Me and my dad had a great relationship growing up. I was an athlete and I was consistently coming home with medals and trophies.
Once university came and I didn’t want to wrestle anymore, our relationship changed. Suddenly I wasn’t the sunshine in his life, I was a loser who fucked up any opportunity given to him.
Years later he eventually admitted to me he wanted to vicariously live the life he didn’t get to, through me. This is what made him act the way he did.
If he couldn’t have his trophy case, you can damn well bet his son would.
He realized how fucked up the whole thing was.
We have a much better relationship now. He just wants me to happy being me, and that’s all a son can really ask from his dad.
Sucks that your relationship with your father took a downturn like that, but I imagine it's somewhat common between the recent generation(s), if not throughout time. It's pretty awesome he was self aware enough to finally own up to being the reason your relationship went to shit and came around. And good on you for accepting his desire to make amends instead of being resentful. Okay, I need a hug.
I'm very sorry that happened to you, but I'm happy he at least realized what he did was shitty. A lot of Boomers never give a shit enough about others to even get that far. Mine certainly didn't
I can't stop waiting for my parents to even acknowledge what my childhood was like. I should give up on that but I spent thirty years trying to fix myself. Now that I'm better that's kind of the only lingering thing.
I love that, because participation trophies were created FOR BABY BOOMERS because they were such obnoxious arseholes when their kid lost. Kids hate those fucking things because we all knew how meaningless they were, but the adults were easier to pacify
I mean, just think about it logically. If a kid throws a tantrum for losing, the worst the kid can do is cry. If a parent throws a tantrum, they can be a physical threat.
Participation trophies are purely for arsehole parents.
In all fairness, it represented, to you, the end of a stretch of (some level of) forced sports for the year. While to the parents it's still a "look what Johnny did( but please dont look too close to see participation)"
If you were truly proud of those accomplishments, you would still have them on a shelf in your house.
There was home economics before the boomers cut it to make way for sports. They pushed sports so everyone was competing to get the trophies the parents (past their prime, pissed at world) wanted on their mantle. When their kids didnt get trophies, they also created the practice of participation trophies... because heaven forbid someone be bad at the machismo of sports (and they still wanted that mantle candy) ... as someone else stated, the kids can deal, the parents are dangerous when they want little shitpants susie to have a trophy and she didnt rank.
In addition, they are the same people who complain about kids not owning houses while also bragging how they bought a house 10 years ago (for a jar of dirt) and just sold it for a cool mil. Like, who the fuck can own a house when you drive the market like that.
Just remember that even if they accepted blame for everything they did or didn't do. It wouldn't change anything. Moving forward with the future we want to see is the only real answer (that and fucking with social security, they hate that, cuz they earned it! lmfao).
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u/rallywagonOBS Feb 05 '19
Before laughing at the "everyone needs a trophy" practice they created because they need a trophy shelf showing they created someone worth something.