My parents weren’t affectionate as far as hugs or verbally. I’m sure my mom said “I love you” sometimes. My dad said he was proud of me and my mom cried when they dropped me off at college. Both were raised in the northeast in not very demonstrative cultures. Both were born in the 1930s.
I would describe them as introverted; they almost never had people visit our house other than my grandmother. And, I can count on one or two hands the times we visited other people’s houses who weren’t relatives.
It wasn’t really something I noticed until I had kids and visited my parents with them. My parents expected my kids to be “seen and not heard,” which wasn’t the way we were raising our kids. I ended up visiting them less because I didn’t like watching them pointedly ignore my kids.
Given that I had a physically demonstrative male relative who also molested me, I think it’s fine that my parents didn’t give lots of hugs and kisses, to me or to their grandchildren. I’m not saying that there’s always a 100% correlation between the various types of behavior (obviously, there isn’t), but in my situation, I am entirely okay with my own parents being more reserved.
My dad wasn’t verbally affectionate, but he was physically affectionate, lots of hugs, encouraging pats on the back, and even some kisses, especially with younger children and grandchildren. I think his happiest moments were when he had a child or grandchild on his lap, reading or singing to them, with a kind and gentle voice and demeanor.
My mom was both verbally and physically affectionate. I don’t think a day ever went by that she didn’t say “I love you,” often multiple times. Like my dad, she found her greatest joy in her kids and grandkids, and she wore it on her sleeve.
My mom’s parents were also very warm and affectionate people, my dad’s parents not. My paternal grandfather grew up in very hard circumstances in Europe, orphaned at 12 and indentured to a small farmer where he was required to work for his room and board, usually far inferior to what the family got. The farmer drank, and beat him when he was drunk. My grandfather fled to America at the age of 19. He thought it was his first duty as a parent to teach his sons that life is hard and they needed to be tough and stoic to bear up to it. He was a strict taskmaster, and I don’t think he ever once told my dad that he loved him, or showed any kind of physical affection. My mother was a godsend to my father. She showed him that family life could be warm and loving, and he took it to heart. But I think he always had a hard time saying, “I love you.” I don’t hold it against him. He showed it in other ways.
My dad, who would be 95 if he were alive today, was very affectionate, and came from a physically demonstrative family. My mother (would be 97) escaped to NY in 1939 and the whole family was pretty traumatized. I think she felt very isolated when she married and then when I was born. She was much more comfortably affectionate with my brothers, 1.5 and 7 years younger.
My mother got very sick when she was 57 and died at 63. I just know she would have been a spectacular grandmother, like her mother, my Oma, was. Alas, not to be. And my stepmother, who lived through her own traumas, tried but wasn’t very good at it. I am so grateful for my dad’s presence in my daughter’s life. She was the apple of his eye, and it made much more of an impression on her than I realized until recently.
sigh * definitely worth 5.5 years of really good, really expensive therapy!
My dad showed affection by putting us in headlocks, tickling, or standing over us while we were lying on the floor (reading or playing), straddling us tightly with his feet, and rocking. Only way he was comfortable demonstrating affection. Now in his 90’s I get hugs. And he has written some very encouraging emails, which mean a lot to me.
My mother told me when I was 5 that I was too old for hugs. Never touched me again (except for slaps) until last summer when she actually hugged me after spending a week at a vacation cottage with just me and my dad. Shocked the heck out of me. But long time people on the board will recall that my mother prayed to miscarry me and defended the cousin who raped me for three years so there really was no affection to demonstrate!
Neither have ever said they love me.
I hug my kids and tell them I love them every chance I get.
My mom wasn’t overly demonstrative. I got a little good night peck and I knew she loved me and supported me, though. Like so many others here, I think she grew more affectionate as I grew older, especially when grandchildren came along. My dad left my family when I was a teenager and he showed some affection when I was small, but not so much as my brother and I grew older.
@doschicos My mom was a true extrovert. But not very excited about raising children. And when I told her I was pregnant with D1 (first grandchild, I was 27 and married 5 years, she was 59 years old), she wailed, “But I’m too young to be a grandmother.” No congrats. She had 5 minutes for patience with her grandkids, then was done. She did tell me once that she was amazed and impressed at how easily my kids and my H & I said, “I love you.” So… maybe she realized she’d missed something.
My dad’s mom died when he was 11. I think that contributed to his inability to show much emotion. He seems to like being a grandparent a bit more than my mom did. He would take them off on surprise expeditions to places like the fire barn or fish hatchery when they were small. And seems quite proud of their accomplishments. I think my kids feel more affection for him than they did for my mom.
This is an interesting topic, and I think it’s a bit more complicated than whether one’s parents were affectionate. I was born in the early 60s as the first of four children. My parents were verbally and physically affectionate, but they were also verbally (both parents) and physically (my father) abusive.
When it came time to raise my own family, I chose to skip the abuse but embrace the affection!
I agree, @Massmomm. I also think that “taking care” of one’s family does not necessarily equate to being a good person. Some people provide financial support to their families but cancel the benefits of that by being emotionally and physically abusive.
It is an interesting topic, especially as society and role identity have changed a massive amount in the lifetimes of those who are older on this board. My parents both were physically affectionate with us. Lots of hugs, and pats on the back. Verbally, not so much. My dad, being Scottish, said that in his culture, the highest praise was to say you were “not half bad.” My mother, despite her avant garde tendencies, was not verbally demonstrative, and was certainly from the culture of thinking any child should not be praised, to avoid “a big head”. . My sister says she suffered as there was little verbal praise. My mom and I are just not verbally effusive still, and we get along just fine. I follow the same tendencies, physically affectionate, but not a lot of verbal effusiveness, which I think I could improve on with my kids still.
When I was young, the '60s, I saw an awful lot of verbal and physical abuse around me, friends beaten with belts, screaming drunk fury, in middle class neighborhoods. My parents teetered on the edge when angry, but were for the most part good to us.
Definitely in the it goes without saying camp here. My folks were the greatest parents. I just knew that they were behind me 200%, regardless of any stupid thing I did. No punishment, no restrictions, etc. The harshest thing my father ever said, after I was sent home from HS one day, was, would you quit getting caught!. He knew that was 10X more effective than any punishment. It was a way of saying, you’re smarter than this. Maybe it’s a Southern thing but my folks expected “naughty” behavior in the teenage years and dealt with it (Dad was from TX and Mom was from GA).
I got to see how this goes without saying was instilled in me when D18 was born. My mother simply sat there and held D18 tightly all the time. There was nothing else in the world, just the two of them. That can’t help but affect you at your core. Unfortunately, my mother passed away later that year. She would have been a great influence in D18’s life.
DW’s family was completely different. Authoritarian/jackass/insecure father and slavish mother (her parents were from OH and MI). Physical punishment for any slight. It’s difficult for me to imagine growing up like that. Of course, if I’m honest, it did enforce an attention-to-detail in DW that has served us well (I’m always flying by the seat of my pants).
My parents were, and continue to be affectionate despite the occasional spanking when we were young. My father’s mom was NA born on tribal homelands and that may have had something to do with it. His father grew up in Holland with a taskmaster but escaped home at age 15 and joined the merchant marines. He was also very affectionate and probably my favorite grandparent.
I’ve tried to be the same minus the spankings. We have a close and supportive family and just got back from a family vacation, 4 generations scattered across the country, 19 of us in one big house. The only two missing were my daughter, off to the Peace Corps the same day that the vacation started, and one nephew’s wife who just finished nursing school and stayed home to take the NCLEX.
The neighborhood where I grew up was lower-middle class and I saw friends physically and emotionally abused, including some sexual abuse. Many turned out OK anyway but many did not.
I’m 56. My family was not physically affectionate, and neither am I. My wife’s family is very “huggy,” and tried to include me in that. It makes me very uncomfortable. Most of them have stopped trying by now.
I cannot imagine never telling my children that I love them. What possible good is supposed to come from withholding those words? Is it seen by the one who won’t say it that it makes them weak somehow to let the people whom you love more than anyone or anything know this information?
I understand not being a huggy type far better than going through life and not telling children (who need to feel loved and experience those feelings of love themselves) that they are loved and valued as individuals.
@droppedit --“DW’s family was completely different. Authoritarian/jackass/insecure father and slavish mother (her parents were from OH and MI). Physical punishment for any slight. It’s difficult for me to imagine growing up like that. Of course, if I’m honest, it did enforce an attention-to-detail in DW that has served us well (I’m always flying by the seat of my pants).”
I used to think that way about H’s parents. (FIL and stepwife) long ago. H is super focused and a work horse when necessary. Nothing phases him much.
Changed my mind totally while my kids were growing up. His parents get NO credit whatsoever.
The “attention to detail” is an inborn good trait and not created by abuse. Not in the least.
Everything good in relationships that should have come easily was tainted by “why didn’t my parents do this for me and my siblings?” And when the answer is always “because your parents are c**p” gets old.
Shoulda put this on the rant thread…sorry.
My mom used to tell the story of flying across country alone with three little ones (baby, 3 and 5) to visit my granddad (her FIL who actually was very affectionate) who didn’t hug on arrival or hardly acknowledge us kids. She was really taken aback (and very tired too and mad.)
Later, he was still “stand-offish” in her opinion and finally asked him about it.
He explained that “when children got comfortable and wanted to meet him then he’d acknowledge them.”
“They will come to me.” It was up to the kid.
He never forced his presence on kids. When they were comfortable with him then they would come to him on their own terms. (He had a lot of experience with kids because of photography).
My former father-in-law is stand-offish in a different way. He expects people to be interested in him and approach him but he does not show interest in them and his interactions are often bullyish in tone. None of his grandchildren are fond of him.
Exactly @droppedit ! Love is something that can be shown without being spoken. In spite of their failures, I knew my parents loved me as well as they were able. I always had the food, clothing, and shelter that I needed, and they valued education, so they really tried to send us to the best schools they could.
My parents were of the laissez-faire type by the time I got into middle school. I was the youngest of 4 with a 10 year age difference with oldest to youngest.
I was the child allowed to roam the neighborhood and pretty much left the house from sun up to sundown. My mother didn’t allow us to play inside. I also walked to school and never got a ride in the rain or snow or any kind of bad weather. I shudder thinking about how I walked home from morning Kindergarten alone.
My dad had a very rough childhood, he was shipped off to different relatives for long periods of time. When he met my mom, her mom had immigrated here from Ireland, my grandfather was an electrician in the union and he thought they were unbelievably rich. He must have vowed to do better by his kids. He used to watch cartoons with me, played games with me, when he came to the beach (which he hated) he’d throw me in the water and put me on his shoulders. I was my mom’s companion, to the hairdresser, running errands, etc. But they didn’t hug me a lot or verbally give me a ton of praise, but I can sit here and tell you with everything I am that I was deeply loved.
As I got older I started hugging and kissing them more, and we became quite the hug and kiss family. My husband was a bit put off at first by how much hugging and kissing goes on in my family. At any arrival or departure every person hugs every other person.