Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
hardcore_gamer

What kind of parents did you have growing up?

Recommended Posts

Different kinds of people have different kinds of parents, and not all parents are created equal. What kind of parents did you have growing up? Were they kind, open, strict or perhaps even abusive? What do you feel makes a parent kind and when does too much kindness make children spoiled? What do you feel makes parent a failure and at what point does that failure become abuse?

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

White people.

Nice, me too. A white male and a white female.

Share this post


Link to post

Normal parents. Not the over-demanding, do-as-I-say-or-else militaristic kind. Neither the kind who'd let me do dumb shit.

Share this post


Link to post

I read this title as "What kind of penis did you have growing up?"

But the actual question, I realized, isn't much different.

Share this post


Link to post
hardcore_gamer said:

lol. Not sure if white is a parenting style Xd.

lol from now on if you heard somebody saying opa White,It's surely he meant "Opa Parenting style"

Share this post


Link to post

My parents were pretty chill. It wasn't like they didn't lay down any rules, it wasn't like I never had any responsibilities, and it wasn't like they didn't encourage me to do well in school or anything like that (for some reason when you say you had mellow parents, people always assume that means growing up was a free-for-all), but at the same time, they weren't overbearing.

Like for example, this wasn't me, this was my sister, but she got suspended one time for getting into a fight with another girl in middle school. Fighting was very much a huge no-no in my household, but what happened was that the teacher stepped out of the classroom, left the kids unsupervised, and this other girl who already hated my sister decided take the opportunity to just go up to her and punch her, and my sister fought back in self-defense because she didn't really have any other choice. The school had one of those idiotic zero-tolerance policies, and because my sister fought back, they suspended her and accused of her doing something to instigate the fight, because no student has ever hit another student unprovoked.

Well, my parents flipped out. Not at my sister, mind you, they saw absolutely nothing wrong in what she did because she was trapped in the classroom with this other girl who was assaulting her, and it was absurd to think that she just just stand there and let this girl punch her in the face. No, they flipped out at the teacher for leaving the classroom unsupervised and allowing this situation to happen, and they flipped out at the principal for accusing my sister of doing anything wrong when clearly it was a case where the other girl was just an asshole. Now if my sister had actually done something to start the fight, they would have read her the riot act, but they were furious at how unfair this whole situation was.

Sorry to go off on this long tangent, but I think it really illustrates what kind of people my parents are and how I was raised. There were ground rules, there were consequences, and there were expectations, but they were always understanding when it came to realizing the kinds of struggles kids go through, and not simply making demands and being unwilling to compromise.

Share this post


Link to post

Quiet, book-reading, thoughtful, chess-playing, software designing, librarian types raised me. I think we never communicated very well with each other. And I'm an only child, so I've been alone for the majority of my entire existence than in the company of other people.

Share this post


Link to post

A Hell Knight and Arch Vile on the farthest reaches of Deimos.

Share this post


Link to post

My Mum was the strict and overprotective kind of parent, while my Dad was more mellow and jocular and wasn't overbearing at all. They were very different people with very different parenting styles. Impressively, they never filed for a divorce. But I think they balanced each other out.

Share this post


Link to post

Saw me playing Medal of Honor at the age of 10 and didn't mind - 4 years later, flipped out over seeing me play Half-Life 2.

That's my parents in a nutshell.

Share this post


Link to post
Snakes said:

You guys had parents?

Yep, though I must admit mine looked suspiciously like sockpuppets.

Share this post


Link to post

I dunno. I grew up to be a spineless and lazy 22 years old loser who doesn't have any friends, hasn't accomplished anything and failed at various universities an embarassing number of times. I'm lonely and sad, I feel like I don't belong to the society and I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. So, can I blame my parents for that? Maybe they should have been more strict, maybe they should have taught me that life is hard and requires lots of hard work? I don't know, that sounds like a cheap excuse but at the same time it is obvious that we are affected by the environment we grow up in. I'm a spoiled boy and I kind of wish I had different parents even though mine are wonderful people (well, the mother at least). No idea if I'll ever become a parent but if I do, I'll probably be more strict.

Share this post


Link to post
MFG38 said:

Saw me playing Medal of Honor at the age of 10 and didn't mind - 4 years later, flipped out over seeing me play Half-Life 2.

That's my parents in a nutshell.


In MoH you play a tough and gritty All-American Macho Hero fighting them damned Nahtzees and that bastard Hitler.

In Half-Life 2 you're some "theoretician" and master of "fake" sciences fighting a rigid, yet completely stable, and justifiable control system (The Combine, who did nothing wrong) while overthrowing a completely needed ruler, Breen.

Share this post


Link to post

The combine did nothing wrong!? They attacked earth wiping out all of earths arm forces in only 7 hours, the only reason why humanity remained was because Breen negotiated peace for the survivors at a cost of their freedom and thus he became the ambassador of earth still being under control of the combine.

Share this post


Link to post
Doominator2 said:

The combine did nothing wrong!? They attacked earth wiping out all of earths arm forces in only 7 hours


The 7 hour war always struck me as a stupid plot element. If the combine are so super deadly then why is Freeman so easily killing them by the hundreds in the game? Even the alien machines aren't that dangerous, with rebels taking them down with a few rockets.

I guess you could make the same argument with Doom by asking how a single marine can defeat the entire hell army, but that game doesn't really take itself very seriously anyway.

Share this post


Link to post

If I had to seriously review my parents, I honestly don't think I could have asked for better parents. They took good care of me, they were helpful when I was in trouble, and supportive when I needed it. I learned some valuable lessons from them, and as an adult now, I have much more respect for them knowing how difficult it must be to raise 5 boys. They weren't very strict, but for the most part, I stayed out of trouble, frightened of being punished. I'm happily married, own a house, a couple vehicles, am continuing my education, and have a pretty great future I'm working towards, so Id think they did a great job, if the end result is anything to show for it.

If I could criticize them on anything, id probably criticize my mom for being a bit confrontational and stubborn at times. She can be difficult to talk to as she, as my one brother pits it "controls the conversation" often directing or twisting's a conversation to be whatever she wants to talk about, which can be unfulfilling if your trying to ask about something you need to know more about.

My dad is a bit quiet, and never really talked to me about things I would probably need to know growing up, unless I asked him the right questions. But I often didn't know to ask the questions before being oblivious about it had repercussions. I believe I kinda developed a natural fear of the unknown. Which for the most part has kept me from making a lot of irresponsible decisions, bit I suspect it could be withholding me from a lot of amazing opportunities too. I also wish he could have been a better role model as a husband towards me mom. He's not very openly affectionate towards my mom, and this behavior kinda relayed to me when i got married and created some rough patches early on in my marriage that I had to learn to improve on myself.

For both of them, I kinda wish I could talk about Doom as my hobby with them. When I was younger I was a pretty closed book about my gaming habits, as my mom was pretty repulsed and uncomfortable with me playing violent video games, while my dad had a distinct indifference or apathy towards it. I've grown more comfortable with myself and my interests and as of late talk pretty openly about Doom and level designing and speed runs, etc. and most people seem to like it, but with my parents, my dad seems very bored or uninterested when I mention it, while my mom does the aforementioned bending of the conversation to be about the things that she has been interested in lately. I kinda wish they would at least pretend to care. Ask me a question about it. Anything.

Still, as I'm growing older and learning the financial responsibility of raising 5 boys, I'm frightened I might still not be as good parents as mine were, while improving on areas that I believed they were lacking. I'll always make rules fair and clear and set in stone, as kids have an amazing ability to detect hypocrisy. I'll always tell them the things they'll need to know at their age, even if they don't ask or even resist learning about it. I'll always listen to my kids and even pretend to be enthusiastic about what ever they like by asking questions and encouraging them to be comfortable talking with me about what they like. And I'll do my best to be a good role model for the type of adult I want them to be, but maintaining that image throughout an entire lifetime can seem very intimidating, which makes me hesitant to start a family yet.

Well that was a lot of bit more revealing than I wanted to be. Thanks for the therapy sess anyway, doc.

Share this post


Link to post

I don't want to go into too much detail, but I will say that my parenting situation was quite a bit less than ideal. However, I wouldn't have it any other way. If it wasn't for some adversity, there are a ton of lessons that I couldn't possibly have learned, and I wouldn't have a lot of close people in my life that I do now.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×