it kidnapping because that’s what it was, even though there wasn’t really a good law against it, because basically they moved, they did not tell my dad or my dad’s side of the family where they had moved to, or leave any contact information.

    From the time I was 6 until I was 13 and I went behind my back and tracked down my grandmother, I had no contact with that side of my family.

    Then my mom had the gall to go after my dad for unpaid child support during the seven years where he could not track me down or locate me and spent countless sleepless nights worrying about me, wondering where I was.

    As for my dad, he was actually a pretty decent person, but he was also very much a Disney dad. I did not get an awful lot of interaction with him in my childhood, (thanks to said kidnapping), but even once we reconnected when I was a teenager his job and my mom made it so that he basically didn’t see me but maybe once a year, if that, until I was an adult.

    Despite my hatred of my mother, once I was an adult I had cut her off and hadn’t seen her for four or five years and my dad said, you only get one mother. I’d really appreciate it if you still spent time with her and saw her.

    So I put my hatred to the side and tried to reconnect with my mom, which wasn’t good, but was manageable until my dad died from Covid, and my mom sent me a slew of angry text messages over why my younger half sister, her bastard daughter, whom she conceived by cheating on my father, which was the impetus for their divorce in the first place, wasn’t included in my father’s memorial page which was made by my stepmom who had been my stepmom for like 30 years.

    I cussed her the fuck out and I haven’t talked to her since.

    I blocked her ability to text message me, because I don’t want to fucking talk to her, so she has gone out of her way to get new phone numbers, to occasionally message me and send me TikToks about how she doesn’t know what to say to me (apparently, she’s never heard of the concept of an apology or admitting you’re wrong when your actions have hurt somebody), and to send me Amazon gift cards for my birthday when I don’t fucking shop at Amazon because they’re a shit tier company.

  • dan00@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    The constant and direct praise of fascism. His words showing me his fascist keychain “I am a fascist”.

    Don’t worry he is suffering, I’m destroying his life piece by piece. :)

  • MemeSink@reddthat.com
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    11 hours ago

    I was bemoaning the lack of action on global warming, and how all of civilization was at risk if we didn’t take action now, and my boomer mom replied,

    “Why should I care? I’ll be dead by then!” 😞

    • AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      my mother, also a boomer, had the exact same response when we got onto the conversation of electric vehicles (she wanted to buy a new car; i recommended electric).

      i didnt really know how to respond. i still dont understand why one would want to leave the world worse than how they found it.

  • Onyxonblack@lemm.ee
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    13 hours ago

    My father worked as an environmental engineer for an oil company cleaning up oil spills and messes. He wanted a certain quality of life, so we only ever lived in southern or messed up states. Texas, Missouri and 7 years in Utah. Going to elementary school with the racist bigot Mormons was hell. Long story short he is a Neo-Liberal Boomer that helped the oil industry with his efficiency and diligence cover up issues and increase profits. A money hawk and penny-pincher, who wouldn’t move to blue states because of higher prices, believing in American Exceptionalism, and has zero regrets working for a company that helped destroy the world. I admit he’s not the worst by a long shot. But I would have preferred being broke and poor in another country and him not working for mankind’s enemies.

  • JayJLeas@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    My mum’s abusive. I learnt early on that just because someone is a religious leader that doesn’t make them a good person. My dad was always the better of the two, I thought he was okay, but now he’s older I’ve heard him express opinions I can’t agree with, support for political ideals that are questionable at best. I’m not sure how I feel about it all.

  • Canopyflyer@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    One of my brothers adopted a baby from Guatemala. He was a beautiful baby that grew up into a good man. He is 20 this year.

    I knew that my mother and by extension my father were bigoted. She had made numerous comments while I was growing up that revealed that aspect of her. With that said, I had never seen her act upon it though. During a phone conversation with her we were talking about my new nephew and she stated: “He’ll never be a real grandchild.” When I asked why, she flatly stated because he was Latino. To me that was the point that I lost all respect for her. My Dad was a massive enabler as well.

    She also showed a strong preference for those children/ grandchildren that looked like her. Brown hair with brown eyes.

    She died in 2011 the week that the tsunami hit Japan. My life became a lot better after that. Dad died last year and I did not even go to his funeral.

    • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 hours ago

      My brother was adopted and my grandmother was similarly biased against him, asking my mom if we got any money from the state for taking care of him. Like, no, he’s her son! There wasn’t even the excuse of racism–my brother is blond-haired and blue-eyed. He just wasn’t her blood.

      Eventually she started liking him as dementia kicked in and she forget his origin. Still messed him up.

      I’m glad your nephew didn’t have to deal with her for all that long, though it sounds like it was already long enough.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Post 9/11 and watching Fox News constantly. I realized most people aren’t good people because they followed into fascism far too easily.

  • AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    i started realizing more and more that my father’s jokes were racist. then i started noticing that his normal speech and interactions were racist.

    i was brought up with this racism as a norm, so it took me a long time to realize we were a racist family (longer than i would like to admit).

    then after a realizing how racist we were, i put two and two together… my father is a police officer.

  • CptHacke@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    When I heard my father decrying racism as wrong - and then turning right around in the very next sentence to say that homosexuals and trans people deserve god’s wrath.

  • dumblederp@aussie.zone
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    9 hours ago

    Dad’s always been a selfish shit of a person. Growing up with it, it was just how he was so I sort of accepted it, or was conditioned to it. Drug dealer, spouse beater, thief, bully, tantrum thrower, no sense of patience, road rager. About two years ago he finally wanted to get on the internet, which can be a struggle for older novices. He had kept his head in the sand about it his entire life. But while at his place helping setup the laptop, pc and router I’d organised to get him started he had a full blown tantrum for about 15minutes because I wasn’t explaining everything to him, eg what dns is, not beginner stuff.

    I’ve done about ten years jiu-jitsu. I could see he wanted to have a bigger tantrum but realised that I was a grown man who could take him in an altercation. Mind you he’s a coward, he can’t fight and always relied on his size 6’10" to intimidate people rather than any skill. Your average man can beat your average woman, for a giant man it poses little challenge.

    Growing up he encouraged me to be a thief, bully, drug dealer and welfare leech. It took me some time to work out I didn’t want those things for myself. Fuck that guy. Haven’t spoken to him in a few years now. Looking forward to a call from the authorities that he’s passed, I expect through his own hubris.