To be more specific, my parents raised my siblings and me to “respect” them, saying "yes sir, and “no ma’am” to everything they said. Spankings, all of that. Typical super conservative evangelical parents. Before I learned better, I was that way too. I went to college and since then have embraced the left more and more.
They’ll say things now and then that are really distasteful politically. Today I made an Instagram post about DeSantis lying about liberal states allowing post-birth abortions and I got several family members railing against me. I’m tired of staying quiet when this happens. I think that, because how my parents raised me, I’m afraid to speak my mind to older family members. Fuck that though.
Has anyone else had this experience? I wonder if therapy would help. I just don’t know how to explain it.
Well, it depends on the parent. Some literally don’t care about the child once they’re born, and I feel sorry for those children. Most parents pour a lot of energy into raising the child, according to their bison of how children should be raised. A few go above and beyond, and the parents hope that the way they raised the child matches how the child would want to have been raised.
Note that although a far right authoritarian parent can do more harm than good to their children, from their eyes they are bringing up their child in the best way possible, and that therefore they should be grateful for that.
I’m not saying you should always respect those parents, just realise that from their perspective, they’ve earned respect just as much as the child would voluntarily give to a parent who respects their autonomy and choices.
Of course, it the child who determines if the parents have earned respect, not the parents themselves.
But lost parents are a mix between respecting their children and forcing their values on them, forcing some values, but also giving their children some autonomy, often increasingly with age and the parents’ increasing experience.
I do understand that not all parents are like this, I am just talking about the majority of cases. For parents who are really horrible to their children, I feel sorry for the children, and fully understand them not respecting their parents at all.