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What would make a parent lie about their childhood to their own children? [I Am Depressed]

Our mother has always told us that she was from a perfect family. She would use her own example to shame Us for getting into fights with one another, or not being tidy enough or organized enough. A lot of it was out of our hands as all of us lived in one room without any storage space.
But as we grew older we started to see the cracks in her story. She still lies. What's wrong with saying you're not perfect?
Abstraction · 61-69, M
Ok, I have NO idea about your mother's situation. Here's some hypothetical.
1. Sometimes people go through things that they want to protect their children from. When your children are really young, you certainly don't confront them with traumatic dysfunctional family issues. It's not necessarily lying, it's simply treating it as water under the bridge.
2. Some people's childhood is so traumatic that they have been unable to deal with it. Everyone has coping mechanisms and most of us have a few really bad ones. If your mother's coping mechanism is to push it aside, then she's doing the best she can to protect you from her own pain. A lot of what good parents do is not pass on every emotional struggle they have to their children - maybe she's overdone that a little.
3. Maybe after 30 years she's struggling with the change of having adult children and hasn't found any space that makes sense to say my dad was a drunken this or whatever... It's harder than you think if there is trauma involved. Because adult children can be harsh. They often don't really want their parent as an equal, even in their thirties.
assemblingaknob · 26-30, F
@Abstraction thank you 🍀
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
My own mother told me a secret once. And asked me not to ever tell my oldest half sister.

My oldest half sister is dead now. She never knew she was born out of wedlock.

Embarrassment can do strange things. This was long before I was ostracized from the family which happened after mom's death.

I never said anything to anyone in the family about this. Nor would any in the family have believed it if I had.
@DeWayfarer She obviously knew she could trust you above all others with what would’ve been a life-altering revelation had your sister known.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@bijouxbroussard yet she was still too embarrassed to bring it up front.

Part of the reason why I was ostracized was because I was thought to not be trustworthy of her care. Yet the same half sister who said that, would do nothing at all. Not even visit let alone anything else.

Mom gave up once she was put into a convalescent home. She pleaded to be taken out yet the rest of the family thought I couldn't take care of her, despite me having done the same for my own father years before.

She was strong enough to have lasted much longer at home. Maybe not a lot yet far more comfortably. 😢
She wants to set a better example than what she grew up with to make you better. She may also be ashamed and worked so hard to get out of how she grew up that she’s not willing to revisit those memories so instead plays out the better one.
assemblingaknob · 26-30, F
@DecafD Thank you
novembermoon · 51-55
Hi! Yes, of course there is no 'perfect' family, as you have pointed out. It is an illusion. I feel a lot of it has to do with 'face' - the kind of facade that a parent may project to the rest of the world, even to her children, so that they would learn to aspire towards it as well. I do not appreciate being told an untruth, especially by a parent, so I think it really must hurt. I might even despise the parent who is doing it and think that she is too self-righteousness. But at the same time, inside me, I might feel guilty for being so judgmental on my parent as well. It's not easy at all.
Only she would know for certain, but it could be because she’s ashamed of the reality of her own childhood and wants you to strive for better. There’s another possibility. My mother’s family was poor, and while there was a lot of love (and I witnessed it), there also was a fair amount of conflict because of alcoholism, and to this day my mother won’t even touch wine. She didn’t tell me these things until most of her family members were gone. She didn’t want me to judge them.
assemblingaknob · 26-30, F
@bijouxbroussard Thank you!
She doesn’t want you to follow her example and some thing should stay private at least until you’re older.
Jeffrey53 · 51-55, M
When I was younger I didn’t want to walk to school. My dad said “I used to walk 6 miles in pouring rain to school”
PhoenixFromTheAshes · 36-40, F
Trauma can bend and warp memories... in my case, it stole years of my memories.

 
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