Did your parents ever take a deeper interest in you and your interests outside of your needs?
Both scenarios have a neglected child. Just one is planned and one is unplanned. So both are equally bad in my opinion because the effect on the child is more or less the same.
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Would it effect you the same?
I think in the one instance, the neglect potentially has more impact. If a parent that was irresponsible initially, then continues a pattern, it carries a different meaning than one that shows more intent and includes an implied rejection from the neglect that follows.
“Irresponsible initially” Geeze, crazy way to phrase it. What if the unwanted child was an accident despite precautions? And parents who didn’t want the child could be expected to be not as involved (still wrong), but a planned child that is equally neglected means the parents were selfishly putting their own wants for a child above the responsibility of raising the child.
There is no clean distinction between groups with the question you proposed, there are just too many variables that play into this sort of situation. Every family is going to be different, and every child going through this will react to the situation in a different way.
“Which is worse, seeing milk your roommate sitting on a counter and letting it spoil, or forgetting to put your own milk in the fridge and letting it spoil?” What’s the difference between them? Intention? Ignorance? Planning? How can you know from just those two examples?
There is no right or wrong answer. The question does not attempt to encompass the scope of potential issues. It simply frames a scope in isolation. A broader encompassing question would be interesting to me as well, although not likely in this place.
It’s different but largely the same outcome. In one scenario the child knows they were never wanted and in another the child knows that they were wanted and then something changed causing them to be unwanted. In both cases, the child in question feels unloved and discarded. Which then leads to the child questioning their self worth and purpose in life.
It made a difference to me. I was planned. Talking about it indirectly felt like it might help, but I was wrong. This is the second such question in this place where the response had a negative overall feeling and impact. It will be my last.
Hey friend, maybe these are questions better discussed with a licensed therapist than with strangers on the internet. You clearly have a personal interest in exploring this that you won’t be able to address on a forum like this. You deserve to be listened to by someone who can help you work through your thoughts and feelings about this.
I’m sorry to hear that. Why did you feel the need to ask this question in the first place? It’s not like one scenario invalidates the other. Or your feelings for that matter.
It is just a casual thing. It is not a big deal. I’m just aware of the issue and unaware of how normal such an experience is. I may not be all that bright but I come from people that are a whole different tier of illogical. I figure that many people with a disparity between themselves and their parents likely feel the same way.
It is funny to me how binary this place can be some times. One can have minor issues, or just expanding self awareness of the full spectrum of their life. Every comment is not an attack or divisive or loaded. People need to be able to talk and grow. That is the real point of casual conversations; an opportunity to expand perspective, come together, and grow.
I’m mulling over a dozen things all the time. Maybe that is a rather unique trait of my personality. I ask myself questions like this all the time. I can easily keep this aspect of myself internalized. I have no issues asking myself such challenging or messy questions.
The primary reason for asking here is to expand my understanding of normative behavior. I’m also probing the depth of Lemmy as a whole and the community present on Lemmy.ee out of curiosity, and even looking at how well federation seems to be working between Lemmy.ee and .world. My abstract perspective is always layered and multifaceted. I mostly want to be positive and engage my curiosity in unexpected ways. A lot can be inferred by how people perceive and respond to a question like this. Negativity is not a requirement. The tone of responses and the collective momentum through reinforcement reveals a lot about depth, open mindedness, curiosity, and even the mental health of the community as a whole.
Since you seem like you might be open to why you aren’t getting the responses you were seeking:
It is funny to me how binary this place can be some times.
But you set your question up as a binary and most of the responses were calling out that a binary choice is unrealistic and inappropriate for the topic.
Remember this is not a real time conversation. IRL, we could have gone from “binary is over simplistic” to additional back-and-forths in moments. On an asynchronous forum like this, it could be hours or days if ever you respond to this comment, and me to that comment, etc.
Sorry for not making this clearly stated outright and only implying it. I rarely make statements that are binary. Everything is basically an abstraction. It is one reason I am do ridiculously verbose with others. I feel some odd need to ground ideas and make as few assumptions as possible when I’m explaining something to someone else and think I understand the gap between what I know and their question or perspective.
In this instance I am the baseline so I do not know what the gap is between my intended nuance and users. I assumed wrong, and that is totally my fault.
I’m asking something akin to assessing how a house would burn if the fire started in the garage or kitchen. I understand that many people do not care about anything more than “the house is on fire.” However, I was attempting to ask a question to see how many amateur fire investigators want to have a casual chat. I simply misgaged the audience. I’m like a Swiss Army knife with a tool for every task, but a really shitty pair of scissors.
I won’t make this mistake again. I am never here for negativity from anyone.
To anyone that likes to downvote or be negative, I’d much rather you block me entirely. If I could see who you are, I would absolutely block you.
I’m also probing the depth of Lemmy as a whole and the community present on Lemmy.ee out of curiosity, and even looking at how well federation seems to be working between Lemmy.ee and .world.
This community is quite active with members from a lot of different instances. I don’t even think lemm.ee users are the majority
I don’t think attempting to quantify neglect to identify who is most traumatized is a healthy or productive exercise in this case. Both are bad for the children involved with so many internal and external variables affecting outcome.
It has deeper meaning to me, and I’m curious about outside perspectives to the point of playing devil’s advocate if I must.
The next real conversational question is, what is the difference between a parent that is well intentioned but not smart enough to take a deeper interest in their child beyond just the child’s fundamental needs, and one that is smart enough to have neglected to take an interest?
Edit: I’m getting the hint, I guess. People don’t want the messy therapeutic hard conversations or deeper subjects.
Growing up, I went to a magnet high school. Every Wednesday, we would spend half a day in home room having discussions about topics like this. That was my favorite school experience; sitting in a circle of a mixed group and having an open minded discussion. The school was on the edge of some rough neighborhoods and was 90% black, k-12, admission by application only, uni prep, and on the campus of a state college. It was intended to uplift the best and brightest in the local community while drawing in students from a wider pool as well. This type of question is only negative if you choose to view it in that light. It is very healthy to be open to the potential perspectives and experiences of others even on hard subjects.
There is a lot of nuance in what can be neglect in this kind of question. The majority of neglect is likely ignorance and the result of continuing the mistakes of their parents. By discussing these things casually and openly, it increases community awareness and helps to potentially break the cycle by getting someone to think about how they spend their time and what it means to be a good parent.
I find it impossible to have these kinds of conversations on Lemmy. Irl you can set up the structures to enable it - like ensure that everyone knows that it is a safe space to share opinions, none wrong or invalid so long as you approach it genuinely and don’t bully others, etc. - but here…
You’d have to create a niche community, and then nobody would ever hear of it, especially with only one post per slow unit of time.
Plus typing is different than verbalizing, especially on a mobile.
Plus people may want to avoid doxxing themselves by putting out so much personal info, which over the years can really add up.
The structure of Lemmy is set up more for doomscrolling memes and occasionally firing off a retort, more’s the pity.
As for the question: it seems similar to this one, is it worse to be shot in the head or poisoned? For both questions, I don’t think it matters: both options in them are bad, it being subjective which is worse, b/c beauty (and ugliness) is in the eye of the beholder, so it seems not a well-phrased question.
Agreed. Sitting in a room together with established rules is one thing. Anonymous comments online, lack of any personal connection and body language, asynchronous nature of forum comments. This is not the sort of place to try to recreate the atmosphere of OPs previous experience.
Zoomed out from that even further, I’ve found trying to recreate any high school era atmosphere to be disappointing. It’s more satisfying to savor the memory than to be disappointed in a failed recreation, IMO. Strike out and find a new experience, OP, instead of trying to find the old.
Agreed in the first half, and the first part of the second, but not the last. If you’ve ever had a good meal, does that mean that you should never attempt to have another good meal experience again?
OP is doing what many of us on the Fediverse long for - attempting to have a deeper conversation. It never works, at least not for me, but I do understand the attempt. People are simply not capable of setting aside their biases and preconditions and conversing in that kind of “safe space” environment, here. Instead, people actively downvote and move on, angry that you even so much as tried. Maybe an upcoming change to allow for private communities will help change things, when not every single post can appear on All to pollute everyone’s feed.
A personal example is my post: [Opinion] Biden Must Resign, which wasn’t even my firm opinion yet at the time but I thought that the article had made some great points that were worthy to explore & think about. Never mind the vindication that it ended up happening, never mind how patiently and repeatedly and firmly I mentioned that “blue no matter who”, never mind that the position was endorsed by the likes of Jon Stewart (my personal fucking hero) and George Clooney (who I’m not just citing as being famous, but rather someone who personally met with Biden recently just before that time, as e.g. I for one did not) - it was still downvoted far into the negative (ironically, if you sort that community’s posts by Controversial, this is the second post with a negative score, and the first one with a double-digit negative score, so apparently I’ve caused a new record low by having posted it there).
Another, this time non-political, personal example is …Will Save Your Life Next Week (13:25) that despite being (later) chosen by the non-profit Tournesol group to combat misinformation as one of their top 50 videos, once again features prominently if you sort that community by Controversial, appearing at the bottom of the first page for me right now. Admittedly the source gave it a click-bait sounding title on YouTube, which it seems they later changed, but on the other hand it is “Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell”, so I felt that it was very deserving of a deeper look despite that. It seems that most people disagreed so strongly that they actively downvoted it in order to get it to appear lower - this time not setting any new records, but still being on the first page among others with similar total scores and negative feedback.
Lemmy wants what it wants: content promoting Linux, memes, and news that lately (aside from the weather) seems mostly politics. The crowd-Think here is strong, and while I for one may rarely ever downvote anything (almost always reserved for when I feel the person speaking is being mean in some manner), others vehemently disagree, and also speak up with their comments as well. Most of which ignoring the points that you may have wanted to discuss, and instead being quick to hit the usual talking points that all of the other comments also say as well - essentially giving the person “a good talking-to” for their nerve to stand up and speak up, with something not universally agreed-upon; or else simply not responding to it at all.
But there is hope. e.g. poetry@lemmy.world and poetry@sh.itjust.works exist, to try to feed our souls, and there are always books to read rather than spending all our time on the internets:-).
I’m disabled and stuck at home. I have no alternative or option but to bottle or try. My chronic issues make it harmful for me to go anywhere that is not a necessity, and doing so is painful enough I am not myself.
People are fundamentally capable of more complex conversations but ultimately lack the maturity to see nuance and use a heightened self awareness when they have other easier outlets and assume others do as well. It is a major factor in the aloneness and insulated feeling of being in my situation.
It’s the asynchronous nature of Lemmy then that I think will be your biggest barrier to the complex, nuanced conversation you seek.
A person comments knowing it may be hours before it is responded to, if ever. So they write their comment to stand on its own as much as possible.
“A or B?”
“Neither, not enough information to say one is better/worse than the other”
Self-contained comment for a forum style platform.
Lemmy is a forum platform. Are you seeking a platform designed more for ongoing conversation? Like Discord or Matrix, perhaps.
Not that I want you to stop posting here. Just that you seem frustrated with the types of responses you received when I think those responses look like the obvious sort one would get on a platform designed in the way Lemmy is with the question prints you are asking.
You seem to think it’s because people don’t know how to be vulnerable or open to deep conversation. I think it’s because Lemmy is the wrong tool for those sorts of convos.
It doesn’t matter as to the context, ANY form of child neglect is bad!
Foster parent here. Any form of neglect, regardless of root cause, creates fucked up humans.
Worse for who? For the kid? Makes no difference. It’s much worse for the 1st parent though. They are a super shitty person.
Hey I was a child of one of each!
You can’t compare them. There’s no scale of trauma, you can’t say this was a level 6 while that’s a level 8. They’re both going to deeply effect you over the years in different ways.
Only way I dealt with it was by starting therapy.
My parents weren’t great, but I think they did their best given their limited resources and the context of social norms at the time.
I too go to therapy. It doesn’t help.
Both are equally irresponsible by definition. The only remaining factor would be if, in the first one, they tried to take an interest and failed, or if, in the second one, the parent knows of the child’s existence.
At least the one who planned the child though would be caring for them properly while in the womb.
I didn’t think of that one. That is a good point actually. It doesn’t completely hold to reality with someone I know. I mean, she had proper healthcare and cared even though it was an unplanned kid.
I was planned, but parents have never really taken an interest in me, but they don’t have many interests anyways, or friends for that matter. Their life revolves around cable TV and religion.
Reminds me of a friend of mine. Was born as the second son to a birth mother who is disabled and would seem ill-equipped for many physical tasks but who wanted to live like Amy Schumer, as well as an abusive birth father who was often said to use her. He ended up severely abusing the friend in a way that almost left him dead and was sentenced to two months (because corrupt judge) and the birth mother was ordered to give the friend up but was allowed to keep his older half-brother and later gave birth to a younger half-sister. Not satisfied with this, after he was adopted, the birth mother tried pulling some strings to compensate for his loss while at the same time not revealing she was his birth mother or why he had to be given up for adoption, also trying to get his adoptive mother to play along, which is something she was also able to get the birth half-brother and birth half-sister to do. When the friend finally found out, the birth mother would constantly complain he wasn’t interested in family matters having to do with the birth family or that he was making too big a deal about the abuse which she witnessed the effects unfold from which she publicly would deny the existence of, and things climaxed when the birth mother tried budding in and disapproving of his relationship, which led to an entire social dynamic ghosting her (except for the whole rest of the immediate adoptive family), but with her still trying to influence matters anyways, as she keeps doing. This is what I immediately think of anytime the topic comes up as I express that intent does matter.
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I mean I guess the first one slightly shittier but only marginally so. They’re both pretty shitty.
First is worse
Both are the same. You are what you put put into the world, the actual measurable effect of your existence, not the intentions in your heart that affect nothing.
