What types and extent of anger from parents is acceptable/normal?
Apologies if this isn’t the right place but I’m just a little confused as to whats allowed/normal from parents as my friends have different experiences with theirs. For context I am 18 (19 soon)
In terms of common occurrences of the present, Most commonly my father will often react aggressively and/or start screaming if me or my mother disagree with him. It can be anything, like a matter of opinion, etc. He also does not like being at fault and will often assign his actions to another person (that is, claim the other person did what he did) if his actions were what brought consequences. He also does weird things, like my mom misplaced her phone and he yelled at her not for misplacing her phone but for having called her siblings. I am not sure if any of this is normal. This strikes me as odd, as it seems logical to me to first listen to and evaluate the reasons for an opposing argument, and discuss why the person feels this way (I am only one person, not the measure of truth) He does treat people better if he needs help with something, but that ends as soon as the task is over. This strikes me as odd, because this seems like highly conditional kindness.
This bit isn’t quite anger, but what I also fail to understand is, I might get good grades at school and he’s usually like “oh, okay, that’s good” or something. But he’s significantly happier if the staff recognizes him because as my father. Additionally if my mother has some sort of achievement at work he doesn’t quite care, but he will constantly talk about his own achievements/affirmations at work (this actually feels a little amusing as they work in the same grocery store…)
My mother is always angry and yelling if my preferences are different for hers. Like if I am choosing what to wear and I like Shirt A but she likes Shirt B either I wear Shirt B or get yelled at. This strikes me as odd, as I do not feel frustrated when my friend’s preferences are different from mine.
Both my parents do not seem to know how to resolve a disagreement without screaming, at which point I either have to “choose” being on my mother’s side or my father’s side.
Also I got yelled at for being diagnosed with Autism and disliking loud noises (as a result of the Autism) but I can see their reasoning that this makes them look like bad parents because their kid isn’t normal, but apparently not all parents with autistic kids react this way so this is interesting to me.
Anyways apologies for the long post but I just want to know if this is all normal or not. Thanks.
Posted Jul 17, 2025, 8:47 AM UTC