Did you choose your parents?

[Mem]

There is a concept in Buddhism that implies that you chose your parents before you were born, because they are who you needed to learn from.
(I don't know the exact concept, I just heard it before)

Does this apply to you?

In my case it does.

 

[arliss]

I thought you had chilled with these stupid ass questions.......you just don't learn...............

 

[Mem]

.......you just don't learn...............

SAME AS YOU ALWAYS WERE.

Are you mad because I don't respond to your PM's after I told you not to PM me?

If I were to guess, I don't think you even like your parents.

 

[prepstudinsc]

There is a concept in Buddhism that implies that you chose your parents before you were born, because they are who you needed to learn from.
(I don't know the exact concept, I just heard it before)

Does this apply to you?

In my case it does.

If that is the case, I hope to God that Britney Spears can teach her two kids something.

In all honesty, I don't believe in this concept being a Christian. Parents should be able to teach their children things, but I don't think that we can choose our parents.

 

[Mem]

If that is the case, I hope to God that Britney Spears can teach her two kids something.

In all honesty, I don't believe in this concept being a Christian. Parents should be able to teach their children things, but I don't think that we can choose our parents.

Okay, let me ask it this way, if you were to pick your parents, would you pick the ones you have?

I think the concept is also that you get the parents that you deserve...I guess based on a previous life (I really don't know that much about it)

Maybe Britney's kids were Nazis in a previous life.:wink:

 

[2322]

This may sound horrible but no. I would have chosen different parents. I see so many people who have warm and close relations with their parents; feel they can discuss and talk about anything, don't feel they have to be on their guard around them. While I love my parents, I'm not close to them. My mother is distant, not particularly warm, and demonstrates love by trying to control the lives of her children. My father is generally negative, depressed, explosive tempered, also distant, and withdrawn. He refuses to seek help for these issues no matter how much my sister and I have urged him to. He's not always like that of course, but enough so that he's driven me to arm's length over the years.

I never kiss or hug my father and only air kiss my mother.

Then again, we are dreadfully WASPy.

I think the hardest lesson of becoming an adult is learning to recognize and accept the failings of our parents not just as parents, but as adults in their own right. I'm sure I would have been a better son to any parents and a better man in general if I had more nurturing and loving parents.

 

[2322]

I thought you had chilled with these stupid ass questions.......you just don't learn...............

fftopic:

This isn't a stupid question Arliss. Your comment is inflammatory and doesn't add to the thread. Please confine your issues with mem to private. This feud between you two is souring the LPSG experience for everyone else and I know neither of you want that. If mem bothers you so much, why not put him on ignore?

 

[arliss]

feud?

 

[Mem]

This may sound horrible but no. I would have chosen different parents. I see so many people who have warm and close relations with their parents; feel they can discuss and talk about anything, don't feel they have to be on their guard around them. While I love my parents, I'm not close to them. My mother is distant, not particularly warm, and demonstrates love by trying to control the lives of her children. My father is generally negative, depressed, explosive tempered, also distant, and withdrawn. He refuses to seek help for these issues no matter how much my sister and I have urged him to. He's not always like that of course, but enough so that he's driven me to arm's length over the years.
I never kiss or hug my father and only air kiss my mother.
Then again, we are dreadfully WASPy.
I think the hardest lesson of becoming an adult is learning to recognize and accept the failings of our parents not just as parents, but as adults in their own right. I'm sure I would have been a better son to any parents and a better man in general if I had more nurturing and loving parents.

You must realize that this is how they were raised by their parents. They do the best that they know how.

My parents are great. I'm the one who is a little distant from them.

My grandfather beat my father when he was a kid. My father never beat us, but he would yell at us and make us cry.

Some of the things parents did, when you look back on it, it's something that I would never do.

My parents are kind, sweet , helpful, non-judgemental and caring.

 

[Mem]

fftopic:

This isn't a stupid question Arliss. Your comment is inflammatory and doesn't add to the thread. Please confine your issues with mem to private. This feud between you two is souring the LPSG experience for everyone else and I know neither of you want that. If mem bothers you so much, why not put him on ignore?

I don't have a feud with him. I have nothing with him. He is nothin to me, and I feel sorry for him.

you are wrong there, he loves any attention, even negative.

 

[2322]

I don't have a feud with him. I have nothing with him. He is nothin to me, and I feel sorry for him. you are wrong there, he loves any attention, even negative.

feud?

At the risk of veering even further off-topic :

If he was really nothing to you then he wouldn't elicit your pity ("...I feel sorry for him") nor your contempt ("...he loves any attention").

Yes, "feud."

The truth is you both dislike each other and pretending you don't doesn't fool anyone. Shocking, no doubt, yet there it is. I have no complaint with either of you and hope you will understand when I ask that you guys keep your problems with each other confined to PMs (replied to or not). LPSG has had enough problems lately. We need to work as a community to help make it better and fighting among ourselves won't just hinder that, but damage the group even further. You're both prolific posters and this isn't something that can be confined to just a few threads. Certainly we don't all have to be Kum ba ya, just relatively decorous.

We need both you guys, because you are both very frequent posters, to make LPSG a fun and happy place to be. Hate or love each other, I don't care, but every time this kind of thing happens, you diminish not only yourselves but everyone else. That's what I mean when I say that neither of you want that.

Please, take it easy on each other in public. If not for yourselves then for everyone else. Things are a bit precarious now and we need your help. :smile:

 

[Mem]

Please, take it easy on each other in public. If not for yourselves then for everyone else. Things are a bit precarious now and we need your help. :smile:

You are correct. He baits me and I fall for it. I need to ignore him in posts as I do in PMs.

 

[Sassy88]

I don't know anything about Buddism, so I will answer the 'if you were to pick your parents....'

My father, definately not. He left us just as I was being born (I am the youngest of 5 girls) he never wanted anything to do with any of us nor did he contribute anything to our upbringing . Besides the fact that his actions caused my Mum to have to work so hard to bring us all up, I have no have no real illfeeling toward him at all, well I actually have no feelings for him whatsoever. I am just relieved his actions didn't turn me into a man-hater!!

My Mum absolutely yes!! I couldn't have chosen a more wonderful Mum if I had had the choice of a million.

 

[naughty]

Mem,

THough I do not practice Buddhism, I have heard it said that God never wastes a parent on a child. I believe that sincerely in my case. I thank God regularly for my parents. I would not trade them for anyone else. They both exhibited such wisdom and loving kindness in raising me. I know that they both could have done so many other things rather than spend their time investing in my brother and me. I do hope that I am making my mother proud and did make my father proud while he was alive.

 

[2322]

You must realize that this is how they were raised by their parents. They do the best that they know how.

Yes, I do realize that. I know or knew both pairs of grandparents and could see where it came from. My father could be scary. He once broke down my bedroom door in a rage so he could get at me. I don't remember much after that except that my mother just stood there and cried while he hit me. I was less than 10 years old. I even remember when I was in my crib once and I was making noise at night he came in and started shaking me violently to get me to shut-up as I was just babbling for no reason. This isn't an implanted memory either because I remembered the layout of the room down to the wallpaper and confirmed it with my mother. We moved from that house when I was 4. Hell, I even remember the apartment we were in when I was less than 2. Confirmed that place as well.

My father has mellowed a bit over the years and realizes what an asshole he was. He rarely lived with us because my parents were separated for most of their marriage. He still has an explosive temper, still threatens me physically though now I stare him down and know I can physically overpower him. He does, however, still have guns and that worries me sometimes. He is still very difficult to be with due to the depression and martyr complex he's developed.

My mom's easier to take but if you don't behave or do what she wants you to do, then she nags and nags and nags and nags ad nauseum. She doesn't trust men, feels she has to control them to be safe. Her views on sex were once expressed to me as, "men take and women give." . Her mother was much the same way though I always felt she loved my grandfather dearly. He liked that she ran everything and she liked that he let her. It worked in that relationship. My great. grandmother was even worse so I guess the gene has mellowed a bit over the generations. My mother's assets were that she's very smart, and was very beautiful. If you've seen pictures of Joan Fontaine when she was young then that's very close to what my mother looked like. Naturally blonde, tall, blue eyes, well-educated, and well-dressed. Despite that, she never had much self-confidence with men. She's happily married now to her high-school sweetheart who is also a cousin by marriage on her side (I have an enormous family that actually keeps in contact with each other) so I knew him growing-up. She's much happier now and I'm happy for her.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Okay, let me ask it this way, if you were to pick your parents, would you pick the ones you have?

I think the concept is also that you get the parents that you deserve...I guess based on a previous life (I really don't know that much about it)

Maybe Britney's kids were Nazis in a previous life.:wink:

Since I never knew my father (he died suddenly at a fairly young age when I was less than a year old) I can't give an answer about him.

As to my mother, yes I would have chosen her and would choose her again. She did an excellent job raising me as a widowed mother and gave me great support, guidance, love and discipline molding me into the man I am now.

 

[Mem]

I do hope that I am making my mother proud and did make my father proud while he was alive.

I am sure that you made your father proud, and I am sure that you make your mother proud every day.:wink:

 

[B_Think_Kink]

You must realize that this is how they were raised by their parents. They do the best that they know how.

I just wanted to add to this point. It is not always how they were raised. It frequently is, but not always. Different stress factors in ones life play out as well. Lack of job, trust in a relationship, and on and on. People who abuse are not doing the best that they know how though, I'm sorry. They are taking out their anger on their children. Mental illness or other factors, it is not something we want people to think is ok by saying their parents did the best they could.

 

[Mem]

I just wanted to add to this point. It is not always how they were raised. It frequently is, but not always. Different stress factors in ones life play out as well. Lack of job, trust in a relationship, and on and on. People who abuse are not doing the best that they know how though, I'm sorry. They are taking out their anger on their children. Mental illness or other factors, it is not something we want people to think is ok by saying their parents did the best they could.

Mentall illness is not something you can control, it is a medical problem. Unless one can get the proper help, it is not their fault. That is why we classify people as criminally insane. They don't know what they are doing something, nor why.

People who abuse for the sake of hate or resentment is a different story.

I was briefly friends with a gay guy who hated his mom, but he loved his
step-mother.

I have always been in a loving home, so have my friends and family. It is odd for me understand how someone can treat a child without love or caring.

 

[B_Think_Kink]

Mentall illness is not something you can control, it is a medical problem. Unless one can get the proper help, it is not their fault. That is why we classify people as criminally insane. They don't know what they are doing something, nor why.

People who abuse for the sake of hate or resentment is a different story.

I was briefly friends with a gay guy who hated his mom, but he loved his
step-mother.

I have always been in a loving home, so have my friends and family. It is odd for me understand how someone can treat a child without love or caring.

Exactly my point. It is not always safe to say someone did something to their best. Because you never know. Someone who refuses to get help did not do their best as a parent.