Why Do Parents Hate Their Kids?

[Philippa]

That's so horrible maddog. To say I'm sorry feels inadequate.

It had nothing to do with you though. It was all their own stuff. That may not help you I know, but I think it is important to affirm.

 

[raven123]

I'm so sorry, Maddog. I can relate. I just think lots of people don't give a damn. :(

 

[Pencil]

I know - I truly believe - that my parents hated me.

And perhaps they did. Perhaps they were part of the the small minority. Perhaps he was evil. And perhaps it doesn't matter.

I want to say something about my father to make a connection: I still don't think my father hated me. My father was nice to me once. Once. It lasted about 3 minutes. I'm not exaggerating. I still don't think he hated me, perhaps I'm wrong, but it is entirely immaterial to me whether he did or didn't. What I DO find very interesting is the fact that I am most like him - intellectually, very left-brain, very in my head, same taste in literature, music, etc. I'm the only one he taught to handle guns, etc . etc. And yet .... aaargh, let me not go there. I don't know what set him off, but it must have been something he saw in me. And what he saw could only have been himself. Perhaps he did hate me. But I know that whatever he reacted to in me was not anything that makes me separate, or mine alone. I can't find the words to say what I'm trying to say :banghead: It wasn't 'ME' he assaulted, because he never had the vaguest idea of who I am.

The last time he tried to beat me I was 28 (WTF??!!). As he came for me, I shouted (shouting at him was enough reason to 'deserve' death): 'Touch me and I will fight back. I did NOT say ABC, if ever I did I would have admitted to it and taken the consequences. You know me, I don't lie. So touch me and I will fight you like a man. You will kill me but I'm going to hurt you in the process, and I will not die in shame.' Guess what, he stopped, stared at me looking like a f*cking lost sheep for a few seconds, then said. 'I do know you. You don't lie.' A lifetime of blood and bruises stopped in a few seconds of 'insanity'. (I was not calling his bluff, I had no idea he would have stopped. I was ready to die. I remember standing there with one thought flashing through my mind: 'If he comes, go in low and get him off his feet, that's your only chance of survival.' A 28 year old woman, threatening to fight her father like a man. Oy.

Sorry, I got carried away there. Did he hate me? I will never know. But still I don't think so, because if he did, he would have killed me that day.

 

[MomOfTwo]

Even reading parts of this thread has been too hard for me in the past few days, so I apologise if what I have to say is out of step with the tone or direction of the thread...

Yes, I believe my parents hated me, plain and not the least bit simple. I think that someone, I think it was Loner from memory, summed it up very well early on in this thread with the statement that parents hate their children because they hate themselves.

To the extent that you act upon it, to hate a child is pure cruelty. To hate your own child is pure evil.

Maddog

Maddog,

I am sorry you went through that. It seems like a lot of posters on several threads have parents that treated them worst than another sibling. I know my sister seemed to be spared abuse but working with my therapist I have realized she had created an alliance with him in order to avoid a lot of punishment. Although she seemed spared she really wasn't. Maybe the physical part but she still saw her mother beaten and her siblings. I think in many ways although her life on the outside looks like she is thriving she lives in denial.

I hated my sister for many years growing up because she was abusive to me as well. She bullied me for years and still tries. It bothers me she has to be so controlling but I don't let her do it anymore. In ways I feel sorry for her. She has never dealt with any of it and has superficial relationships with her many, many, friends but does not have any 'real' friends.

I did go through a period of time of hating my father and I guess could have hated him for the rest of my life but it wasn't working for me. I now have a good relationship with him. I realize my parents and how they interacted how nothing to do with me and really was about them. They both created the poisoned environment and left me and my siblings no childhood and all of us a lifetime of self-doubt, blame etc. To this day my mom only sees herself as a victim. She does not see that she played a role in all of this as well.

My younger brother is civil to my dad but has no relationship with him. My brother drinks a lot and I think uses marijuana to numb himself. He is the only one who does not have a relationship with my dad. I still see him as a hurt child and want to fix him but know he has to do it himself. My sister is always trying to 'make' him and my dad have a relationship and always makes up excuses to my dad about my brother because it hurts my dad. I tore a strip off of my sister recently for that. First time I stood up to my sister. I told her to not make my brother out to be the bad guy when he deserves to feel what he does and she cannot force a relationship on him. I accept my brother as he is and know I was in that place he was and I don't think you have to 'forgive'.

I don't know if I really have forgiven or just have decided that holding all that anger was just not healthy for me.

 

[MomOfTwo]

And perhaps they did. Perhaps they were part of the the small minority. Perhaps he was evil. And perhaps it doesn't matter.

I want to say something about my father to make a connection: I still don't think my father hated me. Sorry, I got carried away there. Did he hate me? I will never know. But still I don't think so, because if he did, he would have killed me that day.

Pencil,

I am sorry you had to go through that and proud you stood up to your father. I remember my husband told me he finally fought back with his dad and it was the last time his father abused them.

 

[Pencil]

Thank you, MomOfTwo

And do you know, it is the first time on this forum that someone responds to me in a way that is not 100% left brain and rational. I think this calls for a celebration :) I seem to be learning to express how I feel, and not only make statements about my emotions from a distance. Thank you, again.

Four Basic Emotional Needs

I suspect the majority of people on here relate to this.

holding all that anger was just not healthy for me

Exactly

 

[safenow]

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my father hated me. However, he is not the one who abused me. Rather, he ignored me and all that happened to me.

As an adult, I figured out that he had to have known what was going on in that house. How could he not know?

Now, what he did to my sister, that was abuse. Plain and simple. He was a dirty old man. And here again, he had to have known what our step-mother was doing to her. How could he not know?

I am not angry about it any longer. I am like him now in that I don't even care to think about him any longer. Any memory of him stops at my door.

 

[Pencil]

But my sister shares my disability, and while he mistreated her too, he didn't abuse her, he didn't hate her... he didn't hate either of my siblings, but he hated me.

unwravel the intertwined complexity of how that fitted with their own self hate, but I know there is a complexity there to be one day unwravelled.

I don't suppose it matters why. That's the destination I'm trying to work towards, and along the way, I'm working towards learning to be at peace with knowing that I will never truly understand why.

MD, I was actually on my way to commenting on this when I got lost inside my own head:
I've seen that parents 'hate' / dislike / react to, whatever it is in reality, the child that is strongest, that is most like them, the child they fear, the child who can't be broken. But yes, we'll never fully understand it, because it does not belong to us.

 

[p-no]

Raven, I have not read all the posts and will give my thoughts only on your question.

I don't think that all parents who "hate" their kids have made the decision to hate them. What I mean is that my mother who abused me every single day of my life, physically, emotionally and sexually in a certain context, never felt she hated me. This is what she said to me when I was roughly 25-30 and we had a talk. She was totally oblivious to what she had been doing to me and was shocked (you could tell from her reaction) that I assumed that she hated me.

I want to stress that I am not generalizing. My mother is only my mother. Saying that, from all she told me I have come to the conclusion that she has made the more or less exact experiences she put me through later. The bad part about it was that she did not stop and think for a minute before I set up and maintained some boundaries that had her change her behaviours towards me (not towards others, she still abused them).

So, if you are refering to a consciousness in the abuser about the fact that their actions were detrimental to you as a child, that you perceived this as hatred, then I would say that my mother hated me because she was hated, too and she passed it on to me. What is so sad is that we cannot change another person, therefore I was able to only change my life, i.e. stop her from abusing me, plus I could make a conscious decision to not pass on the abuse, i.e. hatred, as much as I have been able by doing the best I could.

I honestly think that she did not feel any hate towards me. In her case, she simply didn't feel. I think it was one of the main means for her to survive her own abuse system, and she could not open up only for positive emotions, i.e. realize that she had a child she could love and who would not hurt her but love her in return. I know from my own experience that once you let feelings in, you open the door for all of them. It's one thing to deal with getting better about one's own abuse; it's a whole other to face what oneself has done to others.

Also, I'd like to add that I would have not been able to go where I am today simply by changing my behaviour. I have had to grieve, and I have had to "forgive". My definition of forgiveness is:

• To give up resentment of or claim to requital for

• To cease to feel resentment against and to feel the want and need for requital

Contrary to what I have been told in church over decades, forgiveness is not the beginning, but the end of my healing from the various kinds of abuse. In order to be able to forgive, I have needed to grieve. Therefore, what I have done to others, and I am talking abuse, I have had to grieve for as well.

I think that perspective of me also having abused people (for example my younger cousin, I hit her and manipulated her) is also something in those who abused me. Sometimes it is easier to hit someone (and appear to be hating them) than to keep from it and "hitting" (hurting) oneself by looking what has been done to one and what one has done.

I also don't believe the man who sexually abused me hated me. You know, for hating me, he would have had to even see me, take note of me, of who I was as a person. He didn't care. He just took what he wanted.

Raven, I do get what you're saying about no support system. I didn't have none, but I had very little.

 

[Mercy]

I haven't written much about my life with my parents. My Dad left when I was 8. He already knew that my mother was a manic depressive and had tried to kill me several times. He said that the only way for him to get custody in those days was to prove my mother was mentally incompetent. Dauh! She was documentedly insane at times and was hospitalized for long periods of time. He said he didn't want to hurt her that way. OK.

She hated me, maybe because I looked a lot like my father. I know I used to (Lyrics to a song) 'feel like a motherless child and I wanna lay down my life an die.' I used to look for surrogate mothers. I tried to make my sister-in-law love me by doing every little thing she needed done. Boy, was I barking up the wrong tree.

I found out the truth which I had never wanted to admit to myself. My H, baby and I came backing from a posting abroad and stayed with my brother and family. We decided to surprise her on Christmas Eve. My brother and family went into the living room first telling her that he had a surprise for her. Of course, I was full of foolish hope that she would be happy to see me and give me a hug.

When we stepped into the room, she went off in a tirade.'Who do you think you are walking in here uninvited!.......' She was standing then and began to march across the room with her hands up and ready to grab me by the neck. My H pushed me and the baby behind him. But she was so vituperative and I was so terrified, we left. That time I heard her loud and clear. She hated me.

Before that, I had been making excuses for her. It's not her fault. It's hard being a single mother. Now I knew the truth. I never revealed to her that I knew. I didn't rock the boat. I am an excellent appeaser.

I never brought up the events when she was extremely physically abusive or the times when she tried to kill me in case all the electroshock she had erased her memories. It wouldn't have been merciful for her. Over many years after she died, I have been trying to come to grips with the harm she did verbally, emotionally and physically. I have been trying to see her as a sad, scared woman, all alone doing her best.

 

[Abstract]

I haven't kept up with this thread at all but am sure there is a lot to read here.

On the original question - why do parents hate their children?

I wonder how much of the time the person can actually even see the child as a separate human being at all. Hatred implies some awareness. I think a lot of the time the child is a receptacle for anger or hatred in general. Somewhere to deposit all those hateful feelings. A whipping boy or an object to provide them with what they want. And often there is one child in the family that is particularly "favoured" in some sense. Sometimes by the whole family. Sometimes maybe through order of birth; or what is happening in the parents life at that moment (when it all kicks off); or through some personality or physical trait that reminds them of something or challenges them in some way.

So maybe it is hatred for some parents but maybe that hatred is so entirely about them that there is no possible sense that can be made of it. Because of course that is what we want to do - to make some sense of it. Especially since as children we know that it has to be about us.

Whereas really it cannot be about us as no child deserves hatred ever.

And I suspect there are many other parents that are just so damaged themselves that they think the way they react is normal and even functional. Especially if they have little ability to empathise. For those parents they probably "love" their child even though it isn't true love. It's their understanding of what love is. Even though it is actually abusive.

But hateful behaviour is about the person who is behaving that way and "why" is probably a million different things and about their own pasts and experiences or their own character or lack of it.

 

[The Albatross]

Raven said (becauze I hacked up the quote thing): "Philippa, My sperm donor definitely hated me. He demeaned me in every way he could. As a narcissist, he did it subtly and overtly so, as a kid, I had no defense to any of it. All I got was food, shelter and clothing. [snip] I was constantly controlled and my emotional needs were constantly denied. Nothing I ever did was good enough Quite a few in my adulthood have reinforced that, too."

So relate with what you said Raven. My father was a narcissist. So was my mother, I was angrier at her for not protecting me but she also a doormat (her self esteem reinforced by my grandparents refusal to let her return to their home) and I came to realize as a young teen that she was deflecting some of the abuse onto me because she was being beaten and sexually abused by my father. And, yeah... quite a few in my adulthood have reinforced that too.

She saved herself from part of the abuse and was able to protect my younger brother, but not me.

Pencil, I can relate to standing up to your parent and squaring off "like a man". In my diary here somewhere I shared when I began fighting back and I turned my dog on my father and at another time hit him with a 2X4 to stop him from assaulting my mother during violent domestic disturbances. My dad quit laying a finger on me as a teen... after a few incidents where I fought back. After that, he just remained absent til I was about 22.