Toxic Parents Quotes

I also believe that forgiveness is appropriate only when parents do something to earn it. Toxic parents, especially the more abusive ones, need to acknowledge what happened, take responsibility, and show a willingness to make amends. If you unilaterally absolve parents who continue to treat you badly, who deny much of your reality and feelings, and who continue to project blame onto you, you may seriously impede the emotional work you need to do. ~ Susan Forward

Unhealthy families discourage individual expression. Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of the toxic parents. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of family members. On an unconscious level, it is hard for family members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another's individuality. ~ Susan Forward

A child, without toxic interference, will naturally become the person they are meant to be. André Chevalier ~ Nikki Sex

When it came time for me to go to bed, my mother beckoned me to her, and kissed me, and whispered, "I know I'll never have another anxious moment with my own dear laddie." I pondered these words before I went to sleep. How could I reconcile this motherliness with the screeching fury who had pursued me around the kitchen with a whip, flogging me until she was gorged with - what? Vengeance? What was it? Once, when I was in my thirties and reading Freud for the first time, I thought I knew. I am not so sure I know now. But what I knew then was that nobody - not even my mother - was to be trusted in a strange world that showed very little of itself on the surface. ~ Robertson Davies

Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he's not doing enough to gain parental affection. This motivates the child to do whatever the parents want in order to regain their favor. This divide-and-conquer technique is often unleashed against children who become a little too independent, threatening the balance of the family system. ~ Susan Forward

Whether adult children of toxic parents were beaten when little or left alone too much, sexually abused or treated like fools, overprotected or overburdened by guilt, they almost all suffer surprisingly similar symptoms: damaged self-esteem, leading to self-destructive behavior. In one way or another, they almost all feel worthless, unlovable, and inadequate. ~ Susan Forward

Love involves more than just feelings. It is also a way of behaving. When Sandy said, "My parents don't know how to love me," she was saying that they don't know how to behave in loving ways. If you were to ask Sandy's parents, or almost any other toxic parents, if they love their children, most of them would answer emphatically that they do. Yet, sadly, most of their children have always felt unloved. What toxic parents call "love" rarely translates into nourishing, comforting behavior. ~ Susan Forward

Just as verbally and physically abused children internalize blame, so do incest victims. However, in incest, the blame is compounded by the shame. The belief that 'it's all my fault' is never more intense than with the incest victim. This belief fosters strong feelings of self-loathing and shame. In addition to having somehow to cope with the actual incest, the victim must now guard against being caught and exposed as a 'dirty, disgusting' person ~ Susan Forward

Children need to make mistakes and discover that it's not the end of the world. That's how they gain the confidence to try new things in life. Toxic parents impose unobtainable goals, impossible expectations, and ever-changing rules on their children. They expect their children to respond with a degree of maturity that can come only from life experiences that are inaccessible to a child. Children are not miniature adults, but toxic parents expect them to act as if they were. ~ Susan Forward

People can forgive toxic parents, but they should do it at the conclusion - not at the beginning - of their emotional housecleaning. People need to get angry about what happened to them. They need to grieve over the fact that they never had the parental love they yearned for. They need to stop diminishing or discounting the damage that was done to them. ~ Susan Forward

Always keep in mind the existence of those individuals, whether relatives or great friends, who believe that reality must adapt to their immediate impulses and desires. Those who created opportunities to hurt you, and then find it funny to watch your pain, sometimes pointing it out to others, instead of protecting your privacy and helping you comfort yourself. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate. Over-controlled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves. This makes it difficult for them to mature. Many never outgrow the need for ongoing parental guidance and control. As a result, their parents continue to invade, manipulate, and frequently dominate their lives. ~ Susan Forward

Parents appreciate the child who agrees; they condemn the child who disagrees. ~ Rajneesh

I did read Indian scriptures when we could get the English versions, but the problem was I never took the time to learn the language. Really, what it comes down to is that I knew the emotion of faith; I knew what my parents were trying to teach me, but we always said 'No' when my mom was trying to teach us Punjabi. ~ Nikki Haley

I think my parents did a great job of reminding me that I wasn't as big a deal as maybe I thought I was at times. ~ Matt Holliday

Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, "Never take candy from strangers." And then they dressed me up and said, "Go beg for it." I didn't know what to do! I'd knock on people's doors and go, "Trick or treat." "No thank you." ~ Rita Rudner

Anyone who has ever been a mother or father and is at all honest knows from experience how difficult it can be for parents to accept certain aspects of their children. It is especially painful to have to admit this if we really love our child and want to respect his or her individuality yet are unable to do so. ~ Alice Miller

Forgive your own parents for their mistakes. Forgive them for not being able to be the parents you needed. Forgive them for being unconscious, and free your soul from pain. You aren't your past. You aren't your childhood. Your childhood is gone, but you have today. ~ Ani Kapanadze

We live in a world of shifting values. The family is falling apart. Parents failing in what they ought to do. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Most youth still hold the same values of their parents ... if we do not alter this pattern, if we don't resocialize, our system will decay. ~ John Goodlad

The economic logic of gathering so many animals together to feed them cheap corn in CAFOs is hard to argue with; it has made meat, which used to be a special occasion in most American homes, so cheap and abundant that many of us now eat it three times a day. Not so compelling is the biological logic behind this cheap meat. Already in their short history CAFOs have produced more than their share of environmental and health problems: polluted water and air, toxic wastes, novel and deadly pathogens. ~ Michael Pollan

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

Grandparents can have a profound influence on their grandchildren. Their time is generally not as encumbered and busy as the parents', so books can be opened and read, stories can be told ... Children then obtain a perspective of life which not only is rewarding but can bring them security, peace, and strength ... ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Look, I know from the outside it doesn't look so bad... I know I had all the advantages. I know my parents loved me. But that makes it worse, don't you see?... The way it is, all the unhappiness seems to be my responsibility, my fault. ~ Jane Tompkins

I don't think my parents know what I do. ~ John Malkovich

Manners will become important to children only if they are important to their parents. ~ Thomas Lickona

You have responsibilities and if you want to be the best in your industry you need to have a relentless dedication to your job. I was fortunate to have support from my parents and sister growing up and that helped me a lot. ~ Danica Patrick

Well, I have a Norwegian father who emigrated to America in the 1950s, and he still speaks with varying degrees of an accent. Over my lifetime my ear has been well-tuned to that accent. Any first generation kid has that wonderful gift from their parents. ~ Christopher Heyerdahl

Amidst the wreckage of overturned furniture and shattered belongings, lying motionless and silent, are my parents. ~ Rachel Morgan

She is INSANE," I scream, standing in the middle of Marshall's living room.
"Of course, she's insane. That would be your genealogy by the way. ~ Addison Moore

Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins. Henry ~ William Golding

Being Chinese immigrants in the United States, it was important for my parents to maintain ties that went back a long time. They led by example. My dad didn't bring his work pressures home. We were always aware of them and would go as kids to his office and run around. But when he came home, he was able to leave things behind, at least from our perspective, and focus on us. ~ Chien Chung Pei

The exposure effect is also good news for those of us who weren't born gorgeous. It means that the people who know us best - our parents and children, our best friends and true loves - ultimately 'forget' what we look like. How symmetrical or clear-skinned we are disappears into the experiences we've shared with someone. ~ Scott Westerfeld

For me, I grew up in a house doing charity work for homeless people, and my parents had a lot of homeless friends. We were always taught to not discriminate and not judge. ~ Shenae Grimes

There is mental conditioning in your mind put in there during this life by your parents, teachers, the society. You've been told what is and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. This has to be pushed aside. ~ Frederick Lenz

I can't stand films where parents are portrayed as old and doddery, and ignore their kids. ~ Gurinder Chadha

You poor lonely boy,' she cried, 'it's so dreadful for you to have no parents.'
Well, as my mother was a whore, and my father a drunk, I daresay I don't miss much. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Toxic derivatives were underpinned by toxic economics, which, in turn, were no more than motivated delusions in search of theoretical justification; fundamentalist tracts that acknowledged facts only when they could be accommodated to the demands of the lucrative faith. Despite their highly impressive labels and technical appearance, economic models were merely mathematized versions of the touching superstition that markets know best, both at times of tranquility and in periods of tumult. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

Sebastian: Do you remember when you were eleven and had mono? Our parents wanted us to stay away from each other. Dad was afraid I'd catch it and I'd miss Little League practice. Anyway, you were upset because you were lonely and being all kinds of whiny about it...

Lena: I wasn't being whiny. I was stuck in my bedroom by myself for days, and if wasn't sleeping, I was bored.

Sebastian: You were sick and you didn't want to be alone. You wanted me.

Lena: I didn't want you, per se. I just wanted someone...

Sebastian: You've always wanted me. Not just anyone, but me. So, you not wanting me here has nothing to do with you being tired. I know why you don't Or at least I think I understand part of it, and we'll talk about the you-wanting-me part later. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

If the young man ate candy, the wrangler says, that's probably what's kept him alive so long. Glucose is a natural antidote to cyanide poisoning. Based on anecdotal evidence, glucose binds with
the cyanide to produce less toxic compounds. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Isn't it incredible?, I said.
There was nothing incredible about it, she said.
I thought it was so because I spoke English, because I read books, and because my parents paid for my education and my upkeep. For me everything was surprising, the world was full of wonder, the most random idiotic occurrence was incredible because my luck made it so. For people like her, for the poor, the only incredible thing in the whole world was money and the mysterious ways in which it worked. ~ Jeet Thayil

One day in May 1930, Celia took her twoyear-
old son for a swim at the yacht club, but it
was already the onset of the Argentine winter,
cold and windy. That night, the little boy had
a coughing fit. A doctor diagnosed him as suffering
from asthmatic bronchitis and prescribed
the normal remedies, but the attack lasted for
several days. Ernestito had developed chronic
asthma, which would afflict him for the rest of
his life and irrevocably change the course of his
parents' lives. ~ Jon Lee Anderson