Childhoods vary, and some are awful, but you always learn things! What about your childhood made you strong? Did your parents teach you valuable skills? Did you pick up things from peers? Observe things? Tell us below!
Childhoods vary, and some are awful, but you always learn things! What about your childhood made you strong? Did your parents teach you valuable skills? Did you pick up things from peers? Observe things? Tell us below!
I’m probably gonna have to go with the reason my mom gave me the nickname “little lawyer” as a kid. My dad was awful. Did a lot of things I don’t care to talk about. He was a very angry person, and as a result I learned some very strong conflict resolution skills. On top of that, as an autistic, I have a very strong obsession with making sure everything’s fair. I noticed he wasn’t treating me or my mom fairly (understatement of the year) and managed to negotiate better conditions by pointing out when he wasn’t following his own rules, or was inconsistently enforcing the rules.
Granted, an abusive person is gonna be abusive regardless of the rules, but my dad specifically used the rules he set as a tool to control, so breaking them in half in ways he didn’t like meant he had less control. He would especially use the bible as his biggest tool, interpreting it in whatever way most benefited him, and I would find holes in his interpretation and propose different interpretations.
I do want to note, my dad has received a lot of help since my childhood and made strides to being a better person, especially after seeing my mom, me, and my older sibling leave him. I’ve talked to him pretty recently and he does genuinely seem to have improved a lot, but I’m staying wary.
Nowadays people come to me for all kinds of things of the nature of resolving disputes, and even I often have people come to me to help resolve relationship troubles (from “me and my partner had a disagreement” to “I think I’m being emotionally abused and don’t know how to handle it.”) Although I have a bad habit of doing that even when I’m not asked, which people often get pissed at me for quite often. I’m working on that.
Children are seen as witnesses in domestic abuse but they’re so much more. They do so much to protect themselves and others and you’re a strong example. You worked that situation really well to keep everyone safe, and it’s made you highly skilled. You’re inspirational
Honestly, it makes my day to hear that. Thanks. I don’t always like to think anything good could possibly have come from living through that, but it’s also good to know I’m not completely broken as a result.
I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, you earned the words 🥰
Ah, and I just remembered something I wanted to add on. One thing my dad did do right when I was a kid is he refused to enforce traditional gender roles. I’m trans and in spite of him not supporting that specifically, he did let me have a doll house, have my hair long, let me try makeup, etc. Because of that once I grew up, I found myself mystified when I realized that gender roles were even a thing, and wondered why anything had to be gender specific in the first place.