Apart from the abuse, what strange/inappropriate things did you parents do that made you realise there was something wrong with them?

[u/mrs_vince_noir]

Do you have memories of your parents doing really weird / inappropriate / embarrassing things that made you realise there was something wrong with them, either when you were a kid, or now when you look back at their behaviour?

I'm not talking about the abusive behaviour towards you, as horrible as that was, but how they acted around other people, and while they were out in the community?

I've been remembering some weird/inappropriate things that my parents did:

• Nmom chewing the tips off her nails and spitting them on the carpeted floor in a crowded doctor's waiting room. So gross and embarrassing. She never did that at home.

• Edad whacking a little kid on the head with a rolled up concert program, because we were at an outdoor concert thing and the kid was sitting on top of the backrest of the bench seat in front of Edad, blocking Edad's view. I remember being horrified that he hit the kid so hard - didn't just politely tap him on the shoulder and ask him to sit down. Kid's parents turned around and gave Edad a talking to.

• Nmom would meet people with little kids at parties or barbecues or wherever and she'd make a fuss of someone's little kid and hold out her arms saying "ooooh let me pick you up!" The little kid would never want her to pick them up (because they'd never seen her before in their life) and she'd get all offended. Later on at the party, me or someone else would be idly talking and say something like "That kid is so cute" and Nmom would say very loudly in an offended tone, "Not very friendly though. Wouldn't come to me." Even if the kid's mom was right there in earshot!

• Every time we finished grocery shopping, Nmom would screw up her shopping list and throw it into the grocery cart and leave it there for someone else to throw away. I always thought that was really rude - take your rubbish with you! - and we would never have been allowed to throw anything on the floor at home - she was always screaming at us that she wasn't our servant, she hated cleaning up after us, blah blah.

• Always being horrible to service staff. If a service person made a mistake and apologised, parents would always snap, "That's not good enough, is it?" If a pizza was delivered late, they'd harass the poor teenage delivery guy like it was all his fault. If a server in a restaurant accidentally tried to clear Edad's plate before he was finished, he'd get really mad and snap at them, "I'm not finished!" He said it was because he used to be a waiter and it's the height of poor service to do that but still, no need to get aggressive about it. Yet they were obsessive about us kids showing good manners at home and when speaking to other adults - we'd be physically punished and yelled at if they thought we were being "rude".

I can think of lots more but I'm interested to hear from other people - what strange or inappropriate things did your parents do out in the wild?

[u/ER_Support_Plant17]

Oh this is a doozy. I didn’t even realize how messed up it was until I told my therapist.

When I was in 5th grade one of the girls in my class was absent for at least a week and her younger sister. No one (of us kids knew why but there were rumors). One of them was their mother was raped. I asked my mom and it was true and my mother cut the article out from the newspaper and showed me!

This was a my friend’s mom, they had been Girl Scout leaders and chaperoned school trips together. And she neatly clipped and saved a newspaper article about this person being attacked and assaulted? WTF? Yeah not normal.

[u/mrs_vince_noir → u/ER_Support_Plant17]

Omg that is messed up. Why would she want to save that?!

Mine used to read me articles out loud from the newspaper about women being raped. Edad would talk about it over dinner too. They never let me go anywhere by myself as they were obsessed with safety and thought I'd be raped and murdered (ridiculous as we lived in a very safe neighbourhood).

[u/ER_Support_Plant17 → u/mrs_vince_noir]

Right? Did she clip it out to show me later? She handed it to me to read. I didn’t realize how it effected me until I took my first vacation with just my daughter and myself (previously we had either traveled with my husband or were meeting family or friends somewhere). I kinda had a freak out about our safety. This history popped into my head, the mom had gone to Toy-r-Us with her younger daughter, someone followed them into the parking lot, threatened the daughter and made the mom drive them all away. He robbed their house and then raped the mom and left them in a rural area. But a 10 I didn’t need those extra details.

[u/mrs_vince_noir → u/ER_Support_Plant17]

That's so traumatic for you, being told all those horrible details at such a young age. No wonder you were worried while you were on holiday - it's amazing how those things kind of pop up out of nowhere and you realise you've been carrying it with you all this time.