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And I love hanging out with my kids! I also completely understand why they decided to go no-contact with their mother, who has blamed therapists for their doing so.

My dad didn’t even tell me when his mom died. His brother did. Same with his dad. And NOBODY told me when my great aunt or uncle died. So like. Feels like there’s some room for him to grow. I’m just giving him the space to do so.

I have been very lucky to be raised by parents who were at least warmly cordial with their parents and clearly loved them even though they often needed to keep them at arm's length (both my parents moved hundreds of miles from home before they met). I try to use that as an inspiration.

Ayup my parents know exactly why I stopped coming to visit for christmas, despite now being able to self fund the trip.

Whenever I see this (usually as a window sticker on an oversized SUV) I think to myself "Lady, that ain't really up to you, and it isn't likely to work out the way you're hoping." These people feel entitled to their kids' entire lives, like they have a right to decide who they're going to be.

My parents did not. Let me tell you, it's not easy to put even a little distance between yourself & them. You carry guilt and all the rest of your extended family think you're terrible. Even when you stll partipate in the holidays & birthdays. Kudos to people for putting themselves first.

Thank you. It's rough. I have it really bad, and yet somehow, there are still people out there who have it worse than me. Breaks my heart to think about.

I would steal away in the middle of the night, but not before drawing glasses and a mustache on that Trump poster :-)

That clip brought back the horrors.

I honestly thought it was a funny bit about them mocking Trump until I saw the cardboard cutout.

Even without the standee, the idea of living surrounded by nothing but flat surfaces of white, grey, and beige is deeply unsettling.

Mine have definitely not tried this, in fact they are repelled at the idea that they have not always been the best parents anyone could ever have despite 2/3 of their children being no- or very low contact and all of their children having moved thousands of miles away

Heck, as recently as the 1940s, or even into the 60s, you could move 10-20 miles away with a new name and nobody would ever know your fate.

Bone Apple Teeth

but also like people who are belligerently unapologetic about their awful views (to say nothing of their actions) have narrative cover and support from the media to tell a story that this treatment is unfair and that they are in fact the victims

Old people learn about the Availability Heuristic challenge.

This thread is reminding me that the cause and effect of terrible politics and low productivity in rural areas is backwards from what most pundits (left and right) say it is - these places have bad economics because they have driven every creative and intelligent person out.

Oh, so the cool ones went to Hawaii? And the uptight Europeans came to the east coast? And colonized them, never mind.

On a more contemporary and less wholesome note, I have heard a few ex-members of the FARC or paramilitares tell me in essence "I grew up in a tiny village and my mother was constantly hounding me, so when the recruiter came around promising me a salary and a way out of (t)her(e) I joined".

the evolution of which gave us the Haka so there’s that Ka mate ka mate ka ora ka ora

“Oh, there’s a frozen land bridge leading to uncharted territories across the Bering Sea now? Where my horrible family won’t follow me to judge my mammoth spearing technique ever again? Sign me up.”

Boomers: "Well, uh, in my day you had to learn to read the waves and observe the flight of birds. You kids today, all you have to do is hit 'block contact'!"

My brother the chief, sometimes - Island expeditions by the losing side of succession disputes

See now I'm trying to gauge how annoyed you'd have to be to go find Australia and then decide you were good to stay put.

I bet it was a lot of walking types. Guys and gals who like to take a nice walk you know. They get addicted to it and the next thing you know they’re in Kamchatka thinking about the sea

Captain Nemo took it a step further and figured out how to make cheese from the milk of marine mammals, which means that he and his crew were milking marine mammals. (tbf they censored the backstory that he was a Polish noble whose family was killed by the Russians, so he hated all other families)

I hope she was happy

my family is great! but yeah, a lot of families, not so much

I’ve been doing Duolingo, and sometimes in my practice conversations, it will ask me if I would want to live in the past, and I’m like, I’m a woman, so no.

It had to have been awful. And he couldn’t be cool with Caroline’s family because FEELINGS probably. Have you read Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser? Very illuminating.

His parents, what little we see of them in the first book, seem very nice. But it's weird how little contact they have with family when they seemed quite close in the first book. I didn't clock until later that the cousins are *double* cousins, so quite close relatives.

unrelated, but is that a real shirt in your pfp, and if so, where can I get one?

Yes!

A bad dad is a classic reason people joined the army or became a sailor.

I never really thought about it that way, but yeah, maybe going on a boat facing the high likelihood of death was just preferable to being home with your parents.

I might not strike it rich in California but even if this gold rush doesn't pan out at least I'll have the Rockies between me and my parents.

Members of my family have been putting literal seas between them and their parents since the Spanish Inquisition. Finding two generations that stayed in the same country is rare, making for lots of genealogy headaches.

No one in my family moved to the other side of the country in order to facilitate going LC/NC with terrible parents, definitely not (jk yes they did)

I'm a black sheep of a black sheep too. Slainte 🥂

I have an ancestor who moved to Australia and his name when he left the UK was Roy Batty (better known for other work), and his name when he got here was something entirely different. The suspicion is he too was getting away from family.

So many movies from the 70-90 are about the horrible yearly visit to the ancestral home, like people moving to the other side of the US and keeping the barest minimum contact with the parents very much was already an accepted reality.

The reality of this is that many parents, terrified by the rate of change they see in the world, decide that their "woke kids" make a great punching bag because unlike the rest of the world, they won't punch back. Then they're shocked when the de-escalation via cut contact inevitably occurs.

If you don’t want to get cut off, maybe don’t be authoritarian assholes to your kids? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sure - but this discussion is specifically about parents very publicly complaining about their children and demanding parental rights, not about parents who cut their children off for whatever reason (sometimes good reasons).

parents whose children are in the control of an abusive partner find groups about partner abuse. What’s left are the people who have no idea why their children left them. And that, my friends, is a vast and waving red flag."

my parents have long been open about the fact that they don't *understand* my life, but they're glad I'm having a good time living it, and they're welcoming and kind to the people I share it with I think this is a mature and healthy way of going about it and definitely recommend it to other parents

In my day I- er,I mean 'you' just chose a university ten hours away from home...

As parent to adults, I have found pleasure in witnessing my offspring grow into their own selves. A key to achieving that positive experience is learning when to keep my mouth shut.

And, as many people have noted, the parents who cut off their kids for being LGBTQ are never mentioned.

bsky.app/profile/anne...

I used to be jealous that my parents weren't hippy boomers like my friends' parents, but now I realize a hippy boomer can be toxic POS like anyone else. There is nothing special about them.

My 12 yo laughed her ass off when I told her about the grandparents rights movement, "bro wants a law to make his kids like him"

There are many factors that govern how often you’re in touch with people you care about . But if someone actively decides to cut you off, there is probably a reason. And not being in touch often isn’t the same as cutting off either.

Kinda evokes the idea of guns laying around where grandkids could reach or a way to lock me in presently!

TFW you spend millions on a massive house instead of going to therapy.

"I am a good Christian and have never done anything wrong, ever."

M: I guess somewhere around here (NYC area, LI specifically). D: If that happens, you weren't planning on living here, were you? M: Why would I do that? D: Good. And I got along pretty well with mom and dad.

One of the tradeoffs of being aristocracy was being tied even tighter to your awful family.

They really thought Trump getting *almost* 50% of the vote meant we were going to have to like them.

No many of them are rich and go running to their courtiers in the media.

When I left, I did confront my mother and told her I didn’t like who I was when I was around her. We only spoke 2x more, once to request some legal paperwork she never did send, once to tell her she wasn’t needed at the hospital where I was recovering from an accident I’d died & been resuscitated.