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My first girlfriend in highschool had severe anxiety and was so incredibly quiet and shy. It was so tough cuz she was a genuinely sweet and caring person once she opened up to you. I was extremely surprised to learn her family was nothing like that when I met them. Until I met her dad, and he kept calling her an idiot, and stupid, and useless. Then I understood why she never wanted to say anything. Every time she opened her mouth she was criticized by her dad. This attitude towards your own kids is insanely damaging.

Like I've definitely raised my voice with my kids but couldn't imagine a world where I ever would call them stupid. That is just trash parenting and amazing that anyone would do that to their offspring.

One benefit of shouting at your kids and generally dismissing their emotions is that you can enjoy your retirement without them anywhere near you and die alone.

Not just yelling at kids, just being in a house where people are verbally abusive can fuck a person up, if my parents were not yelling at each other they were yelling at one of us kids. to the day 30 some odd years later just being around someone who is pissed off triggers my anxiety.

Just last night i went out to help my dad change a flat and it brought up so much shit from him yelling at me over everything when I was a kid. That was 30 years ago and he wasn't even yelling at me this time just pissed off at the situation.

This crap definitely sticks with you.

Any yelling beyond "don't do that thing that is imminently dangerous" can often just be parents taking out their stress on their kid. That's kind of how it felt whenever my dad yelled at me. It was never something that seemed sensible to yell about.

I am 70 the words uttered by my father when I was 5 still ring in my ears. He said "I wish you had never been born".

I loved my dad, but he would yell really angrily when he got mad at me and it would terrify me to the point where I would beg him not to hit me (he never hit me). I turned out mostly okay, but I can see how that could really screw someone up.

Maybe shouting at children all the time until they leave home is about the same as them getting sexually abused once.

But they aren't equivalent in the slightest when compared in the same quantities.

This is horrible to do, but I feel like this really downplays physical/sexual abuse.

My dad loves to yell. Not at me, anymore, but he got it from his mother - they used to work out their problems in the form of screaming matches. I remember early in my teenage years he would bring up, almost out of nowhere sometimes, that he never hit us. He was proud of that. But man oh man, he sure loved to yell at us.

I only remember my grandfather yelling at me, once. It's not even fair to say "yelling AT me", because he was yelling FOR me - I was a dumb kid and I'd left the front door open to go outside and play. Once I got in front of him, he explained to me - calmly, quietly, but firmly - why I couldn't do that. I never did it again. I don't remember him yelling before or since that moment.

I miss my grandfather - he's the source of some of my fondest childhood memories and I can only hope I do him proud. Meanwhile, when my dad dies, I'll be glad to be rid of him. So, you do the math.

Although I don't think verbal abuse is acceptable, I think that equivalency is a bit much

I got shouted at and called stupid all the time, but i feel being belted with sticks for minor things was probably what left more of a mark (mentally) to be honest

No wonder I'm so fucked up.

I only learned that I was raised by a major league narcissist with anger management problems after I met my wife. She has training in clinical counseling and helped me realize that soooo much of my personality and habits can be traced back to my upbringing. Turns out my grandfather treated him the same way.

Generational trauma is a cruel monster that many of us never learn about. That's a damn shame too.

I really hate the idea of parents. Like two people raise you and are responsible for you? Reading Brave New World as a kid, it took me until the very end to understand it as dystopian. I thought the idea of your parents being barely a part of the equation, just absent minded and high all the time? Great. Trusting school to raise you entirely using weird subliminal studying methods was actually an improvement. It is dystopian, but yeah I basically think this idea of an atomic family unit to be the most bizarre and selfish, anti-social bullshit. My parents didn't let me know my relatives, were able to choose who I was friends with, where I was able to go. And all the while I'm reliant on them to not be kidnapped or hate crimed and to support my goals rather than force me to sit at home. The abuse just continues on and on. I will never be okay, I can only hope to make some cool art before I die. But that start of life decides for you whether you will be important or not.