One of the biggest things I've seen with people on this sub complaining about their parents is that a lot of this stems from an inability to push back against the intrusiveness and helicopter-style parenting they deal with. Nobody is saying setting boundaries is easy, but that's the whole point. It's a long, hard, and arduous road that involves a lot of small and big fights, and needs to be constantly reinforced and may not show dividends for a long time. But no matter how hard it is, it needs to be done otherwise the anxiety and irritation you're feeling now will continue well into your future.

My wife and I are having our first kid in February, and we're well into our late 30s. We just decided to put off having kids for a minute, but our older siblings had them relatively early in their lives (late 20s). Why did we put it off? Because smoking weed and traveling is just a lot of fun, and we wanted to get a lot of craziness out of our system.

We've seen both of our parents - especially our moms - deal with the birth of grandkids, and the types of overwhelming behavior that come with newborns, especially since we'll need them in our home to help out during the first couple of months after our kid is born. And it hasn't been easy setting those boundaries, but they're tenuously being respected for now. Getting to this point required a lot, a LOT of shitty fights over seemingly small things - comments, behaviors, anything that just encapsulated a sense of entitlement, or a condescending tone, or any outright action that made it feel like we didn't know what we were talking about or just had no understanding of something happening. But it was about recognizing that and nipping it in the bud, and sometimes almost making it a big deal so we don't get gaslit later.

You're going to get emotionally manipulated by your parents. Especially if you're first generation, you are going to get emotionally manipulated. Over and over again. It will be done through guilting you into do something, or not doing something. It will be done through using family against you, or a health issue, or simply not seeing your parents for a long time. You will be connived, you will be guilted, and you will be put into a position where it feels like you never have an out; that if you try and do anything contrarian it will be met with the end of the world scenario of you being disowned, kicked out, or shamed into doing exactly what your parents want you to do. It may be little - "oh you don't call your sibling anymore" or "you should give this random auntie / uncle / family member a visit when you're in town." It won't even matter that maybe you're in town because of a work trip, or because it's something urgent, or that this auntie / uncle / relative live 2 hours away from where you are and you have no means of getting to them - you will be made to feel like you HAVE to do this otherwise it will lead to some issue down the road with your parents and this random person because the sheer act of doing this thing has to be done. These are your chances to push back. These are your chances to say "nah I won't be doing that."

And it may lead to a huge fight. And that's okay. You NEED to have these fights. You NEED to have these arguments, and most importantly - you NEED to call your parents' bluffs. Why? Because when you let them know that you are aware that their threats are empty, you'll start to see them back off.

Here's the reality - you're not going to get cut off. You're not going to get disowned. You're not going to get left high and dry. Once you're 18, you are LEGALLY free to do what you choose. If you're in school, get a part-time job and make your beer / weed money this way. Find ways to start building financial independence from your parents as early as possible. It starts with the little things and you build from there.

Some of you may be thinking "my parents are chill, they don't do that." They do, you just aren't realizing it because it hasn't been done in an obvious way. Every single parent gaslights their kid, and manipulates them someway into getting them to do what they need them to do. You're going to do it to your kid too, and it'll click and you'll sort of take a step back and go "son of a...". And that's okay - that's a part of growing and learning and recognizing, and then changing it so you're not reinforcing your own behavior because you're getting the results YOU want. My parents are incredibly chill about certain things, and then turn into crazy people about others. It's just the nature of being parents. Some of you are able to admit that about your parents and others aren't. I recommend taking a hard look at the little things your parents do when there's conflict, and reading into a bit rather than taking it at face value.

When your parents flip out at you, the world keeps turning. The sun still rises and you're still alive and breathing and eating. Nothing happens when your parents get mad, and the more you start to build the thick skin against their bullshit, the easier it's going to be later on in your life when it comes to serious relationships, major career changes or advancements, marriages, and kids - if you decide to go that route. It works when it comes to making the decision to NOT have kids too because you may end up seeing the other end of the spectrum.

You're not always going to have friends to lean on during these shitty times, and posting on Reddit may not give you the validation you feel like you need, so be prepared to be okay going it alone. You may be cut out of their lives for a few weeks and it may feel like the end of the world, but it will get better. You will reconcile eventually. But the. earlier you do this, the better off you're going to be in the long run.

Here's another little secret and trick I've learned along the way - sometimes you just have to bait them into the fight. Sometimes they're doing these little things that just keep annoying you, and you take the bait and give in to it. Maybe it needs to be the other way around and to let them take the bait so you can point it out to them. Like any type of learned behavior, repetition is key. See if you can show them their mistakes in obvious instances. call out their hypocrisy and their double standards. If they're expecting you to be an adult, then show them you know how to think like one. Don't let their emotional outbursts change your ability to think rationally. The more irrational they get, the more rational you have to be, and learn to tune out the noise. They'll yell and scream and threaten you with all sorts of nonsense. Hell, you might even catch a beating or two - I certainly did - but you need to keep a focus on the bigger picture. We've all been raised in an entirely different environment than them here in the west, and there are certain advantages to how we learned from our friends with how they dealt with their parents. I'm not saying go full white people and say "fuck you, Cathy!" to your mom. No, that'll just def catch you a well deserved thappad. Look at it from the lens of "if I know I'm right, and I know I'm mature enough, then I can stand up for myself."

I've noticed from some of the stories on here that the really manipulative parents take advantage of the low self-esteem of their kid to keep them in a position of thinking they need to rely on their parents for everything, and that leads to these really toxic and abusive relationships where the kid is almost dependent on the emotions of the parent to give them validation. Like you're broken down by your parents thinking less of you and berating you, but since they're also the only ones who know how to pick you up and make you feel better, you're stuck in their cycle of emotional abuse. It's not an easy cycle to break. It sucks. It sometimes requires therapy. But the sooner you recognize it, or hopefully you have a good enough friend or sibling who can help you recognize it, the better you'll be to seek help, and to have a strategy to deal with it. And when you learn to ignore their impositions on you and to put yourself first over their emotional swings, you're going to live a more fulfilling life.

The first step is always the hardest, and it doesn't have to be some huge blowout. It can be as simple as ignoring a phone call. Leaving the house for a drive to calm down. Not letting one bad grade make you feel like the world is falling apart (also because spoiler alert - your grades don't mean SHIT. They mean absolutely fuck all. Where you go to school doesn't mean a fucking thing. Period.)

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you. I've been thinking about this a lot because I feel like I'm back to square one when it comes to my kid, and the little fights and arguments I'm having now are so important so everyone knows what lines not to cross in the future.