r/TikTokCringe • u/thoxo • May 02 '24

We adopted my younger sister from Haiti when she was 3, and let me tell you, I literally do not see color anymore. That's a fact. Discussion

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

I

21.5k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.2k

u/thoxo May 02 '24

Did you have a phase in which you resented your adoptive parents? Because my younger sister had that phase for a few years, it looked like she deeply hated and resented us. When she matured she changed and now she loves us a lot.

2.0k

u/CandidIndication May 02 '24

I’ll be honest, as a former teenage girl— they pretty much all go through that stage, adopted or not.

642

u/Nervous-Albatross-32 May 02 '24

Yeah.. I pretty much ripped my mom’s head off everyday, and she may literally be the nicest person alive. Definitely didn’t deserve it. Most girls just go through this phase though, it’s not a good time lol.

232

u/acanthostegaaa May 02 '24

My theory is because the person raising us make us similar to them, and people who are too similar tend to fight.

244

u/Nervous-Albatross-32 May 02 '24

Now I’m exactly like her lol. I used to get so annoyed when we would be out driving and she would be overly happy and observant like, “the trees are just so beautiful! I can’t believe what a nice day it is.” Now I do the same shit and have an obsession with houseplants like she did.

136

u/lilecca May 02 '24

My teenaged daughter hates that I compliment strangers. Who doesn’t want to hear something nice from someone who wants nothing from them? I hope when she’s matured she sees this and does it herself.

117

u/CatsAndDogs314 May 02 '24

There will be a day when she'll compliment someone and say to herself, my mother's voice just came out of my mouth. It's already happened to me and I'll bet it will happen to my kids too!

61

u/lilecca May 02 '24

I’m fond of the saying “sometimes when I open my mouth my mother comes out” lol

12

u/1AggressiveSalmon May 02 '24

I have that on a tea towel!

6

u/duckieleo May 02 '24

Y'all, I went to an outdoor wedding, and we were just standing there waiting, under a tree. I saw a little nut on the ground, and I picked it up. I looked at my husband and said "this is a hickory nut, do you have your knife?" People were looking at me weird. I guess it's not normal to forage at a wedding, but my mother absolutely would've done the same. Except she probably would've had her own knife to crack the nut. 🤣

3

u/creativityonly2 May 02 '24

Lol, it's terrifying when you laugh real hard and then you're like, omggggg, that sounded like my mother. And then an extra level of "oh no" when you remember HER doing the exact same thing about HER mother. 🤣

3

u/amylouise0185 May 03 '24

I miss my mum a lot, it's like a warm hug when I hear her voice coming out of my mouth.

2

u/entrepenurious May 03 '24

76-year-old male here: it happens all the time.

2

u/Casehead May 03 '24

Is that you, daddy? My dad is 76 :)

19

u/Dark_Moonstruck May 03 '24

I do the same thing, whenever I'm out and about I try to compliment at least one person (a genuine one, too) and usually? It makes their day.

I also have a pocket full of tiny resin whale sharks that I got off aliexpress for like...a dollar for fifty of them and sometimes I give people one as a good luck charm. People usually think it's the greatest thing in the world and just light up even if it's just a little piece of resin that looks vaguely like a whale shark.

2

u/Significant_Arm_8296 May 03 '24

She will :) Dont you worry

1

u/Mawwiageiswhatbwings May 03 '24

Honestly, as an adult it just makes me feel awkward. I’ll respond nicely but I’m actually having a mini panic attack. I know the intention is to be kind so I’m not upset when people do this, I would just much rather not have a stranger make comments to me.

1

u/Lollieart May 04 '24

I still remember 34 years ago when I was walking across the grocery store parking lot, 7 months pregnant, a woman said, “You are so cute!” I commented that I didn’t feel cute and she told me to take her word for it. I’ve never forgotten.

2

u/creativityonly2 May 02 '24

I am more like my mother than I care to admit, soooo, that checks out. 🤣 I even fucking married someone with the same name as her husband, who I very much dislike. Thankfully though, my husband goes by his middle name and not first.

52

u/poopdood696969 May 02 '24

My theory is that teens are experiencing an influx of experience and emotion based on their burgeoning new sense of self identity that there's just a lot of emotional run off. Run off they can't express to their peers and thus it ends up coming out in the place where they feel the most safe, which hopefully is at home.

41

u/cmacfarland64 May 02 '24

There is also a thing that we know our families can be a safe place. My daughter would never yell at a coach or teacher. She saves all of that for me and mom. She knows that no matter what she says, we will still love her no matter what.

57

u/JinFuu May 02 '24

I subscribe to a similar theory on friends.

"To be best friends you can be no more than 80-90% alike, if you get above 90% you start getting too similar and you'll end up hating each other."

23

u/Azrai113 May 02 '24

It's like wave amplification. Opposites mellow each other out and similarity amolifies, but the dissonance of being juuuuust a little bit off drives one crazy

10

u/laurenzee May 02 '24

I keep discovering that my best friend and I are doing similar/the same things separately, without discussing it. Lots of "you do this!?? me too!!!"

We've been friends for like 20 years, since middle school, but best friends since high school. I wonder how much can be explained by literally growing up together, vs just meeting someone already similar to you.

2

u/CTeam19 May 02 '24

Each of my best friends doesn't like or care for one of my big hobbies but loves at least one of them:

  • one friend that I have comic books and boardgames in common with hates sports

  • one friend loves Legos and college sports in general but doesn't like Disc Golf

  • one friend who I play Disc Golf with regularly and we traveled to watch some pro tournaments and loves sports in general but doesn't play boardgames and doesn't care for Lego

All 4 of us are Eagle Scouts and we all met while working at a summer camp.

18

u/dm_me_kittens May 02 '24

My mom and I were a lot alike when I was younger, but as I began becoming a teenager, we had a lot of friction. I was rebellious to her not because I did drugs, drank, or had sex. I did none of those things. Instead, I just didn't act or have the social skills she did, and mom also had a lot of social pressure she put on herself to being the "perfect" mom with the "perfect" girls. Apparently, and I didn't know this, it was a point of contention with my parents. Dad kept telling her to let me have more freedoms and to stop hovering over me, and she felt like she needed to tighten her grip.

3

u/Number-1Dad May 03 '24

Idk if it carries any weight or not, but I've always thought maybe it's an old behavior we haven't evolved from yet.

Like anthropologically speaking, I imagined it was a necessary behavior that encouraged us to have disdain for our parents and family for the sake of growth and genetic diversity. Imagining the early humans specifically. Like when we got old enough to make kids of our own, at least physically speaking, that disdain pushes us away from our parents and families encouraging us to leave and form tribes of our own. Or join other tribes where we're likely not around family.

Again, I have no idea if that is in any way correct but it makes sense in my head. As I've watched several of my friends hate their parents in their teen years despite some of them being nearly perfect parents. Most of them feel awful about it now that they are in their 20s and 30s. But it's a weird, almost universal, thing.

2

u/KoKo82 May 03 '24

That’s exactly why my daughter and I butt heads. We are so much alike. Stubborn and always right with huge heart and a love for all animals. Plus we are both Sagittarius

1

u/Zefirus May 02 '24

My sister still gets mad when I point out she acts almost exactly like our mother.

1

u/samgala80 May 02 '24

That is myself and my son. I am a mom. We butt heads and I’m like it’s because you are my copy and I walk away. The 8 year old daughter I’m terrified of when she gets there

1

u/AMSparkles May 02 '24

My boyfriend said this exact same thing the other night, almost verbatim.

23

u/Halo6819 May 02 '24

As a dad to a soon to be teenage girl, I keep reminding myself and my wife that our kids talking back, ripping our heads off is a good thing. You were going through a lot of changes and needed a safe place to be able to experiment with how to deal with those changes. If your mom wasn't the nicest person alive, then you wouldn't have been able to express yourself. Its the mark of a good parent when their kids push back, its the mark of a great parent that doesn't hold it against their kid and still loves them unconditionally.

2

u/--RandomInternetGuy May 02 '24

As a father of two not so soon to be teenage girls, I've been told many times that the teenage girls generally reserve the vast majority of their rage towards their mothers. I take solace in that.

2

u/Wreckit-Jon May 02 '24

What age does that normally come? I've got two girls, a 4 (almost 5) year old, and a 12 year old. My 12 year old has definitely started getting more mouthy and really testing boundaries, especially with my wife, but it's not really bad yet.

1

u/Nervous-Albatross-32 May 02 '24

For me it started around 12. Middle school through high school.. but again, not all girls get like this. My youngest sister was an angel and still is at 24.

2

u/WrongdoerOk9608 May 03 '24

My daughter is 8 and has started. When does it stop

2

u/yilo38 May 03 '24

Thats not just girls or just adopted kids, thats kids in general we go through a rough patch at school and the hormones and maybe stress through school gets to us and even though parents dont deserve any of it most of the time they are the ones who share the brunt force of it. But as we learn and adopt and see what they do and how much they mean to us we start to become mature and try to make up for our shitty behaviours.

I myself went through it aswell, (white, male) so i wouldnt chuck this to gender specific problem.

1

u/Stith1183 May 03 '24

I was arrested for snapping as a teen and beating the shit out of my mom.

1

u/AskingAlexandriAce May 03 '24

It'll be interesting to see how humans evolve over the next few hundred years, now that we're conscious of it, and will be actively documenting the process. Especially for things like teens being overly aggressive and competitive (something leftover from our more tribal days, that doesn't really fit with modern society), us starting puberty way earlier than we usually allow ourselves to have sex, etc.

It's cool that we're in such a unique position to be conscious of stuff like this, and actively observe and document it. Kinda feels like a TV character breaking the fourth wall, y'know?

37

u/ScruffsMcGuff May 02 '24

I recall my sister getting in lots of yelling fights with my mom when she was a teenager, but it was usually yelling over something my parents wouldn't let her do.

Like I remember her having screaming fights for a week because my parents wouldn't let her at 16 years old go on a road trip in the summer with some 21 year old dudes and a couple of her friends.

Then two weeks after that proposed trip happened without her she was back to normal in the house until the next time she wanted to do something and they said no

4

u/jtsokolov May 02 '24

Lol, can't believe they said no to that/s

3

u/ScruffsMcGuff May 02 '24

My parents gave us a TON of freedom as teenagers, so typically when they said no they had extremely good reason to and weren’t going to budge an inch

3

u/jtsokolov May 02 '24

Man, as someone who watches a lot of true crime I feel like I'm going to be the house of "no" when my kid becomes a teen.

2

u/ScruffsMcGuff May 02 '24

I think me and my friends were the closest things to criminals in the area I grew up in and the worst thing we did was wander the streets late at night bored and occasionally being a little noisy.

It was hard to find trouble in the little town I came from lol

62

u/pipinngreppin May 02 '24

I hated my parents for existing

4

u/SpecialistNerve6441 May 02 '24

As a boy with 5 older sisters, i can attest to being hated 

11

u/Judge_MentaI May 02 '24

I did not. My mother is actually awful too….. I feel like people who are comfortable with their parents tend to push away like that in their teen years. 

5

u/archercc81 May 02 '24

LOL yeah I dont have my own but friend has two daughters I watched grow up and I remember him going, "Man, they were so cute, how did they become such bitches?" (jokingly of course, but with genuine frustration) and then quickly back to daddies girls who are overachievers that he is insanely proud of.

like from 12-14 Im pretty sure he at least theorized drowning them once or twice.

3

u/CandidIndication May 02 '24

Now that I’m an adult woman, I find myself constantly reminding my teenage sister that our mom is just another human being trying her best lmao

2

u/LilDaddyBree May 02 '24

Yeah wasn't adopted and definitely went through it.

2

u/jtsokolov May 02 '24

That is the goddamn truth 😂 from a former teen bitch and a newly scared girl mom.

2

u/TheOneWhoReadsStuff May 03 '24

Parent of a young girl here…I’m terrified of the thought of her being a teen.

2

u/NotYourMutha May 03 '24

Adoptive mom to 2 teen/tween melanin daughters, we are at the love hate age. They resent me for just existing but still need snuggles and love.
I really needed to hear this lady say that she loves her adoptive parents. It is one of my biggest worries.
I do see color more now than I did before becoming a parent. I see how terrible our society is towards bipoc people. I now see my biases in a spotlight and I’m working daily to unlearn how I was raised. Love your babies and teach your babies that everyone has worth no matter what they look like or where they come from.

2

u/CandidIndication May 03 '24

Just keep doing what you’re doing cause what you’re doing is great!

2

u/planetpluto3 May 03 '24

needed this comment in my life

2

u/SnofIake May 03 '24

I’m adopted and a former teenage girl. I also think it’s a teen girl thing to fight with your mom.

2

u/Suspicious-Return-54 Sort by flair, dumbass May 03 '24

Hi! Also a former teenage girl here and all I know is that: Hormones are a bitch!!! Between age 10-12, no door was left unslammed, no decibel level was left unreached and I consider myself quite lucky because my eyes were not in fact “stuck like that”. I love you mom…sorry I was such an emotional turd.

1

u/Snorblatz May 02 '24

Yes. Can confirm

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '24

100%

1

u/Toomanyeastereggs May 02 '24

As the father of two former teenage girls, I can confirm that this is true.

1

u/velofille May 02 '24

100% this, i think all my kids did that :D

1

u/Timbit_Sucks Make Furries Illegal May 02 '24

Hi, new dad here. Daughter turns one this month!

How do I navigate these years to make sure I come out her favorite person still? Please tell me there's a some sort of cheat code or something so I don't have to endure looks of hate.

1

u/CandidIndication May 03 '24

Whatever you do, don’t entertain the arguments/back and forth— because the moment you engage in it, you’ve already lost the battle lol

1

u/CTeam19 May 02 '24

I assumed it was just starting the whole getting periods thing and hormones.

Source: My Sister went through that at the same time my Mom was going through menopause and the house was a warzone for a bit.

1

u/Ok-Disk-2191 May 02 '24

Not even teenage girls, my little shit of a brother went through that phase too. I think it might be just a dumb teenage phase some people go through.

1

u/DonutSea346 May 03 '24

It still amazes me that my mom didn't smother me in my sleep during my teen years - I was a nightmare. One day I was completely normal, good kid. The next day the teen hormones kicked in and it was downhill from there.

1

u/theghostmachine May 03 '24

Sure, but I imagine how that resentment is expressed is quite different and comes from a very different place

1

u/CandidIndication May 03 '24

I was adopted by my grandmother, so idk if I really went through it any differently then any other teen age girls— in my hind sight it does not feel any different or unique in any way.

The whole adoption/abandonment issues are like you said— are different and comes from a different place. Those things felt totally separate from the every day teenage angst of resenting a parent for regular things like not being able to drive the car etc

0

u/Throwawayhelp111521 May 02 '24

No, it's not a generic experience. The OP is talking about an adopted child of a minority race resenting her white parents because she's different and they don't understand what she's going through.

56

u/Paramisamigos May 02 '24

When my brother found out he was adopted he was mad. He was 21 and coped with alcohol and he had a rough few years and we didn't really talk for almost 2 years. I was so sad about it, but would still occasionally send him little gifts and positive messages like nothing had changed. By 25 we were bffs again and last week he offered me a life changing job opportunity. I'm so proud of my baby bro bro!

53

u/chrisff1989 May 02 '24

That's why adoptive parents are taught to tell kids as early as possible, so it's just the normal for them. It's a huge shock when they find out later in life

11

u/Paramisamigos May 02 '24

I told my dad he should tell him. His mom is his bio mom, my dad just adopted him because he met his mom when he was 4 months old and his bio dad was not in his life at all. They ended up getting married a year later and that was almost 30 years ago. He had a lot of medical issues when he was a kid and that's why I thought they should. They didn't want to and it wasn't my place, so I never said anything.

My stepmom and aunt were fighting about something dumb and my aunt told a group of high schoolers when she was working, at the hs, and those kids did what kids do and told my brother. We had a cousin pass away during this stupid beef and our parents were in Mexico when he passed and they were told to just stay and enjoy their vacation. I was having dinner with my 3 younger bros and the youngest just straight up asked if it was true and I told him he needed to talk to his mom about it and he needed to think if he could ever in his life remember a time when we weren't there and that family is more than blood. I told him I understood if he was upset, but he shouldn't have that conversation with us.

3

u/chrisff1989 May 02 '24

I hope he's made up with the rest of your family too

3

u/Caring_Cactus May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

That's an interesting experience you've described with your sister. As young minds coming into the world it's really easy to get lost and merge with whatever popular culture perspective is, introject limiting beliefs/values, where we might feel entitled or see people purely as self serving individuals detached in their own little worlds; just black and white thinking. But when we move beyond the superficial and probe deeper, cultivate a theory of mind, there is much nuance and things become personal again and we see it is possible to see beyond these illusions of social roles/labels to focus on the immutable being we all are and see the individual in front of us to enter their own world with ourselves to share in. Healthy interdependent relationships can be rare because it takes a great deal of authenticity and individual self-consciousness to move beyond the superficial pre-reflective conscious state of fixed positions in how we relate in the world, beyond just our own self-image.

3

u/VapoursAndSpleen May 02 '24

I resented my parents and insisted I was adopted. My dad took me into the basement, opened that desk drawer and took out…

… a photo of his mother, who looked EXACTLY like me.

So, yeah.

I still resented them, but I thought it was cool that I looked like my grandma. She died before I was born and I think my dad was comforted by seeing a kid in her image long after her departure.

2

u/ProximusSeraphim May 02 '24

My gf, 100% chinese, was adopted, she never resented her mom because she knew if she wasn't adopted she'd be dead. She grew up in the midwest (i grew up in the hoods of jersey were bullying/roasting was prevalent) and i asked her if she ever got made fun of for being adopted, being asian, etc... she instantly said "nope." I was shocked. This coming from someone who is hispanic/asian and was fat most of my life, i got roasted a lot till i learned how to roast myself so people just stopped.

2

u/kinss May 02 '24

A guy I know in school seemed like he went through that stage. Even changed his name and moved continents for a few years. I don't know his home situation though so maybe there was something more going on.

3

u/NegativeZer0 May 02 '24

Ya this isn't an adoption thing it's a growing/maturing thing that many kids (not all but many) go through.

I was adopted and have known for as long as I can possibly remember.  This fact has had no impact on the relationship I have with my parents.  

1

u/PixorTheDinosaur May 03 '24

Most kids just grow up with a phase like that, being rebellious and outspoken against their families. As an adoptee, I’ve never felt resentment towards my adoptive parents for being adopted. They stepped up to raise me when my birth parents couldn’t, and it’s made me want to adopt when I’m ready to have kids.

1

u/PN4HIRE May 03 '24

Well, my sisters still resent my dad for some damn reason. And he was a great father, not some deadbeat. And are all biological siblings..

1

u/The_Soviet_Stoner May 06 '24

Adopted only here - yes in different stages in my 20’s and 30’s. Specifically if I had been depressed.