Considering disowning your child?

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Never. Not even once. They would have to do something pretty horrible before the thought even crossed my mind.

However my Dad and his parents were estranged from the time I was 5 on till when they died. He always had these strange reasons. He has now basically disowned me for also very strange reasons. I strongly suspect my dad is on the spectrum as he very frequently wrongly interprets the actions and intentions of others to the point that he simply goes no contact with them because his feelings are all hurt but in reality he did a piss job of communicating and then interpreted everything in a really messed up way.

So my family enjoys a cycle of disownment. I plan to not participate.

I'm the one on the spectrum; my kids AFAIK are either NT or ADHD (though the jury is still out on the littlest one).

I've HAD THOSE THOUGHTS about all of them at various points in time. What can I say-- parenting is great, but it can be pretty sucky too. Enough to make anyone scream, inside their head, "I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS!! !"

I've THOUGHT it. I have not said it, at least not without making damn good and sure my kids were out of earshot (and preferably at someone else's house). The closest I've gotten is screaming, "Knock it off!! I do not love this behavior!!"

You don't say that s**t to a kid. It will take YEARS for them to understand that they are actually loved, and Mommy/Daddy was just losing their s**t in a big way. Meanwhile-- well, outright parental rejection HURTS.

I'm really sorry your dad did that. That wasn't cool. I WAS the autistic kid, and ALL the people who raised me had problems of their own, and I KNOW I wasn't the child my mother wanted (read all her diaries after she died) or the grandchild my grandmother wanted. I KNOW I was difficult to raise. They lost their s**t and said some pretty choice things-- but not THAT.

Growing up (and I can safely say this now that both my parents are dead and my brothers disowned me long ago), the family was dysfunctional. Mom was more than likely bipolar and dad suffered from what is now known as Childhood Emotional Neglect. Love was just another four letter word. Mom and Dad were quite authoritarian: you didn't even go to the bathroom without both of their permissions. Heaven forbid if you took the largest piece of meat off the platter: Dad would almost knife you for doing so. Even when it came to entertainment, if they didn't understand what was going on, they automatically considered it to be stupidity and refused to have it in THEIR household. Many are the times I was called stupid and bullied for listening to classical music, especially opera. Many are the times I nearly got kicked out of band in high school because of their actions. Every time, I was told "Suck it up, buttercup, or pack your duds, leave, and NEVER DARKEN OUR HOUSE AGAIN." The only time I brought a girl to the house in high school was a disaster, since Dad embarrassed me so badly I felt like an inch tall, and Mom shredded the girl to pieces. The girl told me afterwards she never wanted to see me again in her lifetime.

The harassment from Dad, mostly, went on through college. He though the marching band director was a pansy for carrying around a shoulder bag. That shoulder bag contained a Sony portable 1/2 in Video Tape Recorder, which the director used to record all the band's shows for instruction and recruitment purposes. Didn't matter to Dad, the marching band director was still a f!cking pansy. He was even nastier with the choir director. The choir director, at the time, had a heart condition. During a choir concert, he would often take a seat and direct the choir when he got exhausted. The diatribe Dad went on about the choir director and my involvement in the choir when we got back to my apartment was not pleasant, and that's putting it kindly.

There's even more, but I'm not going to bore anyone else with this tale of woe. It was always they're always right, and I'm always wrong, even if I could prove 7 different ways to Sunday that I was right.

I cannot imagine ever wanting to disown either of my children, ASD or NT.


Right now my ASD child is the easy one and my NT child is causing me grief, but it hasn't always been that way. Still, I would never disown them.


I think in the heat of frustration parents may sometimes say things they don't really mean, simply because they are at a loss for words to express their frustration. While I've never thrown out anything like suggesting I might disown one of my children, I most definitely have said things I did not mean, and it is heart breaking to hear it back years later when you can't remember having ever even said it.

For me this is shocking that your father could say that to you in anger.
I always try to stay calm when my son is saying all the mean things he can think of, which is often!
I don't think I'd ever threaten him with disowning him, because I never think it.
My mum used to say that kind of thing to me when I was a kid, and it was very hurtful. She also said she wished she'd never had kids. I try my best to do a better job at parenting than my parents did.

Raising my aspie son was one of the most difficult challenges of my life and I often had to ask him to go to his room or get out of my face so that I would not say something I could not take back. Even parents need time to cool down. Words do have power and after something is said it is always out there even if we say we are sorry for them. But to answer your question no I would never disown him. I am sure your father had just reached a level of frustration where he spoke out loud something that can not be unspoken. Did he ever apologize? Do you have a relationship now? Sorry his words are still painful for you. Have you told him how you feel?

My mother was the same woman who once gave to me a little ornament that said "You've made my world more beautiful," yet also regularly lashed out and threatened me with calling for men in white coats to take me away.

And no she was not joking, saying it in a humorous way, etc. She said it with serious intent and yes I could tell. It cut like a knife and the air was thick with how seriously she meant it. I KNEW she really did wish she could have me just taken away to a mental institution, and no amount of persuasion can convince me it was just a fleeting thing said in anger. She did say it in anger and frustration at me but just because it was said then doesn't mean it didn't also have a deep truth under it.

I still die inside when there's a knock on the door, because once or perhaps more than once, who knows what it took, a random knock at the door came just when she had said that to me as a child who didn't know how it would work, and she said "See, there they are! They're here and you're going to be taken away and we will be rid of you."

I have NEVER forgotten this s**t.

Mine have never disowned me nor threatened it. I never thought about disowning my NT children other than just ignoring them and not wanting anything to do with them until they act the way I want them to act.

God there are a lot of psychos in the world.

I mean, my family had problems-- suppressed autism, PTSD, substance abuse to the point that most of us don't have emotions that don't come out of a bottle, depression, anxiety disorders, both my mom's parents were abused and obsessed with public opinion...

...but GOD I was a lucky kid. I can't imagine them doing some of this s**t. I'm unspeakably sorry you guys had to put up with this assholery. I hope you really do know it was THEIR FAULT, NOT YOURS.

I think anyone who is human has said something they regret. That is forgivable. What is not forgivable is not making amends to the person who may have been hurt by your comment.

My mom once said I might as well be dead and another time said she shouldn't have had children. She denied the former, which she said to me when I was 13 years old. I was so shocked and never forgot it, but she forgot it or pretended to or made herself forget, and now she calls me a liar for saying she said that. It was her problem, not mine.


My immature-ass dad when I was 9 years old said he was tired of me "always being rude" when I refused my grandmother's tourtiere and said I simply didn't want any cake, I didn't feel like that OR tourtiere, sorry. He went on and on, calling me names, yelling, and eventually settling down but saying he would tell people when they asked if he had kids that he didn't have any. Yet he was sitting there in my mom's apartment with me... why didn't he just go? He was just trying to make me feel bad.

I am fortunate my parents never gave up on me, or I wouldn't be alive today. I faced a lot of trouble with bullying from literal criminal types I went to school with and I wouldn't have survived that without my family's love. I was a difficult and different child to raise, but I knew I was loved.

The OP's father sounds like *he* was having a meltdown, perhaps due to the OP's meltdown, it's a vicious chain, LOL.


My dad said when I was 13 that he wished I'd never been born, but he was drunk. But I think he said it at least one other time too.

My mom said she should never have had children once.

My dad when I was NINE YEARS OLD once said he would give up his job as a parent and tell everyone when they asked him if he had kids that he didn't have any. He was SERIOUS too. He was mad at me for simply refusing to eat supper, because I didn't like tourtiere.