memes @lemmy.world

2周前

What strict parents actually teach

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office work skills
- The most important office skill was taught by George Costanza: look angry and people will think you're busy working hard.
  
  I found out at a previous position that the best way to get my work done was to be short with people. In that case they wouldn't bother me, and I had more time to do my work.
  
  100%
  Unfortunately, looking angry makes us more stressed over time. Still, worth it if I don't have to talk to anyone
- Sounds like a good stand up comedy bit

This one hits a little too close to home...
Also, the word you're looking for might be "abusive" rather than "strict".
- Extreme strictness is a form of abuse. These symptoms are particular, though not individually exclusive, to strictness. As long as you "behave" you avoid the material effects of the abuse. Other forms of abuse typically have fewer "rules" that can be used as safeguards.
- The word you're looking for . . .
  Might be, but almost certainly is not.
  
  It 100% is.
  My parents were abusive in this way.
  My wife and I are strict. There is a huge difference.

How to be attentive to one's surrounds
How To project effort
conflict resolution
Extemporaneous creative modeling
- Resume Ahh comment
  
  Ahh
  Self-censoring is cringe
  
  What the fuck does "ahh" mean in this context? I can't grok this one.

My parents were strict about things that didn't matter. They taught swear words and being gay was bad but never taught me anything about surviving life or making money or managing hobbies or anything having to do with self growth or independence.
They limited my ability to grow. Along with society at the time and then blamed me when for it when I became an adult and was socially dysfunctional.
It's weird... If you're not teaching your kids no one really is. They'll end up learning from entertainment or people taking advantage of them. But still people have kids like it's a set it and forget it process and then blame the kid/person for not knowing x thing.
- I'm having the exact same issue. Never taught me any life skills. My mum was told by the GP to get me tested for aspergers (as it was then) when I was 15, and she sat on that for over 10 years. Meanwhile I grew up hating myself for not being able to do things that my peers could. Things got worse when I had to get a job and I didn't have the social knowledge to pass interviews. My self esteem got worse, my anxiety ruled my life. I would keep attracting men who treated me like dirt and I couldn't let go because I was so desperate for someone to love and accept me.
  She passed away three months ago and now my dad wants to kick me out and I have no freaking idea how to survive in the adult world. I don't know how to go about renting or setting up utilities, I struggle with navigation so my fear of getting lost stops me going places. I'm going to have to leave London because I can't afford a place here. All I get is, when are you moving out? Dad wants to sell the house. It's not fair to deprive your sisters of their share of the house. No offers of help. No acknowledgement that decades of my mum wrapping me in cotton wool and controlling me has left me dysfunctional.
  
  Similar story here. It really sucks to feel like I'm still learning how to be a functional adult. I hope you keep making progress and celebrate all the little victories along the way.
- Religious?
  
  My dad was on point with religion. Partially maybe "got". An ex alcoholic etc... but he is somewhat down to earth.
  My mom didn't/doesn't understand spirituality ...i don't think. It's just raw religious power. Her Mom was my babysitter for the first 6 years of my life. I wasn't allowed to watch Nickelodeon. I think I vaguely remember not being able to watch sesame street. She would talk about angels.
  I don't disagree with her now.. Nickelodeon and sesame Street is bullshit. But I don't think I wouldn't let a kid watch it or call it evil like if you watched it you'd go to hell.... Ide teach them that it's marketed ideology being taught, or at least try...
  But as a kid. Maybe 8 or 9 I didn't realize it absolutely at the time but I was gay curious. I told myself I would kill myself because from my environment I knew that was wrong. I always told myself at least by the time I graduated highschool I would kms. Graduation came... I found weed and alcohol... So I stayed alive. I said... At 21 I will kill myself. My 21st b day came. I got stoned and drank till I was wasted and hated every moment of it. I stayed alive. I'll kms when I'm 25 I said. I turned 25... Same story... Weed and alcohol.. underground interest...
  I'm almost 40 now. And life gets more fucked ... But now I dgaf. Fuck this place.
  I've put a noose around my neck and tightened it till I pass out.
  Everyday it looks more real that you are not actually crazy and American life might be a hell for humanity.

There's a difference between strict and abusive.
- I once cut a small artery above my left elbow right before I left work (We were young and just fucking around) Cant remember my exact age, probably late 16 early 17. I took my undershirt off and tied it around my arm to try to slow the bleeding while I drove home. The blood goes threw the shirt, and is all over the inside car door, seatbelt and created a puddle on my pants in the creases because they were those Dickies work pants that are water resistant. When I got out of the car I heard the blood splat on the ground so I figured it was to much. Went inside tied yarn tightly above it and wrapped an old shirt again around it to replace that one as I didn't have any superglue. I spent the hours of 330am-630am crawling in circles around the house with 2 bottles of resolve, paper towels and wet rags in a bucket trying to clean blood drops off the carpets and floors from when I walked in. The entire time dropping more blood in a near endless cleanup chain with only one thought on my mind. My mother is going to fucking kill me for getting blood on her carpets. At 630 (they open at 7), dizzy as all get out from lack of sleep and blood loss I got back in my car to drive to the clinic just hoping no one pulled me over or I passed out driving. I got there with a blood soaked rag wrapped around my arm and the lady handed me a 2 page clipboard to fill out and I remember staring at her with an expression that clearly said, can't I fill this out while he stitches my arm? Of course not, so 5 minutes later I hand her a clip board mostly free of blood and paperwork that says I have no insurance.
  The clinic doctor was great. Told him I had no insurance and couldn't afford anesthetic and asked if he could just do it without. He cleaned it a bit, poked me with a needle of some kind and put in 7 or so stitches. Then marked it down as a consult or something, so I wasn't charged with any of the items he needed/used. (Like $40 for the visit)
  I'll always remember that guy. Moral/point of the story though... If you are less afraid of bleeding to death than you are to ask your parents for help, your parents might be abusive as opposed to strict.
  
  That's a perfect example of where it isn't strict, it's abuse. Or at least right on the border.
  Also, damn. I'm sorry you went through that. I'm just glad you found a doc that handled things right.
- This post is starting to make me think people say "strict" strictly as a euphemism.
  What I think it means: The parents never bend the rules for their kids.
  What it apparently means: The parents have anger problems.
  
  The problem is it's often difficult to admit you had abusive parents, and abusive parents love to describe themselves as just strict. So yeah it's kinda a euphemism
  
  Yeah, it's a thing. Word usage varies. One range of the various usages of strict is adhering to, or enforcing adherence to, a set of rules. It can also mean that part of "strict" is enforcing discipline to maintain those rules.
  Taken to its extreme, it edges into authoritarian behaviors. But the usual, more typical usage would be far less extreme.
  As an example, ever hear of a strict vegetarian? That just means that don't deviate from the diet. That's it.
  The problem comes in when the usage of it as unnecessary, arbitrary, and cruel enforcement of rules for their own sake takes over. There are plenty of abusive people that would call themselves strict, despite violating boundaries and social mores in the process, which means they're just pretending.
  But there is a difference between a kid being tightly supervised and abuse. There's an even bigger difference for having expectations for a kid's behavior and activity and abuse. Both of those are strict, but not abuse.
  The key to that difference is usually in how boundaries are handled. You also get different outcomes, and if the methodology being used isn't adjusted to the individual kid, it's often going to feel abusive no matter what the intent is.
  Not all kids are going to respond the same way to any parenting methodology. Twins can even respond differently. So you absolutely have to be ready to adjust what you're strict about and how that's applied if you want to stay in line with the right balance of structure, support, and freedom. What one kid thrives with, the next may utterly reject and be harmed in the attempt.
- Your own judgement.
- Strict is bad enough.
  
  Strict is only "bad" when the structure is bad.
  Being strict about not playing with fire is a good thing. Being strict about never going near a campfire is, at best neutral, and could be bad when taken to an extreme. Being strict about never going camping is bad.
  Strict only means keeping rules in place. It doesn't mean you can't be flexible, that you can't adjust rules as the kid ages and matures. It definitely doesn't mean the rules have to be arbitrary and can't be explained and discussed.
  You think being strict about a kid not using racial slurs is a bad thing?
  Or making them see a doctor regularly and as needed?
  Or that they bathe?
  The list of things that can't be negotiable is very long if you go into detail.
  The list of things that can't be negotiable at a given level of age and maturity isn't short either.
  Strict doesn't have to be done badly at all. It's just that uncompromising strictness is the opposite end of a slider from utter laissez faire. Which has just as many flaws.
  There's a reason that authoritative is the usual recommended goal; it's being strict when necessary, and loose when not. But "strict" is part of that. Strict is making sure that there's a reliable structure a kid can build a foundation of self on. It's the walls of the sandbox and the sheet of material under out that keeps weeds from poking through.
  The sandbox of development is the freedom to play within those boundaries. It doesn't have to mean all noes, or all have tos.
  Strict is, "you'll do your homework because it's part of the process of learning. When do you want to do it, and what can I do to help?"
  Abusive is "you'll do your homework or I'll beat your ass", and then beating their ass as the first and only option.
- Both are dumb as shit

As the other person said, it really depends on what people mean by "strict".
My parents were "strict" in that they enforced a bed time. Now I have better than average sleeping habits. So that worked out.
But I've also read about "strict" parents that, like, take doors off their kids rooms, or read the kids private messages, or other nightmares
- Yeah, my parents made us leave our cell phones on the kitchen counter so they could read our texts every night, and they installed software on our computers that took screenshots every 5 seconds.
  I wonder why I have issues with authority figures and privacy?
  
  My folks were technology skeptics and limited access to screens. We had strict allotments of time to access electronics.
  This taught us how to game the rules and make up arguments to justify our discretions.
  They were also lawyers, so we walked into the first trap.
  
  You had a cell phone as a child? Musta been nice. I had no door on my bedroom doorframe and wasn't aloud out of the house except under rare circumstances.
  Didn't mean I was willing to follow the rules. All that strictness caused me to simply rebel to all authority figures. Seriously, ask me my opinions about police or the government. Lol.
  
  I think I now realize the subconscious reason why, even as a leftist, I'm very pro-gun, its that distrust of my parents, and thus distrust of school admin, which then also transferred into the distrust of authority in general.
  I hate how (USA) democrats delegated so-called "gun control" to the cops having the discretion to deny you a gun permit for self defence, not even a judge, but a fucking cop, and the same cops would intentionally never show up in time to help you against a home invasion. (see: "may issue" gun laws in the US, which has since 2022 been ruled unconstitutional, ironically I agree with the far-right dipshits in SCOTUS on this specific issue)
- Had my door taken off for playing my music too loud... Translation: We can't yell across the house for you to "come here".

These are all invaluable survival skills, NGL.
It's the resulting FFF hairtrigger readiness that's fucking hell on the psyche, though.
- What is FFF?
  
  Fight/Flight/Freeze (though, some even add Fawn to that)
- Not if I constantly dissociate, self medicate, and avoid people to the point where I literally didn't process the threat.
  
  Sounds like processing the threat happened, NGL.

strict ≠ abusive
- My parents weren't abusive but I still learned all of these except 'manipulate to calm down'...
- The difference can often be negligible to a child's eyes depending on how 'strict' lessons are worded or otherwise expressed. If it is always with scolding after a lack of instruction turned in to idle entertainment that went awry, it sometimes doesn't really matter how relevant the information was.
  
  So, like they said, it's not about being strict, it's about how that information is presented....

I had a wonderful combination of “strict” but also “there aren’t actually rules.”
I could have handled even unreasonable expectations if they had been communicated. But there was no structure at all.
I could ask permission to do something, do it, and then have that permission retroactively revoked. I could have an entirely normal day without anything seeming off, then be grounded for a week because there were dishes in the sink or something.
It never made any sense.

Ok but tbf those are all great skills to have
- Our parents used to lock up the TV, their room, and food. Guess who got really good at breaking into things and making it look like anything was amiss
- Add subterfuge and sneaking and it's ninja training

Anecdotal observation from college: Lots of people got hammered on a weekend, at least sometimes, but the people who couldn't draw a line and keep it from destroying their grades were mostly the ones whose parents kept them rigidly controlled at home. It seemed like those folks had no practice in drawing their own lines because their parents always drew the lines for them, so when they were on their own they went nuts. The preacher's daughter is a cliche with a lot of truth.
- What does "the preacher's daughter" refer to?
  
  The "Preacher's Daughter" is a trope in a lot of media wherein the daughter of the local religious leader tends to be more likely to be a promiscuous troublemaker.
  Preacher's Kid - TVTropes
  
  There's a cliche about the daughter of the preacher being a total slut or otherwise problematic.
- I've seen this myself too

Btw, is there any laws against pissing on a grave, just wanna prepare for when my parents die.
- Only if you get caught.
  
  If it is your own parents grave I’m fairly certain you can claim you were mourning and had to go
- If anyone catches you, just explain your parents were depraved and totally into that kinda thing, so you're honoring them in a way they'd appreciate.

That's not strict, that's abusive.

Perfect training for a lifetime of unfulfilling work for insecure bosses!

Depends on what you mean by "strict". I think the meme is about the parents who get angry over little things but don't actually pay attention to their kids much - the ones who just assume that their kids would not dare to misbehave. However when I was in high school, I also saw plenty of kids (often immigrants) who had successfully been taught to work pretty much non-stop. I think their parents watched them (or at least their grades) closely enough that they couldn't have gotten away with anything. It seemed to work well - they got straight A's, never got in trouble, and went to prestigious universities. I can't think of a single one I knew who burned out or rebelled (while in high school - I don't know what happened to them afterwards). However, the ones I got to meet were already filtered, with the low- and medium-achievers not admitted to that school.
- No, it is about the ones that keep an eye on their kids at all time.
  The kids are unable to do anything unless they find way to circumvent all that bigbrothering.
  And if they need to lie constantly, they will gain experience in it.
  
  It's fairly straightforward to give a child no opportunity to lie about the things important to the parents, if the parents put in the effort. They can watch the kid come home right after school and sit in the living room doing homework all evening, and the school will tell them his grades and whether or not he's behaving well.
- Strict for strict's sake is bullshit. Holding your kids accountable for their actions, enforcing boundaries, and channeling their energy into productive ventures might be considered strict, but that's good parenting in my book.

What is strict? When I was a kid that was a wooden spoon or a belt. Across the backside or hands. As well as a long list of chores. The strap still hung on the wall of the principal's office at school as a warning but didn't get used anymore. Mostly suspensions and expulsions were the flavor of the day.
I got called a strict parent on Lemmy not so long ago because we limit screen time in our house to an hour a day with some exceptions. Our kids walk to town alone at 10 years old though (2 km one way) and have the knowledge and awareness to manage on their own. We trust them and they in turn make mostly good choices. They are kids after all.
- Also, strict doesn't necessarily equal bad in the first place
- I got paddled once at school in 6th grade (this was in the '70s when they still did that shit). Two whacks for talking during class or maybe it was because my desk was messy. The teacher let me choose between two paddles (an evil all by itself) and I foolishly chose the one with holes drilled in it (which leads to greater whack speed and less surface area hit). She took me out in the hall and her first blow missed badly - hit me on my hamstrings behind my knees and they kept hurting for days. She said "oh that one doesn't count" and hit me on my ass twice more.
  Weirdly enough, she had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights era and played his "I Have a Dream" speech for the class (not on the say day as my paddling, though).
- Is it unusual for 10 year old kids to walk around alone where you are from? Its quite old to just atart with that here. Many kids go to school alone from first grade onwards.
  
  Yes It's unusual for parents to allow their ten year old kids to walk that far alone in our rural area and spend hours away unsupervised in a busy tourist town. It never used to be but the influence of American society via tv radio movies and more inundating people in Canada every day has certainly changed opinions like this. We got phone calls when they were little playing outside in the yard on their own. A coyote was going to eat them. Now we get calls that someone will kidnap them. It's rather ridiculous. There have been decades of cop shows and news reports telling folks people are bad. Now they really believe that.

My mom was barely there on medication and my father just wasn't. It was cool to be able to do whatever I wanted, but I had to make sure Mom fell asleep on her side.

I've become so used to it that now I lie to any sort of authority figure or any authority adjacent figure out of habit.

So basically how to operate in most of the jobs I've ever had

Great lessons for the underpaid and overworked workforce though.

A girl I knew in high school had parents that didn't let her do very much. She got pregnant her first semester of undergrad. I think she also experimented with some drugs, but I don't have first hand knowledge of that, just rumors.

Unfortunately as the post said, atleast two of those things are actually useful skills

They're not unlike law enforcement, in that regard.
Unrelated (probably), but i just researched this and want to tell people:
The US Army & National Guard has a combined troop strength of around 1 Million soldiers. source They are typically under federal control or can be "activated" (in the case of the National Guard) to be put under federal control.
The US has a total number of police officers & law enforcement of, also, around 1 Million. source Most of them are under state & local control.
I'm saying this because i have been wondering, in case states try to secede and trump sends all troops he commands to the states to stop them from doing so, what would be the likely outcome.
Sorry, it's a bit off-topic here, but the US situation is on my mind a lot these days.
- Depends on how many states we're talking about and their geographic distribution. 1M isn't enough to hold the whole country. It probably can't even hold New York City. It could probably hold New Hampshire.
  Current US military doctrine suggests you need 1 soldier for every 3 people you're trying to occupy. This is especially true when you have to assume every civilian is a potentially armed insurrectionist, and the US has a lot of guns in civilian hands. That said, fascists tend to throw out hard won wisdom like this, and tells the army they aren't trying hard enough. For as much as they drone on about how they're a bunch of tough guys, they are complete shit at actually fighting a war. Here's a former US Army intelligence officer talking about the numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyBIqRunQ5Y
  Oh, and while the existing military might follow orders to take over states "in rebellion", they're going to be doing a lot of malicious compliance. The way they did Trump's birthday parade proves it. They 100% phoned it in on purpose.
  One of the side effects of Trump trying to move so fast is that he doesn't have time to purge the military and refill it with loyalists. That would take over a decade. Stalin did that to disastrous effect; the Winter War was only a technical win with catastrophic losses, and the later German invasion was barely held back. Hitler didn't really try to purge the Wehrmacht, with the Night of the Long Knives being mostly a purge of their own SS people.
  Trump therefore has to rely on already loyal people with guns, which is mostly ICE, local sheriffs, and police. None of them are big enough to hold the whole country, either, or even a major state.
  
  thanks for the video!
  on an unrelated note, if i had 1K dollars to prepare for the incoming situation, i would invest it to stock up on food durables, such as noodles. I would spend $900 on food and $100 on water.
  Humans are basically machines that run on food instead of oil. As long as the engine keeps turning, things can get done.
- yeah we're all thinking about that

looks like strict parents are the way to fit into the corporate world :p

I mean, I know plenty of kids who learned this without strict parents. School staff, daycare workers, business managers, cops... anyone in authority looking to impose rules also taught these lessons.
You'd think nobody on this sub has ever shoplifted before, ffs.

Thanks to them I'm master spy now.

I try to be a mix of equal parts strict, fair, informative, and supportive, in any order.

No one is going to react to the fact that they have a furry pfp and their handle is "BugCatcherWill"?
I get that people are eager to air their grievances with their parents, but do you really think this guy is talking about the same thing you are? Methinks there's a good reason their parents kept a close eye on them.
- Btw, for the happily unaware: The term "Bug catching" does generally not refer to catching insects, he's not an entomologists. The bugs he's catching are the kind you do not want to catch, if you catch my drift.
  
  Neat thing that you know, there!

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