Today on BBC - does anyone know the mum?

What an absolutely vile post NoNews! You should be ashamed of yourself, but in your certainty of your own perfection you won't have the necessary awareness.

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I’m saying they should try and be more understanding of their parents and talk to them rather than simply cut all contact.
On SM the AC seem to vie with each other to say how toxic their parents are/were, in the same way that anyone with marital problems is advised to LTB.

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Sago

The young man himself is an author and qualified counsellor, it is probably unfair to refer to him as an influencer.

He has Instagram/Facebook/TikTok accounts so is easily contactable.

Obviously there are two sides to every story, I was an abused and neglected child in a middle class family.
Outwardly even looked fine, private schools, holidays, well dressed, attending mass every Sunday etc.

I was physically and mentally abused, my parents had lots of nasty little tricks up their sleeves.
I once had to pack my bags, say goodbye to my brother (golden child) I was going to be dropped off at an orphanage.
We got in the car drove somewhere, I was given a beating then told we could go home, I was given a second chance.
I was 9.
I was starved of affection, told I was a “guttersnipe” whatever that is and put down and ridiculed at every turn.

My parents were clever, they told everyone I was a fantasist therefore if I tried to tell anyone I was wrong and they were proved right.

Even as an adult my mother told family,friends and neighbours lies about me.
How she always had to bail us out financially, how we bullied her and coerced her for money.
The most money I ever received from my parents was £40 for my fortieth birthday.
She told one friend she had never been to our home when we moved back, we had lived there 5 years, she came nearly every Sunday!

I tried to go no contact but she made my life hell, it was easier to tolerate her.
I wish I had stuck it out.

I think it’s possible but rare for a child to fabricate abuse.

I cut contact with my emotionally abusive mother when I was 20 I was married with two children, and my gentle lovely father was to afraid of her to have any contact with me or my children.
I hadn’t been told she had died until I found out by chance a year after her death, I can’t honestly say I cared or cried as I hadn’t had contact for 40 years, I new my family were better off without such a toxic person in our lives, there were many times in my life I would have loved a mother to talk to, but I knew she would never have been there for me.
I parented my children doing everything opposite to what she had done and they always say what a fantastic childhood they both had.
Some people are just not meant to be parents.💐

bd dispute
Oh for a five minute edit facility!!

be due to

NoNews

Oreo

I see it as more the younger generation having little tolerance or understanding about being a parent and the stresses that it brings, as well as having no sympathy for whatever life threw at said parents.
Being selfish and often cutting parents out of their life for spurious reasons.

It's sad you see it that way, but whatever helps you sleep at night I guess.

How it makes them selfish is beyond me.

Are you a new poster NoNews?

If so, welcome.
We used to have a welcome thread, I think.

Oreo
They may learn about the stresses and strains themselves one day.
I do think there seems to be more self-absorption now than in previous generations but that could bd dispute to the influence of social media and mobile phones, this being a case in point.

Sometimes, when there’s nothing else on and I need to sit,I watch Judge Judy.

It’s amazing how easily some people instead of sticking to their main complaint or argument, start throwing in all kinds of minor things that have displeased them, exaggerate or make up stuff to bolster their testimony.

Judge Judy has a radar for that sort of thing.

It’s a real lesson in how a lot of people approach life with an inability to discriminate or interact without becoming petty.
To me a complaint about orange juice just diminishes any real concern there might be.

It becomes laughable and means anything else isn’t taken as seriously. because the comedy of the orange juice has flavoured everything else.

🍊

Nothing personal here, as my AC have a very good relationship with us, but I feel sympathy for those cut off parents wondering where they went wrong.
Most didn’t I expect, but just have selfish AC or ones who have MH problems which they blame on their parents.

It’s a trend.☹️

Because they only consider their own feelings NoNews is what makes them selfish.
Of course there really are some terrible parents but AC seem to navel gaze a lot and then cut family members out of their lives if they find them less than perfect.

NoNews

"there can’t possibly be enough parents who were so terrible to go no contact and called toxic."

Why not? Nearly the entire world has a rich history of trauma and inequality, and we only relatively recently started deeply studying and caring about mental health.

Instead of a social media trend, it's more of a generational divide. Where the younger generation is less ignorant about mental health, while the older generation struggles with accepting this new information.

I’m sorry, but I simply don’t agree, at 67, perhaps considered the “older” generation, having been together with my husband for 32 years whose mother is schizophrenic and having both my biological father and maternal grandfather die by suicide when I was 4 and 15 respectively, I consider myself very familiar with poor and unstable mental health and with a daughter having been diagnosed in adulthood with Borderline Personality Disorder and another daughter, also diagnosed in adulthood with Austism and ADHD (yes, I’m fully aware this is NOT a ME issue), and an adult son with quite severe anxiety and depression, we’veALWAYS been aware of the difficulties people face with emotional and mental health difficulties.

We talk frequently about such issues within our household and explained to our children from a very young age why their granny exhibited strange and erratic behaviour.

Not everyone over 60 lives in the dark ages.

foxie48

TBH I wish there was more of a focus on acceptance of other's faults, tolerance and understanding. My mother grew up in a family of 11 children with Victorian attitudes and strict discipline, my father grew up in poverty with an alcoholic and frequently absent father. Neither of them were brought up in a house full of kindness or generosity of spirit and my childhood was very far from perfect. I frequently disagreed with them but deep down I knew they were trying to do their best.
I've made lots of mistakes bringing up my own children but I've done my best. We've talked about things that they remember that made them unhappy and I'm very willing to apologise for my errors of judgement but it is really interesting how different their memory of an event can be compared to mine. Some thing I have absolutely no recollection of and tbh I think many of their memories are linked to photographs or a conflation of different events.
No one is perfect, most parents try to do their best, most parents fail on occasion and some parents have had very poor modelling of good parenting from their own parents. I've tried not to make the same mistakes as my parents but I've made others instead!

Oh how I agree

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Lathyrus3

Just had to do a little Googling. His qualifications appear to come from

MMS World Wide Institute based in New York.

Dr Cherie will guide you through all the steps you need to become an accredited Coach.

😂

I see it as more the younger generation having little tolerance or understanding about being a parent and the stresses that it brings, as well as having no sympathy for whatever life threw at said parents.
Being selfish and often cutting parents out of their life for spurious reasons.

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Just had to do a little Googling. His qualifications appear to come from

MMS World Wide Institute based in New York.

Dr Cherie will guide you through all the steps you need to become an accredited Coach.

Oreo

Stellar

If you read the article, you will see that he has become a social media influencer and a 'trauma informed coach'.

I fully agree with you, there can’t possibly be enough parents who were so terrible to go no contact and called toxic.
It’s yet another rubbish SM trend.

The trend and his site both sound toxic.
Dangerous.

Lathyrus3

A book to sell?

Publicity for his Tik Tok account, advising perfect people on how deal with toxic parents?

From the link:
In 2023, he started posting about his thoughts and feelings online.
"Every video I posted I had to take a deep dive into my life, and my own childhood and see why I do what I do, and why other people did what they did," said Ben

NoNews you posted:
Why is the estranged child's picture in the article, let alone the very first thing that pops up?
I haven't read the article yet but it's clear his autonomy and privacy is not genuinely respected by his mother.
I can't blame him for estranging from a parent like that.

In fact the opposite from what you understood the article to be about, NoNews.

Stellar

If you read the article, you will see that he has become a social media influencer and a 'trauma informed coach'.

I fully agree with you, there can’t possibly be enough parents who were so terrible to go no contact and called toxic.
It’s yet another rubbish SM trend.

I have a good relationship with all my AC, and it’s clear we love and support each other, though growing up I certainly wasn’t a “perfect” Mum.

Ditto, Cossy

We are human, we all make mistakes. It’s so sad that some people cannot let go and be a little more tolerant and forgiving.

Well said.

I can understand someone not forgiving if they were violently abused and definitely not if the abuse was sexual but dealing with difficult teenagers can be very trying, especially for a single mother as Ben's appears to be, and must be hard. We don't all get it right and one family's 'right' could be quite different from another family's way of dealing with problems.

A book to sell?

Sago

Allira

It will be interesting to see what happens when Ben's children become teenagers then adults.
History often has a tendency to repeat itself.

We can also learn from history and break the cycle as I did.

I hope when his children reach adulthood they have a healthy relationship with their parents.

So do I.

We only have Ben's side of the story, of course.
Nicely timed just before Mothering Sunday too.