#tw: child raising

[sonnyinthesky]

Shout out to people who can't have kids. Not because theyre infertile or otherwise physically incapable of making a child, but those who cant have kids because they couldnt take care of them in the way they deserve.

To disabled people who would be unable to care for a child due to their disability

To mentally ill people who would be unable to care for a child due to their mental health

To violent people who wouldn't be able to stop themselves being violent towards their child

To autistic people whos meltdowns would stop them looking after a child / would make them violent to their child

To addicts who wouldn't be able to look after a child because of their addiction/the consequences of their addiction

To intellectually disabled people who wouldnt know how to look after a child safely and would not be able to learn

To those that require so much care themselves that they could not care for another

To those with mood swings who may lash out at a child and can't raise children because of that

To people with their own childhood trauma who fear their own trauma would cause them to not raise a child safely

To people with childhood trauma that feel having a child would turn them into their abuser

Theres too much stigma around those of us who cant/shouldnt raise kids. Theres nothing inherently bad about not being a safe person to raise children. It's also okay to want kids even if you know you couldn't raise them! It's okay to be sad about it. You are seen and heard and deserve the comfort and support you need.

[nothing0fnothing]

Most parents decide they're going to use their child's innate naivety and trusting nature to instill a sense of wonder. Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, mermaids are real, Disneyland. All that.

My parents used it to create an invisible panopticon that only existed in my mind so they could easily deny its existence if I reported it to anybody.

Basically, was told at a very young age, that there were tiny hidden cameras I couldn't see everywhere in my home, and in my clothes, and in my school. They gave my stepdad 24/7 round the clock acsess to view me whenever he wanted to. He said these cameras could not only record my face, voice and actions, but that they had special technology that could read and translate my very thoughts.

I was at the "mermaids and unicorns are real" age, so not only did all of this seem totally plausible, it terrified me. I was changing under the covers of my bed, worried he could see me on the toilet or in the shower, and worst of all I started monitoring and censoring my own thoughts, convinced he could hear every one of them.

My mum noticed I had started taking longer to get dressed and ready than I used to, and asked why I was wasting time trying to get dressed in bed. When I told her about the cameras she tried to convince me they weren't there, and even did a sweep of my room to prove it to me, but I didn't believe her. I thought my step dad had so much power he could even hide these mind reading micro cameras from other adults. She just kind of brushed it off, assuming this was some silly thing I'd be over in a week.

I wasn't.

He kept reminding me of them, so I continued to be scared of them.

The second time my mother heard of these invisible cameras were when another parent, concerned, told her about it.

See I'd been playing at her daughters house, and I was asking her to call my step dad to ask permission for every minor thing I did.

"Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed to play in the garden?" "Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed to watch TV?" "Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed ketchup on my chips?"

She would assure me she'd asked my mum and my mum said it was fine, but I was adamant it be my step father she call. Eventually, she asked me why I was so concerned about his permission to do these things I'd been doing fine every other time I'd been at her house.

"Because he's the one with the cameras."

I said it so naturally. Like every family had a parent who had the cameras and another who was under surveillance by them. I was worried that if I conveyed the frozen still fear I felt over these hidden cameras, it would seem that I had something to hide.

"There's no cameras in our house so you don't have to worry about it." She tried to convince me.

"Oh no, they're in my clothes" I said. "They're so tiny they could be in a zip or a button or on my shoe laces and nobody would know."

She was, understandably, freaked out by this.

I'm not sure if she beleived my step dad had just sent me bugged into her home like a pervert or something, but I think when I started talking about how it can hear my thoughts like a regular camera can record voices, she realised that this was something else.

My mum pretended that I'd made it up and was lying for attention, even though she knew I wasn't. She knew that her husband had been terrorising me with these fake omnipotent cameras for weeks to the point I was losing sleep and dreaming about them. It was just easier for her to paint me as some kind of freakishly and manipulative child. It was really messed up, this woman's daughter was my only friend, I'd be friendless and alone if she decided she didn't want her daughter learning this behaviour from me.

The last time it was brought up to her was by my aunt. I'd had a bonding day out with her that ended in me crying on her couch after dinner. I vented about the cameras and how much pressure they were putting on me. I said I felt scared to be out with anyone, because if my daddy was watching and he heard their thoughts and he didn't like them, he could stop them from ever seeing me again. I knew she didn't like him, and he didn't like her. All he needed was video proof that she thought bad things about him and he'd have the perfect excuse to cut her out of my life. I didn't want that, I loved my aunt dearly.

My mum tried to pull the same "oh she's just making it up for attention" bit, but my aunt knew my step dad, and she knew he was exactly crazy and twisted enough to torture me like that. She believed me over my mother, and after that I never heard about the cameras again.

Over the weeks I wasn't threatened with them, I slowly started to think about them less and less. And by the time I stopped thinking about them entirely, I'd stopped believing in tooth fairies and unicorns and high tech invisible cameras that could hear my thoughts.

I never forgot about them though.

[devotion-disorder]

Sorry I impregnated Kuuya he's having my child 😣

uh yea um. congrats!

[blackoutbugza]

quick! show me your design for one of the sides as kids!

i’ll go first :)

[camomileapplesyrup]

my father never really behaved like one. he was violent. he beat me and my mother. he cheated on her with hookers every night, and got off on the idea of assaulting them behind my mother's back. after my 4th birthday, he up and left. from then, my childhood with him was meeting a string of women from russia, all claiming to be engaged to him. no one stayed long enough but one woman. who became my stepmother.

we didn't like each other. as a small little girl, who watched her big professor father dancing around in suits all day and then slapping my mom before storming away, i didn't have much faith in my safety with this woman. i saw an evil lady, who was corrupting my father with her evil lady ways, turning him against me to prioritise her son who she brought with her. this illusion dropped one night during an argument that lasted hours.

after hurling an array of expensive china at each other, and slamming all the doors in their big house, my stepmother sat crying in our red armchair, repeatedly murmuring things in russian i wish i would have understood. my father saw me approaching and snarled at me. something along the lines of "don't entertain the attention seeking goose. she is playing the victim." as a young 13 year old girl, the only thing i could conjure up was "well, you hit her, dad. don't you think that's why she's crying?"

whatever happened after that was a blur. he went on a tirade at me, clearly bothered by the correction. he looked like a big, puffed up toad, in my memory. croaking unintelligibly with anger and offence. but, im his daughter after all. i didn't understand a thing, i yelled back at my father, attempting to mimic his emotionless-debate-arguing.

that night i saw my real mother in her.

my real mother, in the same house, who never cowered. never ran away, or cried without a glare. my mother who made sure i saw her slap back. slap back so hard it made my father stagger against the very same doorframe i stood.

amidst my heated conversation with my father, the woman whom i hated so much, called out my name. she looked at me and choked out a sentence i'll never forget. in her thick, russian accent, she said "you are a strong young woman. never cower in front of your dad, or any man who hurts you. thank you."

it was the first and last time she ever complimented me. for the first time, we saw each other for what we truly were. two women victimised by an abusive men, who shrunk into the very thing he wanted to avoid most. two women who respected each other enough, to stand up to him. no matter how far apart our worlds were, in that moment, we became the very core of our beings and forgot everything else.

i'll never forget her defeated voice, and tear stained face. i'll never forget what she gave me that day.

[mintflavouredwhump]

An eldest child whumpee who is always forced to be the 'role model' of their younger siblings while bearing the brunt of their parents' anger and expectations.

[sacrifical-lamb-core]

Jason peered down at Estelle with slightly confused, curious eyes. He leant down to her level and poked her slightly.

‘It’s 3? Really?’ Asked Jason?

‘It? You… you don’t call anyone that… let alone a child. And yeah. Estelle is three,’

She looked cute in a frilly pink dress, and was creaking around, babbling about something or other.

‘Is it going to like… do anything? It seems kind of complacent,’

‘You are so, so lucky i like you,’

[chiwhorei]

I am in heat idk what’s happening I want to be impregnated I want to have a BABY (we don’t want kids but a few times a year I have this crazy desire to be fucking INSEMINATED)

[montaguespades]

Hey since some asshole made their entire blog devoted to flooding the narc abuse tags with raw spam that invalidates victims:

Narcissistic abuse is real, and your suffering at the hands of a narcissist is valid.

Their habit online of wailing about ableism is on-brand for their established pattern of abusive behaviors.

They're telling on themselves.

I won't repeat myself, because I don't have to. If you see a post that repeats an insult towards survivors, there are over a dozen more like it on the same blog, waiting to be blocked and/or designated as the harmful, malicious spam it is.

[epipens]

NI-KI Bite Me (2023)

[tabl3]

aj focused art piece

he's just chilling with his new family :)

[im1hangry1pjo]

Fuck Foster care -Valgrace

TW: Scars, Past abuse, Leo being traumatized, Foster Homes

"No, no, no, no, no where is it where is it!?" Leo frantically searched through the bathroom cabinets. "They're going to find out no, no they can't know anything" he thankfullyfound his contact. He looked at himself in the mirror. Leo wanted to throw up just by the sight of himself. His right eye was milky white with pink scaring slowly becoming more white around the center of the scar. He quickly looked away and opened the contact case. It only had one contact in it but he really only needed one. He slowly took it and placed it on his right eye but instead it fell on the ground and was ruined. "SHIT!" He accidentally yelled at the top of his lungs. He prayed to every god he could think of that no one heard that. He continued to search for his foundation to cover up any scars he could. "SHIT!" He heard Leo scream; it sounded like it came from the bathroom. Jason was horrified just by the thought of what happened he immediately got up and headed towards the bathroom. Thankfully it was unlocked but what he saw behind the door shocked him. Leo was in front of the mirror with a bottle of foundation with his sleeves rolled up there were scars all over them some of them looked self inflicted others looked like someone hit them with a glass bottle but when Jason looked at Leo's face gods his face. His right eye was milky white with pink scaring slowly becoming more white around the center of the scar. It looked like someone exploded something in the face. He couldn't look for too long cause if he did he would vomit. Leo was the first one to speak "I-I can explain" Jason pulled Leo into a hug before Leo could say anything. Leo was just stiff in his arms like he's never been hugged but now that I think about it whenever I hug him or anyone hugs him for that matter he immediately pushed them away so Jason hugged him as tight as he could savoring the moment. It took a few minutes but eventually he let Leo go "You're... you're not scared or disgusted of me" Leo asked shakily the tone he used broke my heart. I gently held his face "No you could never scare me or disgust me Darling" Jason continued cupping Leo's face in his hands.

He still loved me. Jason still loved me even though he saw my scars. I put my hands over his and just stared into his eyes. He looked heart broken and worried and a little angry. Jason took a deep breath and asked me "Who dared to hurt you" he said in a low growl that had loving undertone (Jason being raised by wolves moment) "umm you know how I went to a lot of foster homes well most of them weren't the best or you know straight up abusive." Leo admitted quietly. Jason seemed pissed " I love you so much and would never dare hurt you in any shape or capacity." He again growled so low Leo could feel it. "I know you Jason and I know if you somehow hurt me it was on accident and you would go on your hands and knees and beg for my forgiveness cause you're a dork and you love me" Leo flicked Jason's nose at the end of his long ass sentence. "Now can I go back to my make-up?" I questioned. Jason looked at me for a few seconds and then said this "No, you look better like this without the make-up you just look more real if that makes sense" "This fucking dork" I thought. "I think you're forgetting that no one else knows about this besides Piper" Leo told him with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Wait Piper knows!?"

[nothing0fnothing]

Abusive parents using the "well there's no book on raising children" argument when faced with the tiniest bit of accountability from their children is such a wild take to be honest because.. what do you mean you needed a book to tell you that abusing people.. is bad?

Are you genuinely arguing that you had no idea that hitting people smaller and weaker than you is wrong? Not the long term effects abuse has on the developing brain, or the specific types of mental issues it can cause, or how exactly hitting children has worse outcomes in later life. What you're saying is that you had no idea that it was morally wrong to hit people since there was no book saying so. And since you never brought it up till your kids did, you're also expecting them to believe that this book of obvious truths conveniently came out right around the time your adult children asked you what the fuck you were thinking.

Like, you unleashed some of the most vile torrents of emotional abuse you could muster onto a literal eleven year old. You know not to say that shit to your boss, right? You know that when you're at brunch with your girlfriends, or at golf with your buddies, that it's not appropriate to speak that way to them, right? So why would you need a book explaining that it's wrong to speak that way to a child?

It's such a stupid argument because it's essentially saying "I didn't know any better and shouldn't have been expected to learn." But you did know better. The criticism isn't levelled against how few parenting books you chose to read. Nobody was expecting you to become the Albert Einstein of parenting. Just the bare minimum of decency, dignity and respect would have been enough, and you failed.

[pallotdip]

you’re telling me these stars have cats in them

[strange-doll-child]

Me when I'm in a bad mood, so now she needs to suffer because of it

[uncanny-tranny]

I wish more people recognized that sometimes, parents don't make mistakes when their child ends up traumatized. Sometimes, parents deliberately make the choice to ignore or abuse their child or whatever the situation is. Parents are not immune from malicious intent just because that's their child they're behaving toward.

That is precisely why "but they're your parents!" doesn't work. If that was my parent, I was their child.