Hi Toughcooki. Welcome to Psych Central. I am sorry your son does not appreciate all you did for them and has turned violent and abusive. No one should have to endure that from another person.

It is a little strange that they co-opted your childhood story for theirs. Are they open to getting professional help? And often the caregiver is the one that ends up seeking professional help to reconcile themselves to what they went through.

I found it hard to be grateful for what my parents gave me because sometimes there were conditions attached to what they gave or I felt there were. Like if I did not do what they wanted and expected, then they could easily turn off the giving fountain, and they told me that, and life could be tougher.

The other thing that was hard, was my parents wanted me to dedicate my life to earning those things that they "slaved" for, but they made it sound like they had to do this for their kids, but in many ways I think they did it because they had a childhood that was very rough by today's standards.

Having seen both sides of being lavished with what I need and struggling on my own, I have come to the opinion that neither way leads to lasting happiness by itself unless what leads to those is following my own heart, my own path. I think my family continually telling me how bad they had it as kids, made me a little jealous. I wanted to have a story that was so compelling.

But now after I look back from a much older perspective, I see that I was blessed to have a life with what I needed. But I would not try to get a young person to admit that. Breaking away from parents is something every teen does in different ways. It is hard work. Maybe taking on the opposite story of what life was like helps them in some small way to break away from parents.