A minor point, but it’s also an admission that their (and mine) guardians didn’t explain things to them either. But why we grow up and want to repeat the mistakes/ignorance/cowardice/missed opportunities of our role models isn’t clear to me.
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This is actually has a reason! Authoritarian raising tactics center the Parent (and Approved Authorities™) as the only source of 'correct' knowledge and ideas, by elevating the parent as superior to the child, and instilling a strict hierarchy of superiority/subservience.
aug 25, 2025, 5:32 am • 4 0 • view
So, when they grow up with parental approval, they attribute it as success, and want to pass that 'success' on to their children, so they carefully emulate the things that shaped them, correcting only the places where their own rebellion made them more approved of.
aug 25, 2025, 5:32 am • 3 0 • view
But this means that failures are often compounded, and that missed opportunities are often forced as requirement (think Sports Dads who make their kid do sports).
aug 25, 2025, 5:32 am • 3 0 • view
This is where the "participation trophy parents" kinda comes in; the parents failed, and the kid failed but the parent wants credit for making their kid do the thing and "supporting" them in it the way their parents didn't. If not trophy, they get angry at the kid, because it's a reflection of them
aug 25, 2025, 5:32 am • 2 0 • view