I had moved away a few years and my mother was homeless due to her own choices and lack of effort to do anything. My wife and I were in town visiting her family, and we decided to take my mother out to dinner. During the meal she was (rightly) complaining about the perils of being homeless and having to watch out for the pigs. I suggested that she look into getting into some government housing. You know her response?

“I don’t want to be the light in he dark.”

If you’re as confused as I pretended I was, she means she didn’t want to live with/around black people. Which was really fucking surprising to me, considering we had lived with, around, and had been friends with all kinds of POC growing up (as you you tend to do in poor and mixed neighborhoods and when you have to rent out rooms to get by). That level of racism was rather surprising, but she had become toxic as fuck in the years before I moved, so it shouldn’t have been.

My da told me “God does not forgive people who curse his name.”

I asked “But God forgives people who sexually abuse kids?”

“If they ask for forgiveness, yes.”

wHy DoNt YoU aTtEnD cHuRcH aNyMoRe??? lmao shut up.

My Dad’s gone totally off the rails conspiracy theory nutty.

Fake moon landings, fluoride in the water is mind control, vaccines cause autism and maybe microchips and mind control again, foreign people are simultaneously lazy stealing benefits and stealing all the jobs, my god the racism. He fell into an echo chamber during COVID and hasn’t come out again.

The best one was when I was telling him as a healthcare professional on the front lines watching patients and colleagues die that COVID was serious and we should take any opportunity to avoid it and make it better, he told me it was just flu and all fake news.

Yeah I don’t talk to my parents much anymore.

I found out my parent’s computer had a lot viruses because they are dumb and bought a McAffee subscription. I told them, they answered that they knew better than me, I replied that I had a degree in computer sciences, and my father laughed like the fucking idiot he is.

Let’s say we don’t talk about my job or computer anymore. Also I reduced the visits and phone calls that they had because I’m tired with their bullshit.

Parent told me I shouldn’t hold it against my older sibling who abused me when I was younger because the older sibling also remembered my birthday and got me toys when I was younger

I went on a trip to another country. Unfortunately, I had an accident (involving a fucking hurricane) that almost killed me.I had insurance so they covered all the medical expenses, including tickets and accomdations for one of my parents (aka: one of them could come free of charge). They decided that it was a good opportunity to visit the country since one was coming “for free” and they only had to pay for the other one.

Years later, my father told me that they are still paying the debt for the money they spent “because of me” when I had that accident so it was my fault they were in debt.

Two weeks after I explained to my father why I had an abortion … and he calmly said he understood my reasons … he told me I’d murdered his grandchild.

He was a real winner, my dad.

The money thing is such a fucked up thing to say. “Do you know how much money you cost?!” As if the price of raising children is something a 6 yo is responsible for!

If I was gay I’d have to be lobotomized, not would or could, I’d have to be… and he’d do it himself. 10 yo and wanted my dad dead.

And the insane gaslighting! He’d stink of cigarettes, reeeeek! Clearly he’d been smoking, but would deny it with the shittiest lies: person X blew smoke in my face! I walked past someone who smoked!

Or when I got a bicycle, dad would guilt trip me af for having spent money on it. And whenever I couldn’t cycle, meaning it would take 10 yo me an hour to get there (20ish KM), he’d be fuming and say he’d sell the bike since I’m not using it…

I’m firmly a believer that having children shouldn’t be allowed for everyone. Some people are terrible and should be sterilized and enslaved. I just don’t know how to implement it, yet!

I’m American: my dad told me a couple years ago that immigrants were “unclean.” I’m almost 40, and that was the first time he’d ever used that phrase. That’s probably the first time I realized how “mainstream” extremism had become, since he has virtually zero online presence.

My dad, the tech genius that he is, has been against every minor step forward since the 90’s:

“Why do i need an answering machine, if they need me, they’ll call back.” He worked for himself as a handyman, so this is plain ridiculous. Finally, someone gives him an answering machine and suddenly it’s “This is awesome! I never miss a call! I’ve got so much work!” Later it was “Why do I need a debit card? I can just write a check!” which evolved to “It’s so convenient! I can get gas, even when they’re closed!” He repeated the answering machine argument when cell phones arrived, and repeated the results when he finally got one.

It’s a running theme in his life. The one that really gobsmacked me was when he proudly declared “the Internet can’t hurt me if i don’t get on it!”

My dad recently buult a new garden shed in the garden for tools and gardening stuff. He now started refering to the gazebo in the same garden as “the old shed” for some fucking reason. We were doing something that required power and ge asked me to plug in an extension in the shed. I do that and a couple minutes later he berates me and says he meant the old shed. When I asked if he meant the gazebo, he looked at me as if I had slapped him in the face. We’ve had the gazebo for about 15 years now I think and nobody ever called anything but that.

Basically anything full on Cult of Personality for Trump plus steadily increasing levels of fundamentalism Christianity. Holidays have been getting…tense to say the least.

Reading this makes me realize how many people had really fucked up childhoods. I feel sorry for all of you, don’t give up hope for humanity, and choose (if you can) how to live your own life. There are better people out there.

Just sitting and having a casual lunch with my dad at work. Sack lunches that my mom had made us! When he nonchalantly tells me that women aren’t people and only exist for men’s enjoyment. I basically completely froze out of shock as he spends the next half hour trying to use excerpts from the Bible to prove his point.

I haven’t had a conversation with him since and that was nearly 20 years ago. Also realized that Christianity is not something I want to be associated with.

Funny thing is that he used to be adamant that god uses Parkinson’s to punish only the worst sinners and he’s got it now… Apparently there was some engine cleaning solvent my mom desperately tried to get him to stop using? The government banned it because it was giving people Parkinson’s so he stocked up on it to prove my mom wrong…

“I love you, but I don’t always like you”

Cool. Thanks. Feels just amazing.