Thread by @TheRealHoarse

I’ve had a couple Guinness so I am just the right level of disinhibited to lay out why I am white-hot with incandescent aggrievement about that dumb Bean Dad mother****** and the people defending him.

Buckle up. Turbulence may occur in flight.

1/

If nothing else, this will allow people to understand me better. Some will like me more; some will like me less. I do not remotely care which camp people fall into.

I had a fucked up childhood. It was an insidious kind of fucked up. Not physically abusive in a way that “counts”.

I spent weekends hostage to a depressed, alcoholic father in a small New York City apartment.

In summer, if the apartment windows were open when I came back from the schoolyard across the street and I could hear music playing too loud, it was going to be a long night.

3/

I was guilted out of activities; guilted into coming every weekend; guilted out of even *feeling like* it was reasonable for a child to expect their own childhood to revolve around *them* instead of around a toxic, debilitated parent who sucked all air out of the room.

4/

I was a good student. Despite undiagnosed ADHD, I tested in the top .5% of my grade.

And yet I spent my college and early adult years *uncomfortable*.

I spent them *ill at ease*.

I spent them *examining my life* and wondering why I found myself at 2am driving around in my car.

I was “successful” in my early career. I was a “high-achiever” at work.

And I made bad relationship choices and was restless and left so much on the table and examined my life some more.

Examining your life is what you do when you are hurt and are trying not to be.

6/

And then in my late 20s and 30s, I found some measure of resolution and clarity.

I cut off my toxic relationship with my father. I put an end to trying to “fix” significant others.

And I got a divorce and became a single parent.

7/

And as a father to a young son, I vowed that whatever came of his life, no matter what he chose to do or become, he would not spend his 20s and 30s driving around at 2 am trying to “figure it out.”

He would have no mountains of toxic waste to tunnel through.

8/

I made it my whole damn mission - my literal whole life’s work - to steer him through a childhood that was as healthy as I could possibly make it.

I hired a therapist to coach me. I worked at it.

I was an *intentional parent*. I thought deeply about how I parented.

9/

I fell short, failed and fucked up plenty of times - but not one was because I didn’t care enough, didn’t try hard enough or didn’t desperately want to do better.

And my son, thankfully, has known that to be true. He forgives me, my failures.

10/

I pushed in all of my chips - every last chip - on a wager that will only be settled years and years from now.

I bet my career, savings and entire life on a wager that if I pushed all I had to give into the center of the table, my son would know a different future.

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He would have no late nights, restless, unsettled, doing well on the surface but ill at ease.

He would have no dark outages in his childhood memories where other kids have bright technicolor stories of the most mundane things.

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I pushed every last chip in on a *theory* that I have no first-hand knowledge is correct:

A child raised with unconditional love and unwavering stability has the foundation for a happy life.

That is my wager.

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I question my choices. I harshly self-judge my failures. And I hope against hope that my son grows up to be happy.

Just that. Not wealthy. Not famous. Not powerful. I hope he grows up to be happy.

14/

So, when I read that piece of shit’s masturbatory thread about tormenting his daughter over a can of fucking beans - and people rushed to defend it - it provoked my deepest wrath over what I have spent decades trying to undo: the toxicity of being a hostage to a bad parent.
15/

I know what it is to be a 9-year old, deeply under duress, beholden to a dysfunctional parent, holding your breath until it abates.

If someone thinks that is good parenting, I pray for their children. That is so very much not good parenting.

16/

Having been raised no better is not an excuse. In fact, it makes it worse.

If someone was raised in toxicity but endeavors to perpetuate it rather than cure it, theirs is an even more egregious wrong.

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I don’t give a remote shit what is recalled of my achievements or career. I don’t care what people think of me. I don’t care what I do without. I don’t care what I don’t have.

I want my son to be happy. That is it. An unencumbered happy.

A happy without burden.

18/

If you are defending a shitty parent who engineered a contrived scenario rather than simply providing their child with loving, supportive parenting, either shut your mouth and stay or open your mouth and be shown out.

This is no harbor for abusive, dysfunctional parents.

19/

Been there. Done that.

It is my life’s work to do better by my own child.

I will certainly not provide a safe haven to that kind of deeply, toxic, awful, injurious parenting here in my replies.

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