People Explain Which Things Parents Should Never Say To Their Children

Exposure Therapy

"Don’t make your kids do the things you’re afraid to face."

"When I was a kid, my mom dumped all that s**t on me. Rent was late? I had to face the landlord. She’d try to convince me it was a fun game, like see how fast you can run to his door, drop a check in the mail slot, and run back to the car."

"Even at ten years old, I knew it wasn’t a d**n game. All she was doing was transferring her anxiety directly to me."

"Be honest with your kid about the s**tty situations you might be in, but don’t make them carry the weight in your place."

- Ineedyoursway

They're to Blame

"NEVER tell a child that the divorce is their fault."

- ashabranch

"I remember back when I was like 10, my mom didn’t take me to school one morning because she was upset that the clothes in my dresser weren’t folded."

"My dad had to take me to school instead. And on the way there, he yelled, 'You’re tearing this family apart!’"

"I’m like... Bro, if unfolded clothes in a dresser are what tears this family apart, then you all have other sh*t to be concerned about."

- _mike_hunt

Life: Ruined

"'Having you ruined my life,' is the worst I ever heard."

- Tough_Stretch

No Accountability

"'I don't remember that, that never happened!' when a kid brings up a past trauma."

- dafrstofus

"My MIL (Mother-in-Law) [96] is the healthiest human I know with the caveat that she has the usual ailments that affect old arteries, etc. She has three sons, my Dear Husband (70), a slightly older, quasi-celebrity brother, and a younger brother. They work like animals. They can’t help it, although they should try."

"Every single time my husband brings up a childhood memory, my MIL rebuffs it by saying the incident he’s recalling never happened. No one’s allowed to have a memory but her."

"It drives my husband (and me) up a wall. We live fairly close to her, but he struggles so much with spending time with her because of this."

"She just tells him, 'That’s not true.' Instead of embracing what he and they remember, she shuts them down."

- l31l4j4d3

Controlling Diet

"My mom stuck me on this super restrictive diet when I was 11. The entire diet was the whole reason I struggled with eating disorders in my childhood."

"I brought it up in therapy at 17 and at first, she claimed it never happened. Then she remembered talking to doctors about my weight, then googling diets for children, and then putting me on a diet sounded like something she would've done... but it still didn't happen."

"Gotta love her. But, to be honest, I can't even say I love my mom."

"I was the neglected child as she had four other kids, and I'm the middle one. After some point, I stopped wanting my mom's approval for anything."

"I actually had my therapist ask me what a good mother-daughter relationship would look like to me if we were to ever get close, and I honestly couldn't answer."

"It's weird to think that the one thing I wanted my entire childhood, I don't want now. At least not with my biological mother."

"My boyfriend's mom, on the other hand, is amazing, and I love the mother-daughter-like relationship we have. I'm still in awe that I even found a family that loves me as if I were their biological kid."

- pumpkinthighs

Whose Opinion?

"Your opinion doesn’t matter."

"That one still haunts me and is the reason I never speak up."

- TapReasonable2678

Foster Care Warnings

"Threaten to send them to live in foster care if they don't do what the parent wants. My mother used to use that threat if she saw me picking my nose. I didn't realize how f**ked up that was until I was an adult."

- adeon

"I remember my mom doing this. That I need to just stay in my room and be quiet, or she'd send me away. F**ked me up, man. I was probably around six."

- Substantial_Part_952

Body-Shaming

"This is kind of a low bar as far as bad things my parents did goes (they also hit us for far dumber reasons than not eating our food)."

"When I was a kid, my parents were very controlling. Now, that meant, among other things, that they didn't let me go outside, for fear that neighbor kids would wander by and I'd hear things that went against my parents' ideologies. It also meant that they controlled exactly what and how much I ate. As in, if I didn't want to clean my plate, I was beaten."

"Well, I was also a fat kid, and given how much control I had over both my food intake and the exercise I could do (since I couldn't go outside), I didn't have much say in the matter."

"My parents gave me so much s**t about it over the years, though. Like, even if you were allowed to have some agency in your life, you shouldn't get that kind of s**t. It was pretty miserable."

"Anyway, when I went away to college, I was finally on my own, and I took charge of that. Everybody was warning me about the freshman 15, but I was looking at my intake. That's not great of course, but I lost a couple of pounds. Not even that much."

"And then I went back home for winter break, and my parents were all, 'Oh, you're too thin, you need to eat more,' and I was like, 'No, I'm good, thanks.' At one point, my dad said, 'Eat more or I'm kicking you out of my house.'"

"And so I gained that weight back over the break, and by the end, they were back to giving me s**t about it."

"So, I dunno. Maybe don't be such a d**k about your kid's weight. Certainly not with demands and expectations that oscillate between two extremes like they did."

- Aperture_T

Mind Games

"'Until you start paying bills, you have no rights, so you’re d**n right I’m coming into your room whenever I feel like it, and I can take anything I want from it, too, because it’s actually mine.'"

"'You’re too stupid and lazy to be able to make it in the real world. And if someone ever did hire you, they’d fire you as soon as they realized what a mistake they’d made.'"

"'You have no idea how much you cost me. I could do X, Y, or Z things if I didn’t always have to pay for your crap.'"

"'We’re free thinkers in this house,' but then rages when I express a thought/opinion that’s different than theirs."

"'You’re just a kid, what do you have to be depressed about?' or 'You have nothing to be depressed about.'"

"After I told a doctor how I was actually feeling, they said, 'You can’t be that stressed, you’re just a kid! Are you trying to make me look like a bad parent?!'"

"Yes, I’m in therapy now."

- Ki-Larah

Useless

"Don't tell kids they're useless. The variant I used to get from Dad was posed as a question, 'Are you good for ANYTHING?!'"

" I mean, how was eight-year-old me supposed to answer that?"

"High school valedictorian, graduated from one of the US services academies, have a good, steady career, and live 2000 miles from where I grew up (wonder why?). But I was more into reading than outdoor sports, hunting, or working in our garden all summer, so not 'manly' enough for him at the time."

"It took until my mid-50s before we became close, and he passed away two months ago. Lots of wasted time."

- JEFFinSoCal

Intentional Provocation

"My dad antagonizing me purposely and then saying, 'dOn'T bE sO sEnSiTiVe,' when I get upset about the s**t he says."

- LianOLis

An Important Reminder

"Moms, stop criticizing your body in front of your daughters!!"

- buceethevampslayer

"Seriously! My mother would say that she hated her body and that we looked 'so alike' in the same breath, it was very damaging."

- 97ratsinatrenchcoat

Comparison Culture

"Comparing them to others, talking about their weight, focusing on the negatives or their wrongdoings, constantly dismissing them, unwilling to hear their opinions because of the 'I'm right, you're wrong' mentality."

"There's so much."

- The_gentle_one

Confusing Lessons

"Always punishing and complaining about what you shouldn't do, but never saying or rewarding what you should."

- RoDeltaR

The Perfect Rebuttal

"'I brought you into this world. I can take you out of it,' was my mom's favorite."

- belle254

"What I wish I would have said back: 'No, you can't. You'd be arrested, and the world would view you as a monster and a psychopath.'"

- Narren_C

While parenting carries with it a lot of demands, there are certain things that absolutely should not be done, including statements that should never be uttered.

It's clear the damaging impact they have when they are used. Avoid them at all cost.