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Please don't state the cliched "because they were abuse victims, too". But really, why do some parents abuse their children and adult children?? do some people just not have the motherly or fatherly instinct?? Is it jealousy ? they never had the ideal childhood and they don't want their kids to either??
There are tons of reasons people abusive their children. Usually they themselves were abused as a child (I know you don't want to hear that), they could be mentally ill, they could just be mean people, there could be drugs or alcohol abuse, they may resent ever having children, there are many reasons and each situation is different.
What you don't want to hear is probably the case most times....maybe they've never had a good influence in their lives, maybe they've never learned how to be a good parent, like brokencrayola said "there are many reasons and each situation is different".
Because they can
Because it's a power trip
Because nobody will stop them
Because they're hugely insecure and beating up on someone smaller than them makes them feel important
Because they think they're better than everyone else
Because they think their behaviour is somehow funny or entertaining
Because they're selfish and self-absorbed
Because they don't believe their children have feelings - they gave birth to robots, not humans
Some people are easily frustrated, have a low threshold for anger and no ability to stop themselves before acting out. It is a mental defect.
If you have never had children you couldn't possibly know how moments of frustration and anger can build up and suddenly bloom, and how parenting can bring out powerful feelings of inadequacy and failure. The vast majority if parents, because they are intelligent, mature and mentally sound, can step back, control themselves and stay rational and focused on the big picture. Those that can't or won't (for whatever reason...psychological damage from past abuse, intoxication, mental illness) are the ones who lash out and hurt their kids.
My parents used to be foster parents for abused kids. In my experience, the biological parents simply don't care. The parents only care about smoking, getting drunk, and getting laid. The kids are just a byproduct of doing that without BC. Schools in my area have a program for giving breakfast to poor kids. It's not really that the parents can't afford food (breakfast food is cheap and they have food stamps), it's that they won't bother to wake up on time to feed the kid before school.
Please don't state the cliched "because they were abuse victims, too". But really, why do some parents abuse their children and adult children?? do some people just not have the motherly or fatherly instinct?? Is it jealousy ? they never had the ideal childhood and they don't want their kids to either??
I think jealousy is a part of it too. Also control, which is quite the same.
Any reasonably intelligent person would want their children to do better than themselves and their own parents, or even just to be happy with themselves, but there are some parents who don't want their kids to "show them up" or embarrass them. And just as "abuse" can mean different things to different people, "embarrassment" can mean different things to different people. It's a teenager-y thing to say but I really do think some parents want their kids to be just like they were, and/or impress their peers. I think some parents surpress their kids when they think they are "helping" them--you hear a lot about that financially but it's much, much worse when it's emotionally.
I think people's own children can bring out the parts of themselves that they didn't want the world to see, or can very blantantly demonstrate the mistakes they've made (or so they may see), and parents might use abusive tactics to keep those bad parts hidden from everyone else. Even if the "mistakes" are not really that bad, if the parents hate it in themselves, they'll hate it in their children too and they will probably do to the kids' minds what they do their own.
Yet another possibility is that the parents may just be defective, deadbeat, losers, abusers, etc. who need to take out their frustrations on someone, and who better than their own family? They may need to put on a show to keep jobs, friends and reputations but they can completely be themselves with their children. Their children have to love them no matter what--they would be the last to turn on them, most likely. Even if their children don't love them, what would they lose? To some people money and image come first and they couldn't care less about family and love.
I ponder this a lot, as a victim of severe child abuse at the hands of my father. The first time he beat me I was just a wee one, maybe 3 or 4. The last time he beat me was when I was, I think 19/20. That last beating nearly took my life and I was a young adult. And that was just the physical abuse
My opinion, at this point, is that I reminded him of my mom who he married but soon came to despise (marriage wasn't his thing but that's another story).
I have several siblings but I was the child he chose to abuse (no sexual abuse).
I have posted once before about this but my dad "broke" me at a very early age and it continued until the last beating.
When you are broken as a toddler, and continue to be broken by a parent, I think one is irreparably broken. When one is beaten physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally starting at such a young age and it continues for years there is no way to really fix it. Broken is broken.
I just cope.
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