Why Adults Hate Their Parents

I am so glad I don’t have to go through all that anymore, is the first thought I have when I hear an adult talk about how they still hate their parents. When they say it with such animosity and rage, I remember all of the emotions that drove me to say such things, and I’m happy to be past all that. When I hear someone say that their parents are bumbling fools, idiots, or backwater hicks from the 1950’s, I remember saying such things. I regret some of it, sure, but as has been said of regrets, there is little that we can do about them now, and our struggle to correct past errors defines us.

I also remember thinking no one was listening to me. So, when they talk about how awful their parents are, I listen. I listen to those in their twenties, and I remember those complaints. I listen to thirty-somethings, and I try to remember if I was that angry in my thirties. When the complaints come from those who have cross the big four-oh!, the question I would love to ask them is, “Why is it so important to you that they still be wrong?”

“I’m smarter than my dad,” writes a twenty-something blogger. “I really wish I wasn’t. It’s like finding out Santa isn’t real.” 


Some carry this teenage hatred well into their twenties. The teen years are a period of cultivation, rebellion, learning, etc., that occur before our minds fully form. As we age, our mind matures, and so does our rebellion, until it manifests into either full-fledged hatred, or a condescending pity that recognizes their backwater modes of thought for what they are. This matured rebellion is also based on the fact that our parents still have some authority over us, and that reminds us of those days when our parents had total authority over us, and how they “abused it to proselytize their closed-minded beliefs on us.”


By the time we grow past our narcissistic teens and twenties, circumstances reveal the logic and wisdom our parents attempted to pass down to us, and the idea that some of it applies in some circumstances. (Some will never admit this. Some remain stuck in a peak of rebellion.) Their advice did not apply in all circumstances, of course, but it did in so many that we decided to turn the bumbling fool tint on our rose colored glasses. Then, when we reach our forties, we begin to think that they’re idiots all over again.

I wrote the last line to complete a joke I read. It’s a funny line, because there is an element of truth in it, but in my experience the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The truth is a hybrid of the lifelong recognition we have had of our parents’ failings combined with the points we begrudgingly give them on some matters. We also respect them in a manner we never did as kids, because we now have our own kids who view us as bumbling fools. As flawed as they were, and some of their advice and philosophies were fundamentally flawed, we have enough distance from our youth than we can now view them as fellow parents who tried to lead us down a path conducive for happiness and success in life. At some point, we learn it’s no longer about them. It’s about us. 

This specific timeline may not apply to everyone, as we all go through these stages on our own time, and the word hate may be too strong to describe the animosity some adults still have for their parents, but anyone that has been through the peaks and valleys of a combustible relationship with their parents knows it can be one hell of an emotional roller coaster ride.

Theory formed the foundation of much of my uninformed rebellion, and real-world circumstances revealed to me that some of the archaic and antiquated advice my dad offered me had some merit. These circumstances, as I said, included having my own child and my own attempts to protect the sanctity of his childhood, in the same manner my dad attempted to protect mine. As evidence of this, I once thought my dad committed some errors in raising me by sheltering me too much, until some know-it-all said that means my dad did his job. “How so?” I asked. I was all ready to launch into a self-righteous screed about how he knew nothing about my childhood, until he said, “By allowing your childhood to last as long as possible.”







My twenty-something definition of intelligence relied on emotion, theory, and very little in the way of facts. I thought they were facts, however, and I had the evidence to back them up. I thought I was intelligent, more intelligent than my dad was, but the question I did not ask is what is intelligence? The answer is it depends on whom you ask.



The question that we in the smarter-than-our-parents contingent must ask ourselves is how much of the divide between our parents’ level of intelligence and ours is in service of anything? I, like the snarky and provocative blog writer, can say that I knew more about more than my dad did, but I defined that divide and most of what I used to inform that divide involved inconsequential information that I could never use for a substantial purpose. The conditions of my dad’s life were such that he didn’t receive what most would call a quality education, but he used whatever he learned to prosper on a relative basis. One could say that the difference between my education and my dad’s, and the education of the snarky contingent versus her parents’, could be whittled down to quantity versus quality.    

In the Workplace  




Dad’s advice derived from his experience in the workplace, but that experience occurred in an era that required reverence of a boss. Thanks to the new age ideas of boards and panels conducting arbitration cases for those that have been fired, the various wrongful termination lawsuits, and the threat thereof that gave life to the Human Resources department, the reverence requirement was no longer as mandatory in my era.


Throughout the course of my life, I’ve met those who never went through these stages of rebellion. If you find this as incomprehensible as I did, all I can tell you is I’ve met them. They said rational things like this, in their twenties, “I never thought my parents were perfect, but I know that they always tried to steer me into what they believed to be the right course.”


We are our parent’s children, and at times, we feel trapped by it. Therefore, we focus on the differences. We may mention some of the similarities, but we take those characteristics for granted, and we think all parties concerned do too. Even when we reach a stage in life when we begin to embrace some elements of that trap, somewhere in our thirties and forties, we cling to the idea that we’re so different. The answers as to why these dichotomies exist within us are as confusing to us as the fact that they are a fait accompli.

When immersed in the tumult of the younger brain, trying to make some sense of our world, we may fantasize about what it would be like to have other parents. Our friend’s parents seem so normal by comparison. We think most of our problems could be resolved if we had their parents, or any normal people as parents. We might even fantasize about what it might be like to have been free of all patriarchal influence. We consider how liberating it might be to be an orphan, until we recognize how confusing that must also be. Those without parents must lack a frame of reference, a substantial framework, or a familiar foundation from which to rebel. When we consider this, we realize that our current identity is comprised of various pushes and pulls of acquiescence and rebellion to our parents.








As I sat in a pew staring at the pine box, I realized that no matter how obnoxious, self-serving, and angry my father could be at times, he was a member of an endangered species comprised of those who truly care what happens to me. How many people truly care what happens to us? Our closest friends may say they do, but they have their own lives to live. We know our parents care, but some of them show it by seeking constant updates, harping, and telling us how to live our lives, long after the tie that binds us has been broken. As impossible as this is to believe today, expressing some level of gratitude in whatever manner your relationship with your parents require might be the best thing you have ever done. We might not see it that way today, but my guess is that even the most obnoxious rebel will see it one day, and my hope is that this addendum will convince someone, somewhere that waiting one more day might be one day too late.


I’m a Little Bit Polka, and a Little Bit Rock and Roll

I used to think I was a rock and roll dude, and I mean totally … when I was around a bunch of polka people. I might never have been as avant garde as I thought, but I’ve been informed, of late, that I’ve become anything and everything but rock and roll. I’ve become polka. I found this out at dinner one night, when a real rock and roller rebelled against a polka comment I made. It didn’t completely surprise me that she considered me the vanguard of traditional thought –that needed to be squashed for the purpose of her attaining a rebellious, rock star personae– it did surprise me, however, to find out that I was only polka, but I liked it.

I, too, used to regard societal norms as something in need of a good squashing. I used to think those who ascribed to traditional thoughts did so in a 1950’s, Leave it to Beaver, and uninformed manner, until I realized I was doing what I was told. The avant garde informed me that if I wanted to be considered dangerous, risqué, and avant garde, there was a distinct set of beliefs to which I must adhere.

A rock and roll dude

Back when I had no idea who I was, or what I wanted to be, but I was willing to do just about anything, and say just about anything, and be just about whatever I had to be to have one person confuse me with a dangerous, Jimmy Hendrix lick, or a controversial and provocative John Lennon lyric. I wanted to be indefinable, complex and cool, because I didn’t know what I had to do to fill my basket yet, and it disgusted me when others, so sure of themselves, did. What my friend said to me the other weekend was that indefinable, rock and roll something that I would’ve said to my own polka people, twenty years prior, and my reaction to her comment was as silent as my recipients’ were.

Why was I silent? I didn’t know what she was trying to say, and I didn’t see the value in it. If I displayed confusion in the face of that comment and said, ‘What?’ she probably would’ve gotten off on that. I know I would’ve, in my rock and roll days.

‘Nothing,’ is what she might have responded had I made the fateful decision to say ‘What?’ and she would’ve done so in a deliciously dismissive manner. ‘You wouldn’t get it if I told you, and you probably never will,’ is something she might have added, and she would have considered that dinner discussion delicious.

It dawned on me that when I used to say such things to the polka people around me, it was as confusing to me then as it is now. I didn’t know what I was talking about back then, but I wanted to be the apathetic, complicated characters I saw captured so well in the movies of my youth. I thought those actors were so cool rebelling against complicated matters they knew nothing about, and I used the catch phrases and song lyrics they used to dismiss the polka generation to do so. I thought their lyrics were so delicious that they afforded the characters a persona that suggested they were the only ones who truly knew about the matters they were discussing. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t have enough confidence to pull it off, but for some reason no one was as affected by my presentation as those character actors were in the movies.

“What are you rebelling against?” was a screenwriter’s line a female actor used in the movie The Wild One. “Whaddya got?” The male actor responded with another of the screenwriter’s lines.

Translation: ‘I don’t know what I’m rebelling against. I’m too young, and too uninformed to rebel against anything of any substance, but isn’t my indefinable rebellion cool?’

‘Lines like these and other lyrics from the rock and rollers are great and all,’ I wanted to say to my fellow rock and roll rebels, ‘but I got all these other guys hammering me for more details, because I don’t know what I’m talking about. You have to give me something more here.’ 

Undefined rebellion in songs and movies are so cool, and the idea of rebelling against the norm, the status quo, or the “whaddya got?” is the epitome of greatness, until the various theys in our life kill the messengers for not knowing what we’re talking about. What are we rebelling against exactly? We don’t know, and the rock and roll rebels don’t know either. If they know, they’re not telling us, because they enjoy the cool deflector shield they wear that suggests we’re not supposed to ask. Those who do know, know that it’s something beautiful and indefinable. It’s something that the important, dangerous, and attractive know, and if you don’t, what are you doing here anyway?

I spent some time around rock and roll dudes, in my rock and roll days, and they were adamant that “I don’t get it, and I probably never will”.

“I don’t,” I said when I reached an age where I was confident enough to admit it, “explain it to me.” I was confident enough to admit that I wasn’t a rock and roll dude, but I wasn’t so confident that the latter line was a confrontational challenge to their beliefs. I was not a person who believed that there was some intrinsic value to being uncool. I wanted to know what they knew, and I would’ve loved if they tossed the keys to the “it” world to me, but it wasn’t such a driving force that I was willing to do whatever it took to get there.

I now know there is no secret formula. “It” is an idea steeped in superficialities. If you have an “it” look, you have “it” without being required to get “it” qualities. If you don’t, and you want in, you have to believe in those who do. You have to have faith in the otherwise quiet, cool kids who use a catch phrase or a song lyric to condemn those with a polka mindset. Unquestioned allegiance to the unquestioning allegiance of what the “it” crowd believes can lead a messenger to being an avant garde rock and roll rebel that some regard as an independent thinker.

With all of those contradictions in mind, when my dining companion confronted me with the idea that I’m no longer a little bit polka, and a little bit rock and roll, because I’m not the least bit rock and roll, I took it for what it was, because I knew she couldn’t define the alternative any better than anyone else could. No one can explain it, of course, and although I’ve never been the best student of what “it” is, because I’ve never had “it”, I now know what I have to buy to get “it”.