[proximitysauce]

> As bad as your relationship is with your parents. Once they're gone, you're pretty much alone.

Absolutely untrue. If your parents are toxic and damaging, you should cut them from your life. Some people can't live healthy lives if they keep contact with their abusive parents.

[crimsonalucard]

I'm in total agreement with you. If your parents are toxic, dump them for sure. Not every parent is like my description, I'm just describing a generality that describes the majority.

Despite this, I truly believe the statement below:

If you don't have parents that will stick with you while you're still in prison for 30 years, then you don't have anyone on the face of this earth who will do this for you. You are alone.

[javajosh]

Nonsense. Many friends will fade and return perhaps several times in a life. The biggest reason you might end up alone is because you believe you are.

[crimsonalucard]

By alone I mean who in the world will help you if you're a psychopathic killer who enjoys torturing animals and people? Who is the last person on the face of the earth who will not give up on you?

Your parents, that is if you have parents that love you this way. Many don't but many do.

Every single one of your other relationships relies on effort by you to maintain. If you violate certain societal norms all bets are off. All relationships are basically just mutual trade agreements except for the parent - child bond. It's a cynical world view but it's real, there are lines everywhere that you have to make efforts not to cross because you're aware that if those lines are crossed people will abandon you.

[proximitysauce]

That's kinda a crappy message to be spreading on Mother's Day for people who don't have parents (or aren't in contact with them) tbh.

[rat9988]

I still agree with his point of view

[crimsonalucard]

I'm sorry. Just telling the truth.

I mostly posted because I feel a lot of people have bad relationships with parents that actually do love them but for various other reasons (psychological problems, poverty, stress, drugs etc... ) ended up just having a bad relationship with their parents.

I think it's absolutely worth it to try and establish contact and maintain a relationship if you feel that the relationship problems are superficial and underneath it all your parents do love you.

In that article, the mother lost contact with both of her children. It is not a trivial situation to be in when both children don't want contact. She must have done many things that were really serious and really horrible. But her last email she wrote that she loves both of them no matter what, and I think that is real.

What I am saying is that as imperfect as people are as much damage and toxicity they have done, if you sense that underneath it all there's genuine love then it's absolutely worth maintaining that relationship because you're never going to get someone to love you like this again. If true love even exists, it can only exist from parent to child.

[apatters]

It seems like you're having trouble either understanding or believing how bad some mothers actually are. What about the ones that leave their baby in a dumpster? If that kid grows up does it have an obligation to try and maintain a relationship with its mother?

Abusive parents are one of the most tragic and debilitating sources of trauma there is. Many people are doomed to suffer this trauma for their entire lives despite their best efforts to move on. Please don't encourage these people to reconnect with their parents. You are opening old wounds and I don't think you understand how deep they are.

[HarryHirsch]

Have some compassion for the poor guy. People with regular parents literally cannot imagine what growing up with abusive parents is like. When you try to explain you just draw a total blank, it's like taking a blind man to an exhibition of paintings.

The fellow is blind, there is nothing that can be done about his blindness. Let him continue to be blind.

[crimsonalucard]

Read my other comments. I'm not disagreeing with you or the other poster. There's a possible misunderstanding in what I'm saying here.

We're all blind in certain sense. I'm thinking people like you who were possibly abused cannot see the other side of the coin. Can you imagine a bond so strong that for parents with abusive/toxic children there is no choice.

If my child was a psychopathic killer, I have to love him and support him until the bitter end. I have many choices in life such as the choice of committing a crime or refraining from committing a crime. The choice of risking my own life to save another or watching someone else die.

For my child, I do not have a choice.

If a parent-child bond exists, I think it's the strongest bond in all human relationships. Many mothers describe it as taking a piece of your soul and letting it walk around outside of your body. It doesn't exist in all cases but when it does exist there's nothing else like it.

But obviously not every parent and child will have this bond, I'm sorry if you or anyone reading this didn't.

[nyanpasu64]

My parents locked me in the garage. They beat me. One time my dad tried to bend my fingers backwards as torture.

[crimsonalucard]

>It seems like you're having trouble either understanding or believing how bad some mothers actually are. What about the ones that leave their baby in a dumpster? If that kid grows up does it have an obligation to try and maintain a relationship with its mother?

Your assumption is incorrect. Where in any of my posts did I say that people are under obligation to maintain a relationship with parents? I absolutely NEVER said this.

This is what I said and I quote verbatim:

"I think it's absolutely worth it to try and establish contact and maintain a relationship if you feel that the relationship problems are superficial and underneath it all your parents do love you."

This was the situation I was in. This is the situation the person in the NYTimes article is describing. I'm just keeping on topic here.

Look there are definitely horrible parents out there. I'm fortunate to not have had parents that would beat the shit out of me or torture me. I'm just keeping in line with the topic of the NYTimes article. If you don't feel "your parents love you" then absolutely do not open up a relationship.

Basically bad relationships with parents who still ultimately love you is the theme that the article and I am targeting.

If you don't have that underlying relationship with your parent then don't try to reconnect. You be the judge, I'm not trying to ask people to reconnect with parents who are psychopathic. I'm asking people to reconnect with parents who mean well and actually do love you but have ultimately made grave mistakes in the past.

Never did I say every parent and every situation is like this. I am saying for THIS situation and the situation described in the article it is appropriate.