Parents

"I know you better than yourself" my parents say like it didn't take them 5 years and my therapist outing me to realize I was serious about liking guys x3
- No way
  How horrible was that
  
  It was certainly an interesting conversation haha :3
- "I know you better than you know yourself" claims the mother I haven't spoken to in ten years and doesn't even know where i live

A good parent often will know more about their child than the child themselves. Unfortunately, many bad parents think they know more.
It's also ages dependent. Till the late teens, children often don't have a good handle on their internal state. They can often get there by 10-12, then teenage hormones do a number on it again.
Finally, it's down to the parents to teach the child how to understand what they feel. This also requires open and honest communications. You can't help and train them to cope appropriately, without knowing what's happening. You can't know what's happening without communication.
- I think it's going to be only accurate on specific types of behaviour, and will fall away exponentially as the kids age.
  I'm not saying it always goes to zero but seeing my parents with their parents makes me think it's possible to actually go negative.

Dear parents, if you're always romping around your house ranting about your convictions, your politics, your religion or your opinions of other people, your kids are NEVER going to be open and honest with you.
If you have ever told your kids "You can tell me the truth" and then proceeded to lose your shit when you heard the truth, your kids are NEVER going to be open and honest with you.
If you do this and you think your kids are just the sweetest, kindest and most obedient and well-behaved kids in the world, you're DEFINITELY going to end up in a home.
- And to make it crystal clear - trust doesn't magically reset as soon as a kid hits puberty. If you've been dismissing them and their concerns throughout childhood, they aren't going to suddenly come to you with their problems, no matter how much you tell them they can.
  I remember my parents ignoring my complaints as a kid. Then around the age of 12 or so, it was like a switch was flipped. I was being told frequently that I could "come to them with any problem." Cool, just one question - where was this attitude a few years ago, when all my issues were "silly kid stuff" to you? I was basically trained throughout my life to never to bother you with my problems. You can't just undo that by saying a few magic words over and over.
  
  I'm quite convinced that linear-minded parents just project everything they hated about themselves as children onto their own children without even thinking about what the kid is going to remember or not. My earliest memory, like age 3, was my dad getting angry for no reason and pushing my face in the dirt when my mom wasn't looking. It was my first formative memory and still as sharp in my mind as when it happened, because it confused me and made me feel betrayed and forever unsure what was going to happen in the future.
  edit: And what happened in the future? A lot more sneaky abuse and psychological torture. Until I finally went no-contact at 35. He eventually died alone from alcohol overdose after having alienated everyone in his entire life or driving them to self destruction. I say again, you reap what you sow.
  
  My dad was borderline abusive when I was young, but as soon as I hit puberty he stopped being like that and started saying "you can come to me about anything"
  Is he a better person now? Yeah, probably. Do I trust him more now? Yeah, probably.
  Will I ever go to him for help before exhausting literally every other option? Absolutely not
- If you have ever told your kids “You can tell me the truth” and then proceeded to lose your shit when you heard the truth, your kids are NEVER going to be open and honest with you.
  This is one of the things I told myself I would never do, and I've stuck to it. I'm a father of 5, including three daughters. When they started going through puberty, I made it a point to let them know that they can come to me with questions if they wanted to, and that I will never, ever make them feel weird about it. My eldest is 14 now and has held me to that promise.

I'm not saying a parent knows your inner feelings, but I am saying that after watching repeat behaviour patterns you notice stuff. And with younger kids they don't really connect these dots. So yeah, to some extent we do know our kids better than they do
But this all has limits. And expiration dates.
- They "know" their kids through the lense of their experience. So they've experienced more therefore they feel they know more.
  They're making educated guesses outcomes. That's not knowing.
  
  They're making educated guesses outcomes. That's not knowing.
  Oh shit do we need a crash course in epistemology here

This just makes it seem that in order to enjoy tumblr, you had to have shitty parents.
Seems about right.
- Aw shit. My kid is constantly on Tumblr :/
  
  Well, this is awkward.
  
  We’re sorry you had to learn this way

"You never tell me anything!", they complain.
I vaguely remember that I was generally quite chatty in like, kindergarten, in stark contrast to today. Though to be fair, it might not have been my parents, or at least not only my parents, who fucked that up.

My mother was constantly telling me what my thoughts, feelings, and needs were when I was growing up. She never tried to get to know me. When I would explain my actual feelings or opinions, in detail, she'd accuse me of lying. I think she was actually just projecting everything she didn't like about herself, and sometimes her mother and sisters, onto me. Some of the qualities I supposedly had were mutually exclusive, or just didn't make sense when applied to the life stage I was in. She was telling me she hated how haughty and arrogant I was since I was 3 years old, at least. When I was a teen, out of nowhere, one day she started to tell me how sad it was that I was so insecure. I was like, I thought I was arrogant. How can I be arrogant and insecure at the same time? She said I'm arrogant because I'm insecure. But, she'd been characterizing me that way since I was a small child. What small child thinks or acts that way? Little kids are notoriously honest and straight-forward. What 3 year old has the emotional sophistication to behave arrogantly to cover up insecurity, and what does a 3 year old have to even be insecure about?
- Sounds to me like she was potentially jealous that you knew who you were, didn’t hide your thoughts and feelings, and her being insecure herself interpreted that as you acting like you were someone you aren’t. Your description comes off a lot like she was projecting. She probably has a lot of insecurities and feels like, herself in your shoes, she would have to act arrogant and haughty in order to mask her own insecurities to present herself similarly to how you present yourself.
  
  Yes, I think there's a lot of truth to that, sadly.
- Yeah, that ranks pretty high on the fucked-up scale

As the years go by and I approach my {redacted}'s, I am frequently reminded of and learning of ways in which my parents were both smarter and stupider than I ever could have known.
My mom can accurately describe a dozen different behaviors that I expressed throughout my childhood that indicated add or autism or something, yet still she was (and still is) adamant that I am a perfectly normal human being. I can't tell if she's just trying to be supportive in her own dysfunctional way, or if she can't accept that she produced a defective offspring. She is responsible for the quote "I don't need a doctor's permission to be weird", and I fucking love that.
- It's an inheritable condition. It's very common for parents of autistic/ADHD kids to think they're 'normal', because their idea of 'normal' is themselves or their own parents, who also have them.
- From someone who's on the spectrum to another: To classify a difference in focus or a difference in processing as a defect is inaccurate. "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will go through life believing it is stupid". There are things that come naturally to neurodivergent brains of which neurotypical brains are utterly incapable. "Hyperfixation" is just a way of saying that we become subject matter experts faster than other people. Even the reviled "attention deficit" is just our mind getting bored of things we've seen before. You are an explorer of the cosmos. If someone else says you are less, just because you find it difficult to care about the meaningless monotony of social constructs, that is a limitation not of you, but of them. Fuck 'em. Find your superpower, and follow it.
  I figured out that I am preternaturally talented at classifying bits of knowledge and drawing them together to form syllogisms and comparisons. This has made me find my life's work in teaching chemistry. I get go be paid to be an alchemist, teaching the arcane secrets of the universe to students, showing them how we have learned to bend the very fundaments of reality to our will. I think that's pretty neat.
- Traditionally, some autistic people passed as being within the range of normal.
  And while you could call your autism a straight up defect, you should then be fair to yourself and recognize how many defects non autistic people can have.
  I wouldn't say aggressive assholes, unrelenting blackout drunks, and gamblers who put their family in poverty are less defective even though they frequently pass as normal intermittently through life. There's the nature vs. nurture argument, but as far as I've heard there's a big factor of predisposition to these things. Someone more educated might know.
  Either way, if you manage to live with your autism even remotely well, I'd say there are much more debilitating defects you could have started with. Could also mention conditions often suspected of normal-presenting people, like narcissism and psychopathy, and also things like suceptibility to religious delusion, willingness to oppress, and finding cruel political strongmen appealing. Those last two are terrible defects.
- I feel very much that the gap of what is normal have narrowed a LOT in my 50 years. Especialy in school. While there are laws that say everyone should have adapted teaching, it is just more and more classrom and less and less practical work. With a lot more burocracy for teachers. (Norway)

There's a time and a place for some intellectual humility, and that swings both ways. There are a lot of things we just don't know about the people we're close with, and at the same time there are a lot of things we don't fully understand about ourselves, that the more objective outside observer may be able to identify pretty easily.
And that goes both ways in a parent-child relationship, a sibling-sibling relationship, a friend-friend relationship, or even a spouse-spouse relationship.
My wife certainly knows certain things about me that I myself have blind spots about. And vice versa.

I was always jealous of most of my friends parents.
Mine were fine as parents, but we never got close because they're Baptists and I rejected their church as a teen. I self censor a lot around them. Which is tiring, so I don't try to see them more than a couple times a month.
Most of my friends, their parents took up more of a close friend role I noticed in our 30's.
Edit; I guess it bothers me more now because I know they're not around for much longer.

I work in a job that has to deal with a lot of parents. These types are absolutely not uncommon in the United States. I have seen so, so, so many kids completely traumatized by their shitty parents or their parents' shitty religion, to say nothing of my own miserable experiences. I think a large part of it comes from, as usual with Americans, total arrogance. I think a lot of parents just assume they'll know how to raise their kids, and don't actually do any research or study into developmental psychology to try and understand good parenting habits. Being a parent isn't easy and reading literature is a great way to learn ways to be better at it. Considering how the concept of learning is under attack in the U.S., I don't think it's a stretch to say a lot of parents don't really know what they're doing, don't have any interest in doing better, and a lot of them end up being shitty because of it.

Almost like people online who can extrapolate your whole horrible personality and belief system from a comment they don't like.
- Oh you're that type...
- That's why I like to put my horrible personality and belief system in my comments so no extrapolation is needed. Keeps things nice and simple.
  BTW I think we should eat babies and I'm a grumpy asshole.
- I'm either American or Russian, depending on who I'm arguing with.
  It's always entertaining.

heckacentipede isn't as clever as they think they are. As a grown adult I find myself biting my tongue in every interpersonal relationship I have to avoid making others feel bad. It's not a superpower, it's an application of basic emotional intelligence.

I'm personally sad for the person that posted that. Not every parent is a bad parent.
- Way too many, though, and even the ones who are good or at least neutral on the whole might still not be cool about a lot of topics.
  
  You tied my brain into a knot.
  way too many
  I'll grant that; if only one bad parent existed, it would be one too many. Yet this will drag us into defining what a bad parent is. And by extension:
  even the ones who are good or at least neutral
  What defines one and the other and what separates one from the other?
  might still not be cool about a lot of topics
  Which ones? Give me an example, please. And are all people supposed to be open or receptive or knowledgeable about every single topic?

That moment, when something on the internet triggers traumatic memories and you're tempted to tell them to the randoms, but all you want to do is to look at pink fluffy unicorns instead for 10 hours straight.
- I don't mean to tell you how to live your life, but maybe if those unicorns happened to be dancing on rainbowe they'd help you calm down even more. :)
  
  Indeed, they do. 🦄🌈

Hmm, I bet my mom actually could name some of my existential dreads. I should ask. I bet she'd love that text at 8am.
- Lucky. My mom can't even name my gender, sexuality, or name, much less an existential dread or phobia.
  Escalators. Those things freak me out. They're just waiting to eat my flip-flops, which I don't wear, or catch fire.
  
  I really am incredibly lucky. She's the type of mom who will adopt people when their own parents are shitty, too, so we could share if you want.
  And that's fair - I'm ok with escalators when I'm in closed toed shoes but I do get a little iffy in sandals. My one real phobia is wet paper (like very wet, I don't panic if I spill a little on my desk), so it's way weirder than escalators.

"You'll get bored of this thing in a week and then it'll just go unused."
"No I won't, gosh mom, this is not a phase"
the exact thing they said would happen did indeed happen
- Except Pokemon. That just became a cult.

Basically my upbringing in a nutshell. Had a parent gaslight me on my own gender identity since early on in my childhood and even made assumptions on my own bodily needs (overfeeding when I’m complaining that I’m stuffed, while bringing out more food for me to eat. Also not believing that I have to go to the bathroom as often as I asked, leading to accidents that I’ve been punished over).
And then they wonder why I barely talk
- I wish my 5 y.o. went to the bathroom more often 😅 She likes to play and ends up having an accident every few days....

That last one feels to real

Eh, I get it. But our parents (those of us who where lucky enough to have ones who were trying and loving), they did know us better then we thought.
Better than we know ourselves? Probably not. Of course at what age that becomes true is different for each kid and parent.

I was curious to see if there were people who pointed out that there is truth in parents knowing kids better than they know themselves. It's nice to see that it's getting pointed out.
"My parents don't understand me" is a classic coming of age sentiment that you realize later is not really unique or true. A lot of people pointed out that a bad parent can abuse the sentiment. Likewise, an abusive person looking to take advantage of a kid can also abuse this to isolate them from their parents. A good parent also knows to let the kid "rage against the machine" in safe ways since they aren't at a point yet where they will realize life is far less exotic than they hope it is for them.
- Eh, every time I tried to reveal a part of me that didn't jive with their religion, it was rejected. This continued into adulthood. For me it's: my parents refuse to understand me. I have hidden things from them for a long time which lead to them really not knowing me. That's what this is about and many, many people have experienced similar things. I don't think that should be dismissed.

Alligators crocodiles and a brain aneurysm

https://youtu.be/1z-pVZiRjac

My mom and I actually talked about this. We love each other very much, but, outside of horror movies, most of our interests are different. On a car rise we went thought some things. Favorite song, movie, etc. As I've gotten older and gotten the language for it, I've explained what overwhelms me and when I need to be alone and our relationship has gotten way better. We actually had a fight last week and it was pretty... Normal. I had said something snippy, and told her soon after I didn't even feel that way because I was upset and was snapping at her, which is why I wasn't ready to talk to her. She actually let me cool off and we spoke later, explained ourselves, and made plans for if the situation happens again.
My mom has put a lot of work into understanding me and giving me the space to make mistakes. I learned a lot of her quirks and preferences through trial and error as a kid, but she had to do that with me as an tight lipped adult. It's not 100%, there are still things I prefer to discuss with someone else, but the work as really been paying off for us.
However, this only works with certain parents. 👀

Seems to me you tend to be more like a great grandparent or aunt

"Ya" is such a pet peeve of mine. Yeah or yah.

Let's do more shitting on parents. They're not people, they can take it.
- :(

Your parents were studying you before you understood object permanence, Felicia. The only person consuming this carefully crafted version of yourself is you. Your parents changed your nappies. You're not smart enough to understand you have no secrets, but you'll figure it out.
I see "my parents are so dumb" is still a thing for secondary students.
- You’re not smart enough to understand you have no secrets, but you’ll figure it out.
  honey, my mom still thinks my favorite meal is tuna mac from when I was 5
  
  Tuna mac fucking slaps though
- Parent of teenagers here, and I will be the one to tell you how very wrong you are. As they grow, at some point they start to withhold bits of info from you, innocent or not, and they eventually start branching out to do their own thing. And then they move out.
  You can either be supportive (including appropriate discipline) and be there for them when they need you, or you can watch them leave at 18 with a chance of never seeing them again.
  IDK about you, but I choose the former 100%.
- LoL nah. Good parents might, sure. Bad parents just think they do, while projecting themselves onto their kids. I'm pushing 50, and my parents have never understood me at all. Even when I open up and try to explain my perspective today, they take offense, declare it as rebellion against god, and simply refuse to think about what I've said. There is no helping them.