You're so VAIN, you probably think this song is about ya

What?  Okay, I'm sleep deprived and probably not spelling the best.( I work 12 & 1/2 night shifts) and only had a little nap this afternoon....

I have that stupid song in my head.  WHY?  Because.....

This will be long and I will try to make it short.

Not sure why I feel like sharing but I think I will.

I grew up feeling like I was never pretty enough. Never smart enough. Never THIN enough for my parents.  As a child I was at a normal weight.  BUT my mother was passive aggressive, I should say is passive aggressive and controlling.  My dad is under her power and just lets her run the show.  I only see my parents maybe less than 8 times a year, so it's not like we are close.

Mom has always been thin. As kids, whenever my sister or I would want a second helping at dinner, she would say, " are  you really sure you need more?"  She didn't do that to our brother.    She would make cookies and put a note in the container and it would say " don't eat" there are 24 cookies. She wanted to be the one to let us eat them.  So my sister and I learned to sneak food when she wasn't around.  I was weighed weekly by her in my teens.  I'm 5ft 6inches and weighed around 135 at the age of 13.  I was told if I lost 10 pounds I could get my driver's permit. I lost the weight and got to 125 and then she said I had to lose 5 more pounds.  She would always make a point not to eat all of her food on her plate and she would say "I'm so FULL", ( hint, hint, to my sister and myself... you have eaten enough.  )

Anyway in college I got up to 185 and I'm sure in the back of my mind, I was saying... I can eat whatever the h_ll I want, so there......Then I joined Nutri System, where my mother worked as a RN and I lost 55 pounds.  That was the start of gain & lose and gain and lose over and over....

Okay, my parents are all about looks and keeping up with the Jones. I know I sound unkind, and I won't get into it all.   Get to the point Kristi....

So Saturday my parents came over for our son's 18th B-day party and I haven't seen them since November when they left for South Padre.  The first thing they both said was " You LOOK so GOOD!"  Now normally that would make a person feel great, but it didn't.  Later in the evening after all the guests had left, my DH informed me that my Dad commented again about how good I looked.  He then started talking about how BIG my sister has gotten. 

My parents had stayed over at her place in Texas on their way back to Iowa.  Not one positive thing about my sister was mentioned, just about how much she's gained.  I only see my sister twice a year because I live in Iowa and she's in TX.  I wish I would have been there to hear my Dad talk about my sister.  I would have told him that it really, really hurts me to hear him to talk about someones weight, not just someone, but my sister.  We have obesity on both sides of the family.  Hello, I was morbidly obese.  I had to have surgery to get to a healthier place.  So what did they say about me?  I have to exercise 1-2 hours a day and fight the urge to eat when I don't need to.  It's an ongoing journey.

And before this all happened, my sister told me that when they were in Texas at her home,  they kept commenting on how  some of their friends that had gotten FAT and also talked about how FAT my Aunt had gotten.  This was their passive aggressive way of telling my sister that they thought she needed to lose weight.  I haven't seen her since last August, so I don't know where she's at weight wise.  I doubt she's even in the obese category. 

So it's all about looks and now I'm not an embarrassment to them.  It hurts.  I feel guilty that I have these negative feelings about them, I have feelings of disappointment in how I wish my parents would be and I know they will never change.  I also know that they did their best to raise us kids. 

I also know that I raised our kids differently and food was food.  If you are hungry go ahead and eat.  It wasn't used as a bribe, reward or punishment.  We live out in the country and it wasn't like my kids could go run to the local DQ and get something.  If there's healthy food in the house, that's what gets eaten.

If anyone is still reading this, my point is, how dare someone, especially my parents talk about FAT people.  Ughhhhh  They are so VAIN.....

Really, I'm not crazy. hahahahahahahahaha   Just low on sleep.....
Kristi

 

 125 - that is not much for 5'6!   I am so sorry they were so mean, but I am so happy to read that you have a healthy attitude with your kids. You are starting a new chapter in your family's story. You are the healthy one with the loving attititude.   Its so good you are teaching your kids a new way to live.
  

I too have issues with my parents, I am 55 years old and still long for that close relationship. However I try not to dwell on all the negative stuff from my childhood, and long for the day when I won't feel the need of a great relationship with my parents, I know it just isnt going to happen. Now that I am a mother and grandmother I realize sometimes its not always the parents fault. We are all a product of our generation, and family influences. I have 3 children, and am only close to 2 of them. Despite my constantly trying to be close to my eldest daughter, she just does'nt seem to want or need a relationship with her parents. I can't begin to tell you how this hurts, and yes angers me. I can't figure out what I did wrong and am almost at the point of not trying anymore, cause the consistent neglect , and shunning hurts so much. She does'nt visit or call at all unless she wants something. We were good parents, or at least I hope we were. Whenever she has needed us we have been there for her. We made the effort to be good grandparents, attended the hockey, football camping, etc. The grandkids are in their teens now and are busy doing teen things. I just miss them all. My heart breaks , and I wonder, does she think we were bad parents. My point is maybe we shouldn't blame our parents, cause I know from experience , we are LOVED, just maybe not in the way we feel the need for.

 Egads.. they sound like parents from HELL!!!  ..
I hate when people are like that...  

Whoo Hoo!  You are in Onederland.  So happy for you. Hope I will get there this summer.

Oye... you have opened a huge can of my worms. My father was pretty cool about weight growing up. I wasn't ever terribly fat, but I would go through the stages where my growth spurts stalled and I got a little thick around the edges (middles?) Anyway, he always encouraged me to be thin and I know now mostly because he didn't want me to have a life where people would pre-judge me before they got to know me (i.e. your parents.)

My mother on the other hand? In my teens she outright called me a fatass. More than once. And in my teens I was pretty thin. I've always been a "big" girl in that I'm tall and broad, but I was athletic and rode my horses back then and she was still SO super judgemental. And not for the same reasons my father was. We have no relationship to speak of and I carry some guilt, but I can't be around her and end up feeling bad about myself because some of me is still that little girl that wants her mother to love her and any price.

Bottom line, you've come SO far and I have no doubt you learned from them how NOT to be and how to treat people the right way. You probably raised a child with a solid sense of self-esteem and who knows not to judge people for what's on the outside, so BIG props to you.

And I'm sure they're very nice people and I know they were raised in a different era, so I do give them some room to wiggle there. But what they're missing out on is a good person in you who should want to be with them and around them. So I feel sorry for them, really. Having that mentality is their loss, I'm afraid...

Thanks Faith!

It's nice to be able to "talk" to people that understand. 

Being called a fatass, is so cruel.  I feel for you. 

We have a 18 year old son and a 19 year old daughter.  Both are active and at a healthy weight.  Confident and really good kids.  We are blessed to have them. 

When my son was young, we were looking through my parents upstairs in their garage.  My son found an old Russian fur hat with the ear flaps and he LOVED the hat.  He asked if he could take it home and my mom said, no let's put it back in the dresser drawer.  So to this day, it's still in that drawer.  On the way home, my son said...  " Grandma's a keeper". hahahahahahah

We are only 45 minutes away from my parents in the summer and they were always too busy with their friends to spend time with the kids.  So they also lost out on having relationship with their only Grandkids in Iowa.

Thanks for listening to me!
Kristi

Kristi,
It's taken me quite some time to realize that it is ok that I don't have a great relationship with both of my parents.  I'm pretty close to my mom, but my dad and I are a different story.  Thankfully, our issues have never centered around my weight, but having a ****ty parent in general is always painful because the kids don't always understand why the parents act the way they do and keep hoping that things will change.  At least, that was my experience with my dad.  Now, I am making an effort to let go of the bitterness and focus on whatever positives I can find in my dad. 

Thanks for sharing with me.  I don't share with many about my parents.  There's just so much guilt and I guess I need to work on what you have realized, that it's ok if I don't have a great relationship with my parents.  It's challenging since it's not just about the past but how they treat me now.  So I will work on focusing on the positives.

Thanks,
Kristi

I'm so sorry you have gone through this, and I feel worse for your sister.  I really feel they just don't understand, and probably never will.  I don't know if it's their generation or what.  I have ex-inlaws that are very much like that.  Everything is about appearances. 

Feel better after you get some sleep!