comment: >
  
  I come from a family of 10 kids. Depending which sibling you talk to my parents were saints or abusive or somewhere in between. They were consistent with expectations and discipline. No one was favorite. It's definitely perception and expectations. I saw they were stressed and so I didn't expect much attention or resources. Other siblings resent them for that. I wouldn't call them overly dramatic just not very realistic about their limitations.
context: /u/ViewOk4348 (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  I don't think you can easily change a view that relates to 'some people'.
  It can be summarized as 'some people are overly dramatic'. Hard to argue that.
  If you'd have said 'CMV: everyone overdramatizes how bad their parents were', then there'd be a discussion. A naff one, but better than this. >
  
  !delta >
  
  Is this supposed to be a delta? If your view has been changed, you need to add the word delta directly after the !, no space between >
  
  I agree, But I think this issue is not the childhood mistakes but the parents still have the behaviors which make it difficult to relate. And this makes it difficult to connect and repair the relationship. Being a parent now I understand a lot of their decisions which I thought were mistakes, I wouldn’t have made the same choice but I understand why they did and “forgive” them for it
  For example if your parents were very strict, and religious growing up.  Now as a middle aged adult you still “get in trouble” for doing something against their views And they force their religious view onto you and your children. I think it’s not so much the mistakes they made, it’s the continual impact of them which stops the relationship developing 
  The true test of a successful parent is do the children want/chose to hang out with you? And can they tell you anything? If this isn’t happening then it’s probably not the mistakes from childhood, it’s likely the parents still have this behavior and the damage from the childhood makes it harder to form a relationship. Always being careful which  what you say when your around your parents is not a good base for a relationsip >
  
  Yeah you are right. How well you were as a parent is partly reflected on how willing your kids are to spend time with you as they grow into their own person. 
  It’s just I think sometimes you have to compromise, like yeah it isn’t great that I can’t talk freely around my parents to a degree but I still feel like there can be a bond and we don’t have to be strangers to each other.
  ! >
  
  Yeah I know what you mean, I think there will always be a generation gap because your parents grew up in a different time, and that means there are certain things which you want see eye to eye on but you should be able to have a discussion and agree to disagree. 
  Do you have a reason for posting this? Did something happen which you had to forgive or are you just sick of people complaining? 
  At a certain age I think the parents need to move from a authority figure to a mentor, someone who offers advice and guides their kids. If the parents dont do this it causes a poor relationship which leads to “overdramatized “ >
  
  A lot happened that I forgave/forgiving and I am also tired of my friend complaining too I guess. 
  Wholeheartedly agree that at one point parents should accept that they are a mentor and no longer an authority figure! 
  Also if your parents are control freaks who try to control your life even when you fully matured and started a life of your own then yeah there will be some kind of barrier between both parties. 
  But for some reason I feel when parents are a bit controlling over their teens I very much understand their actions. I am in no way saying it is healthy, but at some point you realize that they are trying to protect you from things they fear but can’t really find it in themselves to explain I guess? Also sometimes kids could be infuriating so parents are put in positions were they become really hurtful, I used to blame my parents for my infuriating actions cuz they have similar attributes but you can’t change anyone but yourself at the end of the day I guess >
  
  Also do tell if I started deviating from the main argument. My head is always all over the place and I tend to do that a lot. >
  
  This view is so broadly stated as to be almost vacuously true. What sort of argument or evidence do you think would change your view here? >
  
  Some people overdramatize how bad their parents are, some people underdramatize how bad their parents are. Almost any some statement you make will be accurate. 
  You need to define what you mean by badness. Some obvious bad things.
  
  
  Is it ok to be gay around them? Like whether you are or not, are they openly homophobic? Are they openly racist against a race? Are they openly sexist? 
  
  
  Did they keep you fed, avoid many insults, avoid beating you, and generally maintain the basic level of parenting that was needed?
  
  
  Did they avoid treating their mental illness or your mental illness in whatever way was manageable with their finances?
  
  
  Did they prepare you for a financially solvent life, either by teaching you and exposing you to enough difficulty and not being controlling so you can learn to survive, or by guiding you very carefully to a company job?
  
  
  That's the basics I would want from all parents. Did your parents do that? >
  
  These are really great deciding factors!! 
  Um they didn’t but I think we still can have a good relationship despite this? >
  
  You can try and have a good relationship, but if they are not meeting these very basic standards, standards which are super easy to meet and most people do meet, then it's fine critiquing them as bad parents. They are actually being bad parents. >
  
  Is it really that easy? 
  1.I can never come out to my parents because they are religious and from a conservative country, I don’t hate them for it ( maybe because I am still questioning and not totally sure) because these are years of growing up on a principal they consider a base principal. It takes so much effort and time to unlearn that especially since they are old I don’t expect them to be able to disrupt the little peace they want to have towards the last 20 years or their lives (god know how much younger and more open I am but still had to unlearn some prejudice, still working on it too) 
  They are a bit sexist but they did tone down lots of their views on some things over the years so I am proud of them for that (tbh they are less extreme than quite a number of the parents here) 
  2,3 and 4  I think are met for the most part. >
  
  Most religious people I've met, including ones who don't like homosexuality much, aren't openly homophobic. They might tell their child that their homosexual experiences are a phase and they're waiting for them to settle down, but they don't try to make their children afraid of revealing that, because being openly rude is counterproductive and wrong.
  More subtle sexism and homophobia isn't a surprise, but if they can't contain open hate enough that you can't come out, it's not dramatic criticizing them. >
  
  Yeah I guess if they are holding you back from being comfortable then you have the right to criticize them !delta 
  I still think maybe this isn’t a big enough reason to lose contact with them >
  
  Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Nepene (201∆).
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  Teens usually feel like they know better about a lot of things, but that doesn't mean they are always wrong.
  As a teen my parents told me often that my opinion didn't count because I wasn't an adult, but looking back I was right about a lot of things, they just didn't want to admit it. I don't have much contact with them now I have the option not to. >
  
  I hope that you are healing from the shit the did! But like I am sure this was only the tip of the iceberg, if you are choosing to cut them off, they must have been more or less uncaring parents who valued control over actually raising a kid. >
  
  That wasn't the specific issue with them, but there certainly were issues. I was always surprised when friends of mine told me about things their parents had done and they hadn't cut them off. I realised that I just didn't have the kind of connection to my parents that most seem to. >
  
  If it was all bad and there was nothing tolerable/good about there presence, then good for ya for cutting them off >
  
  I'd say it's rarely /all/ bad, family dynamics are complicated. Even now there's things I miss, but my father was violent with me growing up, and when he threatened one of my kids that was the last time he saw any of us. >
  
  Will Weaton's idea of horrific child abuse is having stage parents. >
  
  I mean it is some form of child abuse I think. Lots of stage moms push their kids to do somethings they don’t even want to do, they practically groom them (see toddlers and tiaras for example). A parent can be supportive of their child’s acting career. But I think stage parents are not the supportive one, but the ones living through their children and asking them to meet impossible expectations >
  
  But of course everything in life is shades of gray. Most parents are ok, but lose their temper some times, maybe are a bit neglectful once in a while, just because of life and personal problems. The other side of the spectrum is the substantial number of people who are sexually abused, frequently beaten, badly neglected, etc. These two ends of the spectrum really are different, and Weaton seems to be counting normal imperfect parenting as the same as the very worst that some kids have to live through. >
  
  I love how you explained it!! 
  I have no qualms that the end of the spectrum of sexually, verbally or emotionally abused children have the full right to completely cut off their parents. 
  But somewhere in the grey areas, where normal imperfect parents lie. Ones who lost their shit because of how their kid was blatantly getting into stuff that they consider harmful , ones who at one point had to deal with so much that they neglected some of their children’s needs, ones who unknowingly shouldered some responsibility onto their children too early, ones who misunderstood their children’s needs. I think these are parents that get to stay in your life, because they aren’t utterly bad people. Even if they never apologize for what happened, as time goes on they have something to offer, right?
  !delta >
  
  Of course some people do but in my case I under-dramatized the severity of the abuse because I was worried about looking like one of those people and it led to awful outcomes. >
  
  I am sorry to hear that, hope you are in a  better place >
  
  My parents aren't evil deities, they're people who can be understood. I generally know how my parents got the way they are, and they do love me, but they aren't even close to good. 
  I'm not getting into specifics, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that at least one of my parents has no place in my life, and the other comes as a package deal. 
  I'm not gonna change your main view, but you should understand that abusive parents aren't uncaring monsters who spawned from hell, they're flawed people who cause extrenuous damage to their children's mental well-being. >
  
  I sending you lots of love and hoping you heal from what they did! 
  I am just so confused at which point do parents become abusive assholes rather than people who don’t know what they are doing so cause some damage because of their rough round the edges approach. >
  
  My parents aren’t evil, then a genuinely good people, but they still left me fucked up with deep trauma that I carry into adulthood in no small part because of my fucked up evangleical childhood, and my mother’s clearly undiagnosed mental illness, and the insanity that resulted because of that.
  I am a deeply broken person because of it. Yet I still had loving parents, far better than most in many regards.
  But I still ended up fucked up in the end because of the evangelical bullshit and my mother’s insanity.
  Does that make me “over dramatic” because I still carry so many wounds from the trauma during my childhood? >
  
  No, not at all!
  In my opinion you aren’t overdramatizing it because you did admit that your parents fucked up but that doesn’t negate the fact that they did love you and care about you. 
  I have seen lots of my friends claim that their parents are evil shits that are out to ruin their life because of their parenting blunders ( which are admittedly pretty bad sometimes )