<p>Some people just don’t know how to communicate very well. You might ask them some pointed questions like “Do mean that…” or “Are you saying that…” to try to get them to isolate their thoughts and express them.</p>
<p>If you do get to the point where you feel you’ve tried and just can’t get through to them, it’s a very good one to tuck away in your thoughts and resolve not to do to your own kids. That might give you a better feeling about the inquiry and attempt you’ve made to break through. Part of becoming a young adult is realizing the limitations of your own parents. I was going to say “forgive” but caught myself, realizing I only got to that as an older adult. Someday (not now maybe) you’ll be able to forgive your parents their most hurtful limitations, freeing up airspace to recognize other goodness they brought that was overshadowed by their flaws. Adults continue to think about their parents for a lifetime, but the thinking gets better, less painful, even if the parents don’t change one bit. That is what I’m trying to say. </p>
<p>Also, if you resolve to change it in the next generation, not repeat that same communication mistake with your own kids someday, you’ll be freer. Then you can reduce right now how much it hurts. Thinking about how you’ll deal differently with your own kids is empowering; emboldening as our prez says! LOL. And guess what–they’ll say the same junk to their grandchildren, you can’t help it, except then you’ll be the parent!</p>
<p>Did you ever have the opportunity, in school, to write your parent’s biography? Basically, it’s a school assignment, where the child has to ‘interview’ an adult.</p>
<p>I still have one I wrote, when I interviewed my father, who came to USA around 1912. I TREASURE this document intensely, because it gave me such a window to his perspective. If it were not for the assignment, it is likely that I NEVER would have learned the information.</p>
<p>Bear in mind, you need to think of your questions ahead of time, so you’ll learn the information that you want to know. For example,
- what did they do after school each day when they were teenagers
- what did they do on Saturday nights when they were 16
- did they want to attend college, did they attend, how did they pay for it
- did they want to travel on their own
- what did they want to do that their parents forbade
- etc</p>
<p>How about, even if the assignment does not exist, pretend that it does. Or that you are making a scrapbook of their lives, and need to fill in the parts from before you. If you have nieces/nephews, tHis is a lovely gift for them.</p>
<p>A few years ago for Christmas, my parents gave us spiral bound versions of their “memoirs.” Both were fascinating. They were just a series of short acounts, with titles like “The Dirtiest Man I Ever Met” (about the coal delivery guy) and “My Uncle Joe” (the uncle who actually had a good job during the Depression and supported the whole extended family.) My dad’s was pretty long and was of close to publishable quality. My mom’s was shorter, but her childhood was worse and there was a lot she didn’t talk about, to protect some still living relatives.</p>
<p>Maybe you should encourage your parents to sit down at the computer and write some paragraphs about their childhoods. You’ll value them in the future.</p>
<p>I hope I’m not going out on a limb here being a newbie and all but isn’t it the desire of most parents to provide a better path than the one they traversed? Do we not want our children to avoid the hardships we had to endure? I’m not saying that we should pamper them so much that they never have to face a challenge but more just to provide a better way where and when we can.</p>
<p>It sounds as though you have shown gratitude and are thankful and honestly, that’s about all you can do. I suppose what I’m saying is be as redundant with your thanks as they are with their reminders of their hardship and hopefully, over time they will soften.</p>
<p>To be honest, I think it might have something to do with being an immigrant - although I don’t know if the OP has immigrant parents. I used to do that a bit with my son ‘you have it so good’ and all that. He is a lot more privileged than I was to be sure, and we did come to the US to have a better standard of living. I stopped when he started parodying me. My husband still does that but he doesn’t understand the parody. I don’t do that anymore, I think (at least I hope so). I doubt if he and I could be friends if I did not have empathy for him, he’s 21 and an adult now.</p>