Why do I lose respect for my parents after having kids?
Becoming a parent yourself makes it impossible to understand how your own parents could have been abusive, neglectful, or cruel to a vulnerable child. Looking at your own children makes the contrast stark, stopping you from making excuses for your upbringing and stripping away your remaining respect for their choices.
Core Friction Pattern
Analysis of 9 peer accounts across online developer and community forums reveals that “Why do I lose respect for my parents after having kids?” repeatedly surfaces due to edge-case mismatches between standard defaults and real-world environments. Standard troubleshooting frequently falls short, compelling practitioners to develop custom workarounds.
+2 alternative community-tested workarounds cataloged below.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
Why do I lose respect for my parents after having kids?
- 1Going from no contact to low contact with parentsDid this help you?
- 2Setting strict boundaries that parents often dislikeDid this help you?
- 3Relying instead on in-laws who are loving and supportiveDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Parenting made me realize how awful my parents really were.”source ↗
“The number of times I look at my kid and think "wow, my parents saw someone just as tiny and vulnerable, and still thought it was cool to beat me/shame me/tell me I was the source of all of their problems/etc."”source ↗
“I look at my daughter every day and think “you look so much like me…and yet my mother was capable of hitting me?!””source ↗
“And then I became a mother and it became abundantly clear to me that you don't treat people you love the way she treated me.”source ↗
“I always knew they were kind of shitty parents, but I’m even more gobsmacked by their choices.”source ↗
“Cannot fathom saying that to my son when he's emotional, let alone progressing to hitting him when that inevitably didn't sooth him.”source ↗
“As I look at her and feel immense waves of love and of fuzzy “she is so adorable and I love her so much it feels my heart will burst”, I cannot fathom how my parents couldn’t feel anything that even resembles that for me.”source ↗
“And then I thought of my parents and all the neglect. It hit me like a ton of bricks.”source ↗
“Then I became a parent and I was like “this isn’t exactly rocket science, Ma. You could have made an effort.””source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 9What to do when grandparents undermine your parenting
- 6Losing yourself after having a baby
- 10Why do I feel guilty for hating imaginary play and decorating?
- 10Why am I losing my patience and snapping at my kids?
- 4Why can't I stop worrying and relax as a parent?
- 4Why do I feel guilty for thinking my wedding was better than childbirth?