To be more specific, my parents raised my siblings and me to “respect” them, saying "yes sir, and “no ma’am” to everything they said. Spankings, all of that. Typical super conservative evangelical parents. Before I learned better, I was that way too. I went to college and since then have embraced the left more and more.
They’ll say things now and then that are really distasteful politically. Today I made an Instagram post about DeSantis lying about liberal states allowing post-birth abortions and I got several family members railing against me. I’m tired of staying quiet when this happens. I think that, because how my parents raised me, I’m afraid to speak my mind to older family members. Fuck that though.
Has anyone else had this experience? I wonder if therapy would help. I just don’t know how to explain it.
There are two types of respect - respect of a human, and respect of an authority/superior. Parents demand the second, but that kind of respect is earned. You don’t owe it to anyone.
“I carried you for nine months! I raised you! I poured love, time, and effort into, and this is how you repay me?” - they think they have earned it,and some of them do.
“That’s the bare minimum expected of a decent parent. If you think that even minimums should be treated as something exceptional, let’s talk about minimum wage.”
The response to that type of that phrasing needs to be “so what?” Or “yeah and?”
They’ve done legitimately the lowest amount of effort needed, carry a child to term.
I disagree that carrying a child to term is low effort. It absolutely wrecks a woman’s body. Really what you should respond with is, “I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t consent to being born.”