Almost all of my contemporaries say their parents were not overly affectionate or said “I love you” to them. What was it with the austere and “cold” way of previous generations? My parents never told me they loved me while I was growing up that I remember. They told me they were proud of me but not that they loved me. I know they did. It went without saying? I never took it to heart but it can feel sort of like they were expected to reproduce, they reproduced and then did their duty by raising a child up and out. They were very sober, serious and conservative. Maybe they thought it spoiled a child and heaven knows, a spoiled child was not a good thing! I fell head over heels in love with my boys and was very affectionate with them always. As an adult I just said to myself forget this nonsense and I started telling my parents “I love you” every time I talked to them so they said it back. I forced it, LOL! Of course, I always tell my children and their S.O.'s and my grandchild.
I came from a very huggy and kissy culture, so yes, lots of openly expressed affection. It was interesting to see many Americans much more physically restrained even when it came to small children and babies. Though I think, along with saying “I love you,” that’s changed a great deal.
Nope. And I was often made to feel like a disappointment because I was pretty disinterested in the gender norms of the time, too.
My parents were not very affectionate at all when we were growing up. They were very strict and very against “spoiling” us. I really think it was a thing for that generation. They became much more affectionate after my siblings and I were grown.
My parents were not very demonstrative, but I never doubted their love. With that said, we didn’t talk about/express emotions in our house, and I came to view this as unhealthy so tried to parent differently on this front.
As an adult, I feel like my parents did the best they could given the norms of the time and their cultural upbringing. I hope my kid feels that way about us later in life!
Mine were always affectionate with each other and with us kids. We never hung up the phone ever without an “I love you” at the end. (Not that we didn’t get mad at one another–but could never stay mad long). Never realized how lucky I was! My aunts and uncles were equally affectionate.
My husband wasn’t as lucky as I was growing up–but it probably made him more determined to show our own kids the affection he missed at times.
Same as @gouf78 above. I took it for granted and assumed it was normal until one of my friends/college roommate brought it up after I got off the phone with my parents in our dorm room. She noticed we always ended with “love you”. She said they never said that in her family which made me sad for her and also made me realize I was fortunate.
My guess is it is less generational and more cultural.
My parents were very affectionate. I was told very frequently that I was loved, and my Dad in particular was very generous with the hugs.
My parents were demonstratively affectionate with each other and with me. We said, “I love you,” all the time. I thought this was how all families were, but I learned differently when I married. Dh’s mother is fairly affectionate and says, “I love you,” but not his dad. He has never told dh he loves him. He is harsh and critical and unapproving unless one is doing what he thinks is best. I have also only seen him touch my mother-in-law in a kind way one time (during her father’s funeral, he put his arm around her). in the nearly 30 years that I have known them. I’ve never seen him hug her or kiss her or heard him pay her a compliment. He’s basically a grumpy old man. I think, especially for some men of that era, the way one showed love to one’s family was by “providing.” He got up and went to work every day. I’m thankful my dad did that, too, but I’m ever so grateful that he was capable of expressing the emotion of love as well. One of my mantras is that you’re never useless if you can serve as a bad example. My fil was definitely a bad example. I think dh is purposefully very affectionate with our ds almost as a form of rebellion.
“My fil was definitely a bad example. I think dh is purposefully very affectionate with our ds almost as a form of rebellion.”
Same for my grandfather and my father. My father made a concentrated effort to let it stop with his own dad and chose to parent differently.
" I took it for granted and assumed it was normal until one of my friends/college roommate brought it up after I got off the phone with my parents in our dorm room."
You just never know how much the people around you have contended with during their lives.
" I think dh is purposefully very affectionate with our ds almost as a form of rebellion."
Not a form of rebellion–he just recognized right from wrong at an early age and that family is a high priority.
You’re lucky!
My mother was not cold or withholding at all. My father was a little standoffish, but it was mostly being shy and being a little intimidated by parenting. My sisters and I hardly noticed, because until we were in our late teens our “father” was almost entirely a fictional creation our mother sold us on. She was always telling us how much he loved us, how much he cared, what he wanted for us . . . It was a profound moment in my life when I figured out he barely knew anything about me and had no idea what to say to me if we weren’t talking about politics or movies, and that almost everything I knew about him came from my mother or Philip Roth. But there was no question he did love us and did care. He was the softy parent you went to when you needed to play one parent off against the other.
My wife had a close, loving relationship with her mother, and a much more distant one with her father. He was a charming, sophisticated man, but he did not tell her he loved her often, if ever. She didn’t say it a lot to him, either. I think it was different with her sisters, though. At least some of them had a much more openly affectionate relationship with him. I knew both his brothers, and they were very kissy-huggy people. The distance with my wife probably reflected the facts that she was always very independent and not in need of a lot of parenting, that during most of her youth his job was essentially classified, so he couldn’t ever talk with her about what he did, and that he was unhappy in his marriage and was counting the days until she grew up so he could leave his wife and marry his girlfriend. Plus, she believed his work was immoral and was vocal about it. Stuff like that will get in the way of emotional openness.
My parents were not very openly affectionate when I was a child but were kind and compassionate and became more affectionate over the years. My ex-husband’s dad was not openly affectionate (as far as I know) but was not kind or compassionate and has not become more affectionate. His mom, before her descent into Alzheimer’s disease, was mostly a sweet person.
Growing up, I knew my parents loved me, but I can count on one hand the number of times they said, out loud, that they loved me. I can remember my father hugging me once. I just assumed this was normal.
Now they are much more demonstrative in their affections, but now it feels weird.
^^^^ Exactly our situation. Both parents. Only as we and our parents aged did they begin to show affection. My in-laws were even worse to my husband and siblings. Till the day they passed away, they didn’t hug, or say loving words to their children. All of my in laws don’t know how to reciprocate a hug. We make sure our kids hear it often and are hugged often.
When I was a teen, my mother frequently said, “I love you, but I don’t understand you.” Was that typical for any of the CC posters? Perhaps a mantra of the times? It was not consoling or heartwarming when I used to hear it.
I did (and do) have very different interests than my mother. Our standards of conduct and morality are the same - my mother just couldn’t (and still can’t) accept that I have a different profession than hers, use my spare time in pursuits different than her choices, do not run my house as she did or raise my kids with her rules/assumptions/routines.
My dad (more like me in personality and interests) was more openly affectionate with my and my sib.
I FELT very loved by my mother, but here I am reading this thread and trying to recall if she was “affectionate”.
No, I don’t think so. All in all, we are not much of a kiss & hug family.
I am not sure, but I think I felt so loved by her because she seemed to enjoy my company so, and was interested in what I had to say.
My dad had a rough life growing up with stern Eastern European immigrant parents. He did loads better than his dad did to him, but no, not what I’d call affectionate. He was the classic “provider” as a way to show love.
Also wondering how much Love Languages come into play. Most of us, in my family, are Acts of Service people.
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For those of you with parents or in-laws who weren’t affectionate in words, hugs, or kisses to their own children, were they more so to their grandchildren?
Also, if your parents weren’t, would you describe them as introverted?