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What Good Things Have You Received From those who brought you up?

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I like this. My therapist activity discourages this line of thought for me and it feels like it encourages the bleakness sometimes. But I have lots of good among the bad.

1. I was well traveled and had two fluent languages and a couple of other smatterings before I started school. I have lived on four continents, managed to develop skill at meeting new people and inability to see things from a single vantage point.

2. No book was forbidden to me, Reading was encouraged and we had a huge number of books to choose from.

3. I had some incredible education opportunities

4. I was given a work ethic and learnt to be self provident and reliant
 
I was one of the lucky ones - I had great parents. My childhood was a bit complicated because of illness but very happy.

The big things they gave me? I knew I was loved and that they were always there. They gave me self confidence by always supporting me, resiliency by letting me work things out on my own, courage by letting me have adventures and encouraging me to explore, and a great sense of who I was.
Ya -- I pretty much won the parent lottery :laugh:
 
The neighborhood I lived in raised me. I never received giving (just in a way I didn't understand yet) but people ordered food for me when they had take out. When I was young.. My grandmother took us in for a bit. She use to rub my back and sleep with me. I'd wake up in the morning and she would be gone. (Slept with grandpa but it added to my abandonment issues). That's about it. And my boyfriend's mom was good to me as I got older. They fed me too.

I could walk in that neighborhood in the middle in the ? and be safe. Except one time ( when I was older) a man was jerking off behind a aluminum fence watching me. I should have turned him in, but ran.

I was really neglected growing up but grateful for the help I received.
 
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I know that many of us have received awful treatment and things from our parents or others who brought (or are bringing) us up. We have shared a lot of that awful stuff here on this website. I don't want to hear about that! I want to know what blessings or gifts you got from them. Good traits you picked up, things you learned from them that you use today, things that benefit you today, things like that. These can be physical, mental or spiritual. I will start.

1. My dad taught me to recite the multiplication tables. I am not that great with math otherwise, but I sure know these!
2. My parents got me a dog when I was in the 8th grade. I had been begging for one for years, when finally they gave in. This was because daddy met an English Setter that he was very impressed with. So Charlie came to live with us and he was such a great dog. He made me feel safer, he gave us laughs, he was very gentle and friendly to all.
3. Daddy gave me somewhat of a sense of humor, but mommy simply expressed that there was no such thing. So, sometimes I will sit there when a joke is told with a blank look on my face and other times I laugh with everyone else. I do love jokes though, unless they are on me.

I hope this will maybe give all of us a way to balance out some of the bad stuff they did by thinking positive.

I will add lots more to this thread later.

If this thread is in the wrong place, feel free to move it, thanks.
Kindness, empathy and compassion from my mum
Learned to show emotion unlike my dad, He died suddenly at 49, I’m 49 and Will be hopefully be around for a long time, and make sure my kids know I love them, I tell them all the time, And let them be themselves, not a dad who wants their kids to all act the same, I was always the sensitive one, different from my older siblings
 
My mother taught me how to cook and make an event for a crowd, she taught me the basics of sewing, and encouraged creative things and crafts.
My father taught me to crab and fish, and all about boats and water safety. He also taught me how to use a tractor mower to cut grass.
 
My mum gave me a sense of self responsibility, when it came to health, as she was a nurse who dropped out of the system and became a hippy. This has pros and cons but, ultimately, it makes me question authorities and do my own research and that has worked out better, I think, than if I just took everything on, without discernment, like a child.

My dad taught me the joy of reading books.
 
My father left me with this advice....always find a job with retirement, and always have medical insurance. I heeded those words....good advice.
 
Education, reasoning & reading/find it/figure it out curiosity were encouraged.

There's a degree to which "suck it up, the show must go on" is a good thing.

To a point "question the rules" (just not at home) was a value.

Fairness, seeing it from the other person's POV and cutting slack or being the bigger person. Giving this, not demanding it myself.

Overall we had a very mainstream, American Middle Class upbringing with birthdays and lessons and whatnot, despite being minorities with non-affluent parents. This really helps in the Getting-Ahead dept. They were first-generation professionals in a 'noble' but underpaid career.

They tried to be modern & progressive when things went off the rails. Consulted experts.

My sibling, the intellectual opportunities & my dad's interactions with me as a very young kid & now after some things have been worked out are all objective good things. And I'm shutting up now because the urge to explain how I've systematically ruined them all is just ridiculous.
 
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