Someone Wanted To Know: “When Did You Realize Your Family Wasn’t Like Other Families?“, And 30 Delivered

When all of my friends wanted to hangout at my house. It was something that I came to appreciate too late in life and with my family I am killing myself to replicate. I may have grown up poor in a wealthy area, but my home was always filled with love and attention from my parents who were good parents. All of my friends spent their teenage years as latch key kids, and always wanted to hangout at my place. I never understood it, and always wanted to get out of the house, but sure enough I was always hanging out with people at my place.

It really struck home for me in my mid twenties when I ran into someone from high school I would hang out with. They almost immediately checked on how my family, made sure my parents were doing good, and stuff like that. I asked about his family and he gave me a brief update and kind of explained how his family was more like friends and my family was more like family. Many of my high school friends found my parents of Facebook and still keep in touch with them. My parents have helped save multiple marriages, give a lot of parenting advice to my old friends, and are god parents to basically a small army.

In 9th grade, my friends held an intervention for me after I came into school crying again. They made me go to the counselor.

They told me to just give some recent examples of stuff my parents said to me.

After 30 minutes of this, I was crying, of course. But what boggled my mind was that *everyone else* in the room was sobbing too. A half dozen other 15 year old girls, and the 30something school counselor.

That was the first time I realized that maybe I didn't deserve it when my parents were mean to me.

My dad was a stay at home dad and my mom was the breadwinner. At school whenever I was sick/needed to be picked up/any other issue, they would tell me they would “call Mom” but I would insist they not bother her at work and call my dad who was at home and available to get me. Stay at home dads are rare I guess

I remember me and my little sister would have been about 6 and 8. We sat at the top of the stairs, listening to our parents argue, made ourselves dinner and put ourselves to bed.

And she said ‘it’s like we’re their mummy and daddy’ and that memory breaks my heart a bit.

When my husband told me his mom was the only person that cleaned up while her “boys” went outside after meals.

I was raised by my parents to do the dishes but also to expect help from everybody in the house. My reproductive parts don’t dictate who cleans. My parents raised three women to say “FU to misogyny”. I have 2 girls and a son now and I made it painfully clear that our children will all know they are more than what his parents raised him to believe.

When my friends wouldn't hide when their parents came home - in fact they'd go greet them.

To say I was shocked after years of isolation without being in any house but my own is an understatement.

When I was at a friend's house and his mother told me to not say the "N" word because it was a bad word to say.

I didn't know, I had heard it all my life. this was in the late 70's.

Our parents would give my brother and me "the silent treatment":

They wouldn't speak to us for hours or days at a time, and *never* tell us what they were upset about.

Their goal was to make us feel guilty and ashamed without ever actually making clear what we had supposedly done wrong.

All of the arguing. My parents would have all-out screaming matches in front of us, complete with my dad throwing s**t or breaking things (most infamously, an ornate vase that my mom was given by her late grandmother). I was too young to know anything else, and would always end up hiding in my closet with my baby brother until things had cooled off. In hindsight it makes my heart hurt to remember how scared we were.

My family shows each other love through playful mockery, sarcasm, and arguing loudly about things that don't matter.

Try doing that as your default when you meet new people.

I was born to a strong, independent single mom. My father passed away of ALS when I was infant. My mom never remarried. I realized from a pretty young age my family situation was not like most. Like my mom treated me more like a friend than a son. She gave serious credence to my opinions and let me do basically whatever I wanted so long as it wasn't illegal or cruel.

When I realized some kids are excited to see their
Dad come home from work. As opposed to me and my brother going to our rooms and shutting our doors when we heard the garage open

My Mom was a hoarder. I hated for my friends and boyfriends to come in my house but her and my step dad insisted. I was treated like trash because everyone knew what a filthy place I lived in. People would say why don’t y’all clean that place up? Well, because hoarders won’t let you clean it up. Every time, we tried, she would throw a huge fit, so we stopped trying.

when I realized that other families tell each other they love each other lmao.

When I stopped homeschooling and I met other kids that weren't afraid of their parents.

As a kid my friends used to tell me my mom (adopted single no A father) hated me. I never really understood why until I processed the trauma she caused me as an adult. That it wasn't normal to always be blamed for everything, told how much she wished she never adopted me, never being hug loved on or any affection, or A home cooked meal. I thank every day for my Pappaw as he was the only one I felt truly believed in me. I left home at 13 an haven't looked back.

The first time was when I heard my friend in college tell his dad he loved him at the end of a phone call. My dad has said it to me maybe three times in my life.

Real eye-opener was in therapy when I realized I never felt true love or even support or compassion from them. Cutting them off was easy because I was never made to feel like I was allowed to need help from either of my parents after the age of maybe twelve.

I wish I could empathize with how my wife feels about missing her dad (he died very young). I'm as supportive and helpful as I can be, but I have no strong feelings about the idea of never seeing my parents again.

My friend talked back to his mom so casually and I thought that she was gonna do something but she didn’t.

If I talked back to my mom I would’ve gotten the belt

When a guest or whoever it is joins us for an evening and at some point through the night you look over to them and they're sitting in their seat just staring around the room, a look of confusion and shock on their face while trying to figure out wtf is going on and attempting to make sense of things.

For context when I say my family I'm including aunties, uncles and cousins. We get together once a week at my grandmother's house and it can get pretty overwhelming if you're not used to it. There's about 30 of us in total. The youngest person is 2 y.o and the eldest is 82

When I got to college and most of my friends parents were divorced. That was an eye opener. A lot of people were astounded my parents were still married and a lot assumed they were divorced around the holidays. It was wild coming from my parents who have been together for 40 years and my grandparents who were together for 73.