Growing up as a child with my brother, we learned early on not to have friends often. My friends had kind, friendly parents who didn’t mind if the kids got their snacks or watched whatever they wanted on TV.
I loved visiting my friends’ homes as they felt relaxed and comfortable, which was very different from our home. By contrast, our parents were moody, easily offended, and didn’t particularly like my friends’ presence, especially if it meant sharing our resources.
My father had rule after rule after rule, rules that were weird and weird and didn’t make sense to anyone except my father. My brother and I learned that most of these rules were created out of pure selfishness, either to avoid spending money or just to have complete control.
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My mother always kept a fruit bowl outside, but we weren’t allowed to pick a single grape from the bunch. We had to take small bunches from the large bunch, and if one of my friends happened to come and want some grapes, I had to explain.
Of course, my friends could never understand why we didn’t have “normal” teenage snacks in the 1980s like cookies, potato chips, or Twinkies, which were banned because my parents didn’t approve of my weight.
At one point, my mother made a rule that I could only use four squares of toilet paper when I urinated because she decided I used too much toilet paper.
In the summer, Dad would sometimes sign us up for Parks and Rec classes, but he never asked what we wanted. He merely enrolled us in classes that he hoped would help us overcome what he saw as our shortcomings.
My father was often angry with his sensitive son who my father thought was weak, so for him, it made sense to enroll his son in karate lessons, while my brother just wanted to learn about dinosaurs or rocks.
Because my father considered me fat and unfeminine, he once enrolled me in ballet, which I had no interest in. However, the writing class was heaven for me.
In both of our classes, we felt awkward and uncomfortable. Karate lessons didn’t make my brother tougher. Ballet lessons didn’t make me more feminine; If anything I felt like a weirdo as the tallest, biggest, clumsiest girl in the room.
Many times while I was growing up my mother redecorated our rooms without telling us anything. I remember one time when I came home to find the bright pink, green, and yellow bedspreads and curtains that I loved had been removed and replaced with a dark blue prairie-style print that I hated.
But I never said that – I simply thanked my mother for the new things, because we didn’t get many new things and when we did, we had to show our appreciation, or else. The word “or else” can be anything from getting hit, to feeling guilty, to scolding.
“Do you remember when you were little and you wanted us to paint your room Pepto-Bismol pink?” My mother used to snore sometimes. I did. I also remembered that my parents had painted my room a pale shade of pink, and it was almost impossible to tell that it was supposed to be pretend pink.
But I never questioned my mother’s expertise with paint colors; I was the clown.
My brother and I never received what we wanted for Christmas. We got what we got, and we were grateful for it.
But this was no Little House on the Prairie; It was middle-class America in the 1970s and 1980s.
My brother and I learned early on not to bother asking for most of the things we wanted because the answer would be “no.”
We were taught to keep our heads down, never to challenge our parents for fear of being shouted at or hit, and we were taught to never get our hopes up. I’m not saying that our parents never did nice things for us, and sometimes, they managed to buy us something we liked, but that was rare.
My brother and I knew we were conservative and would one day vote that way. We believed in Jesus because that’s what He was.
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It can be difficult to know if you grew up in a controlling family. After all, controlling families is simply what many people call “tight,” and that doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing.
But there’s a difference between demanding less than half the effort from your children and believing that you have the right to control every aspect of them as people, including the thoughts that go through their heads.
Unfortunately, narcissists believe the latter, and this style of parenting can only end in one of two ways:
1) Children either become obedient or unhappy servants of their parents for the rest of their lives
2) Children turn away when they realize that their parents will never let them be themselves.
Of course, all narcissists hope for choice No. 1. They don’t care if their children are unhappy. They just want control. But narcissists also run the risk of losing their children forever.
Not long ago, my father came to our house unannounced, knocked on our front door, and invited himself in.
He then proceeded to yell at my husband and me, saying that our political views were “wrong.”
He is terrified of the demographic changes in the United States, and if you hear him say it, “nailing” America will lead to the demise of the country, which my white husband and I believe is complete nonsense.
Even though I’m almost 50, he still thinks he should have a say in how I vote.
“There are young children in public schools in this country who are being told they are racist,” he said.
My husband snorted. I laughed – like a huge guffaw – something I never would have dared to do with my father even ten years ago.
