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copperbadge · 1 year

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Review: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

I am still trying to log my reading more diligently! And this one is the latest. Now there’s a title that makes it tough to recommend to people without a lot of disclaimers. :D

My psychiatrist is a specialist in medication management, and while he does see patients therapeutically, I’m not one of them; he sees me to prescribe ADHD medication and make sure I’m not having side-effects or misusing it. But of course part of the meeting is just chatting so he can gauge my behavior for himself, and in our last meeting we got onto the topic how I haven’t told my parents about my diagnosis because I don’t think any good can come of it. After explaining my somewhat complex relationship to my mother and stepfather, who I love but who also can be difficult, he recommended Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (subtitle: “How to heal from distant, rejecting, or self-involved parents”) by Lindsay Gibson.

It’s kind of a shame the book title is so direct, because I think my mother could actually really use to read it, but if you recommend a book like that to your parents it means you also read it and that...does not send a super great message about how you feel about them.

I did a lot of highlighting.

Although, in the end, not for the reasons one would think. In part, while I recognized parental behaviors described in the book, I also recognized behaviors in myself. About halfway through, especially when Gibson was writing about how emotionally immature parents generally come from emotionally immature parenting themselves, I had to stop and think, “Oh. Maybe this is also me.” Fortunately I’m not a parent nor likely to become one, but it’s still a bit of a hard truth to see yourself in that kind of thing. I’m not much one to cause drama, at least not intentionally, and I try to be a generally good and emotionally supportive friend, but some of the stuff -- shallow emotional affect, difficulty with empathy and intimacy, anxiety surrounding strong emotion and personal relationships -- landed kind of close to home.

The problem with self-help books and books like this which are on the edge of the self-help genre is that they tend to be written very structurally. They have a specific way of being, which if you’re already part of the way to the conclusions they’re presenting (or familiar with the scammier ones) can be less helpful. For one, because they are aimed at people who tend to be wounded and confused, they lay out whatever they’re discussing in a very systematized way, and human behavior often defies systems. I was seeing aspects of behavior in my parents and myself here and there, but none of us fit into the categories the book lays out. Most people won’t fit precisely, but being an outlier doesn’t really help.

And, honestly, the case studies that are meant to resonate tended not to, simply because I looked at them and went “Oh, that person was abused. Those behaviors happened to me, but not at that level, and not in those ways.” I struggled too with the “workbook” aspects, where you’re asked to answer specific questions or make a list of things. One of the questions was “I wish people would just ______” where you fill in the blank, and like...I don’t have wishes like that. I’m still trying to figure out what I would even put there. Not stand in front of bus doorways so often? Stop voting Republican? I suspect that’s not what they’re reaching for.

And when you get a little distance on stuff like the categories and case studies, what you start to see is a book that, like many books in this vein, could be half the length it is. So much of this book is designed to cause a resonance with the reader and then reinforce and reinforce and reinforce that resonance -- there’s a lot of repetition of theme in order to pull someone emotionally further and further into the book, meanwhile not really presenting new information, just the same information framed within a different anecdote. I don’t condemn that; it’s what you have to do to sell the book, and to sell the ideas within it to some people. Otherwise it’s not super publishable, and I get that. But once you see the manipulation going on it’s hard not to react poorly to it.

A shorter, more informative book wouldn’t necessarily appeal to people who are pulled into the book via those reinforcements, but I started to do a lot of skimming because I knew I could. In that sense it’s a fast read, but I’m sure I missed some information here and there.

And the real problem is that the solutions presented for how to deal with emotionally immature parents as an adult are all things I was already doing, which after all the emotional build of earlier was quite disappointing. The reason I’m capable of having a pretty positive relationship with my parents is that I know how to handle them without taking too much psychic damage, enough that it’s worth maintaining a relationship, and apparently that’s as good as it’s going to get. There’s a lot healing from the harm inflicted just in those behaviors, but also for anyone wanting to DIY the rest, there’s not much good advice -- it circles back around to “Go to therapy and heal your childhood wounds” which is fine, I guess, but not a super executable solution for me. It reminded me powerfully of reading a book about autism when I was younger; there was a chapter about resources for family members of people with autism, and within that chapter there was one paragraph about siblings. I can give it to you in a sentence: “Asking your neurotypical child to help their autistic sibling is very character-building and will teach them responsibility.” Sure, but could we not dig for something a little deeper?

So, insightful book, potentially very useful if you do have a fraught relationship with your parents, but unfortunately not terribly helpful to me personally. Still, worth getting out of the library.

#book reccs #parental relationships

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dizzyhslightlyvoided · 5 months

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"I've told my dad, but not my biological father"

#shenanigans #trans stuff #parental relationships

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itsvryheid · 1 year

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How my mother and a kitchen timer carved out my gaming habits

30 minutes a day. That was the forbidden limit, the sacred rule, an assurance as absolute as the Second Law of Thermodynamics that if I had the audacity to play video games even 15 seconds beyond the dreaded ring of that eggshell kitchen timer that my existence would quickly be filled with punishment and regret. Never mind that as early as age 12, video games were quickly becoming my main mental escape from an abusive, isolated childhood and never mind the unfortunate reality that quite a few video games do not have the ability to be played in easily divisible 30 minute chunks.

I’m not going to talk about honoring my mother this Mother’s Day, because frankly I don’t feel like I have all that much to honor her for. But I will talk about one of the many ways she shaped my life into adulthood.

30 minutes means that any game without the ability to save anywhere and everywhere I wanted was frankly, right out. 30 minutes means that I had to grind excessively before boss fights in RPGs, because being caught by the timer in the middle of a particularly long one was guaranteed to be lost. 30 minutes means that there was a real incentive to use cheat codes and plow through games as quickly as possible because, you know, who wants to spend 30 minutes a day grinding in an RPG or setting up infrastructure in Sim City when there’s a shortcut to the content that makes those games interesting?

Even today, when gaming there’s this mentality I’m set with that simply having fun when playing a game is not enough. I have to feel like there’s an investment, that my time was well spent, that the “me” that came out the experience was greater than the “me” that came in. There’s always that sense of diminishing time in burned into the back of my head when playing video games and, well, I think I have my mother to thank for that.

#mothers day #gaming #2023 #kitchen timer #parental relationships

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rai-jin-andro-jin · 2 years

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for those of you with strained, complicated, or no-contact relationships with your fathers —

you owe them nothing.

you owe yourself safety and space.

today does not have to be a happy day for you.

you don't want to celebrate your dad? that's ok. don't.

#parental relationships #fathers day #strained relationships #no contact relationships #survivors

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justletmeon12 · 4 days

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I still get a lot of gender euphoria from when my parents get it right, because even though they've been doing so consistently for a while, I still don't quite expect it.

My dad was making fun of my advice for his next PCP appointment and loudly joked, "So, I'll just tell him that my son said it isn't a problem, and then he'll tell me it's East Himalayan Mosquito Flu and I'm going to die!"

And it was the nicest thing he's ever said.

#transgender #correct gendering #parents #parental relationships #parents never really stop having the power to make or break your evening #mine don't anyway #dads #as queue like it

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xtrablak674 · 10 days

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I am Alive

I'm trying to remember if there are any picture of my father and me together after this image, and I don't think there are any, ergo my using this photo as the thumbnail for this entry. Addendum, I had used the photo I was talking about as a thumbnail on another entry and decided to change it with this scan of my father's public benefits card also from nineteen ninety-one, its like the story writes itself.

According to the postcard the year is nineteen ninety-one and the date is November twenty-ninth, the things that are immediately clear to me is that this isn't my campus address, and Ithaca is spelled incorrectly.

Context is very important so Dear Reader I will give you some, maybe with in a year or two after the above photograph my father moved back into his parents household where I was already residing in their former living room having been turned into a bedroom for their first-born grandchild after the passing of his mom maybe a year or two before this photo is taken.

Curiously as I did my yoga this morning I was thinking about this trucker hat that I used to own, I remember it being two shades of blue with a white plastic mesh, and as I was taking another look I am actually wearing this hat in the picture below. Its funny to me because behind the scenes my subconscious has been putting together the pieces of this journal entry in subtle ways. Last week I was sharing the postcard from my father with my nephew when we were sharing college experiences.

As usual I have gotten off-topic, but my father had moved into my 'bedroom' and we shared the pull-out bed in the couch. Interestingly I hadn't shared a bedroom since I was maybe four or five years younger, my mom had moved me into my older brother's bedroom in our apartment feeling I had the need for a bit more privacy and my father sharing a bed and room with me was a double regression, one for him and one for me.

I am feeling hesitant in how to proceed because I am not sure if I have written about how the man who had been my best-friend for most of my life turned on me, and attempted to murder me right in his parent's home which he had returned to.

I will say this our relationship was never the same after the attempted, well which is it manslaughter or more appropriately boyslaughter, or is it attempted murder? According to a Google search its all about intention, so I think this was totally murder. But thats not what I want to write about, I want to write about this postcard and the desperation that is laced in it.

When recounting the experience years later in therapy Ms. Kennedy asked me, did someone call the police? The saying, you could have knocked me over with a feather could never have been more appropriate. I had never even considered at the time that filicide is indeed a thing, there is literally a word for when a parent attempts to exterminate their offspring. The only defense I have for my grandparents is they made him leave the next day, so I only had to spend one night with the man who attempted to extinguish my life, there couldn't be anything traumatic about that, could there? #sarcasm

As an adult I can admit that folks all around were trying to do their best, it had to be hard for my grandparents to have to choose their grandchild over their first-born child, but I was the minor and legally under their care, my safety had to be put first. Writing about this now this feels like such an abstraction for me, never in my entire life I would have guessed that my own father would be the person who would attempt to assassinate me for ultimately being too much like him, not that there is ever any excuse for an adult to lay hands on a child.

I am not saying I made it through childhood unscathed, but the monsters or villains of my youth were usually people who weren't related to me. Like Marvin Church my god-grandma's eldest son who did things to me that a forty year old man should have never done to a ten year old. My father's girlfriend Patricia Jackson had beaten me in the head until I was unconscious I think the first time in my childhood I had lost consciousness. Whatever would lead me to believe that my dad would join these brutes as one of the people who weren't looking out for my best interest?

Back to the postcard, I can see that this wasn't any off-the-cuff postcard, some serious thought had went into its selection pairing humor with morbidity, an appropriate reading of his sense of humor which is also mirrored in my own humor.

Back of postcard:

"Name of Item

The letter you were expecting has been placed on back order.

We expect to ship within the next year.

Thank you for your patience."

He clearly was in his feelings about my lack of contact since I had left for college. Small context about college, I had done all of the necessary documents, applications, paid fees all on my own. My grandparents nor him had any part in my getting into the private college in upstate New York. Out of the five that I applied to I am even surprise they found out which one I was accepted to, maybe someone from my high school helped them with that piece of evidence, because I didn't share my acceptance letter with any of them.

Well it seems I need more of an explanatory comma here, at eighteen I was more than ready to leave my grandparents house, my burgeoning sexuality had caused tensions between me and the matriarch of the house leading to many terse conversations.

I was not only coming into my own, but taking the steps to realize those dreams without any input or participation of the adults in the household. There may have been some resentment on her part because it must have been embarrassing when her friends or sisters inquired where was I and she didn't have a clear idea. This probably lead to my eviction and subsequent homelessness that would happen within months of this postcard.

Front of postcard:

"I am alive.

As are your paternal grandparents.

How about you?

Please advise.

Am still working on the w.p.

I love you very much.

Aṣẹ

V.O.M.-C.M."

I have to pause a minute, I seriously thought this journal entry would be about this piece of hard paper that has been living in a collage on the wall of my bathroom, but emotionally there are feelings tangled up in how we got to this postcard, some that I didn't even anticipate. For a moment I believed that this would probably be a humorous short entry with a couple of photos. But there was so much more to unpack.

"I am alive."

Curiously two years after this postcard nearly to the month he wouldn't be alive. He'd be found in his apartment body rotted for weeks in the un-air conditioned enclosure of his Harlem apartment. The same address which is a stamp near the bottom of this missive. With his death my orphanage would begin in earnest having less than ten years with my mom and fifteen with my father, albeit I was in my early twenties when he died, after his assault I never saw him again.

"As are your paternal grandparents."

His father would die eighteen years after this postcard and his moms thirty years later peacefully in her sleep at home.

The most curious thing is he feels the need to distinguish his parents as opposed to my moms parents. She was the one who asked them to take me in case of her death, he wasn't even under consideration as a choice because he hadn't shown a level of stability in his adult life that she could trust to be conducive to raising a child. Ergo she asked his very responsible, stable and capable parents to take in his first born child. His simple sentence is laced with an un-earned self-satisfaction that I was under his parents, my grandparents care. But I think what he's missing is I should have been under his care. He was only reflecting his own failure as a parent. #idiot

"How about you?"

Well, I am guessing if you thought I was dead you wouldn't actually be writing to me. There's not much to say about that. I think I fully had cause to not want to have contact with him or his parents who non-verbally condoned his violence by not having him arrested.

"Please advise?"

I can assure the studio audience that I didn't respond to this inquiry, nor did I feel it necessary to do so. I was enjoying the freedom of young adulthood and learning so much about life attending this away-from-home college living amongst people I couldn't even imagine associating with.

"Am still working on the w.p."

This is the saddest thing in this postcard, because once again it emphasizes my father's failures. I think months before I was set to go to college he had asked me if I needed anything, that in itself was odd because at no time prior had he ever attempted to take on a parental role. He usually enjoyed embracing the role of friend or compatriot not a figure of authority or rule.

He had also never directly asked me about my needs or wants. And sadly he was decades too late! I had become very self-sufficient as a young adult having not only held a job consistently since I was fourteen but also going to school full-time and doing volunteer work at theatre downtown.

His asking me for what I wanted was a foreign and new feeling to me and I recall being taken aback because I had never even considered him as a person who would support me in anyway beyond the comic books he bought for himself that he gave me after he read. I said a word processor, clearly dating myself, but also being practical. A manual typewriter would have been unwieldy but a word processor would be useful in college a place where writing papers was the norm. But it would never come. I bought my first computer a used Macintosh SE from a junior high school friend.

"I love you very much."

I am guessing in his way he did albeit I don't think he did a good job of showing it physically. Unlike my other siblings father's he was at least more present, I visited with him much more than the other dads would visit with their children. So maybe this was love. The thing it had been tainted because of his actions towards me which he never apologized or made reparations for.

He may have been alive, but he had been dead to me for a long time, and in '93 his status had caught up with his body and he was truly dead.

[Photos by Brown Estate]

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communistkenobi · 9 months

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whenever right wing people talk about “parental rights” they are talking about property rights. they are arguing for further political and legal enshrinement of their children as their literal actual property

#I also wonder if this is like a middle class expression of a desire to shore up other property rights eg homeownership #like homeownership is a foundation base for the nuclear family. property rights allow you to own the resource #that produces the family and allows it to be ‘private’#so like children are another frontier of this property relationship #anyway. bad time to be a trans person lol #& all the actual legitimate issues w/ parental rights ie indigenous genocide forced sterilisation mass incarceration the foster system etc #are not even remotely concerns for these people because well. they’re fash lol

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aratribow · 5 months

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Jing yuan is the kind of parent who is overtly invested in their kid's interests and thus yanqing is his gen z encyclopedia

#just a silly lil thingy #yes jy is NOT in fact a boomer #he's all hip and he knows all the genz slangs due to yanqing and bailu #it's just that..some explainations weigh down on poor yanqing #my art #aratribow #honkai star rail #jing yuan #hsr jing yuan #hsr yanqing #yanqing #jing yuan and yanqing #parent-child relationship

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bixels · 1 month

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Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

#mlp #yeah i wrote this last night during insomnia.#yeah i know an embarrassing amount of crap about this kids show #but whatever it's my hyperfixation i'll store as much useless information as i want!!!#i'm gay and neurodivergent i have an excuse #in case you needed more proof that aj's my favorite character #personal #delete later #unless you like this analysis stuff #i get why they didn't reveal aj's parent's death until way later and why they didn't do much with it but i wish they did #cuz narratively there could've been so much material with aj's grief. like. i feel like we gloss over the fact that she lost her #mother and father as a teenager #i tried keeping my personal hcs out of this to keep it unbiased #but i'll put some in the tags #involving rarijack –– i think aj can be (but not always) very self-conscious about her relationship with rarity #anxieties that she's not the right fit or that rarity will move away and leave her some day or that another woman will take her attention #(like in rollercoaster of friendship?? nudge nudge??). basic seperation anxiety stuff #long post #regarding applebloom whenever i think about her and her parents i think about that scene in steven universe where steven looks up at #a portrait of his mother and openly wonders what kind of sack lunches she would've made for him. that episode still fucks me up

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anthonygaycrowley · 5 months

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did y'all know that donna's husband in forest of the dead was meant to be a trans man, and they just couldn't find a way to make it explicit in-text

donna noble manages to get herself a trans family in every version of reality huh

#and also it makes me rly happy to think of one of my favourite characters falling in love w a trans man :)#like i adore her and rose's accepting parent/child relationship ofc #but theres also a different kinda validation in seeing 'this trans character is loved romantically'#doctor who #dr who #donna noble #tenth doctor #rtd #moffat #mine

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nerdpoe · 8 months

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When Danny decides to reincarnate, centuries after his adventures, he chooses a random Dimension of Heroes and Villains.

He's expecting adventure! Heroics! A life worth bragging about in the Afterlife!

He wakes up in a tube, staring down at surprised teen heroes as they release him and another person.

Later, he finds out that he's a clone of Batman and Superman, and the other clone is of Superman and Lex Luthor.

He came into this world expecting adventures, not a weird custody battle about him and his brother (because that's what Conner is) between two A-List superheroes.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #story prompt #dc x dp #phanfic #superman wants nothing to do with both of them #batman wins custody no problem #bruce now give clark a deathglare if the super even mentions one of the boys #constant sniping between superman and batman #until it eventually degrades their relationship so much they can't work together #culminates in one big verbal fight after another attempted planetary invasion #that ends with batman just losing it and #in a very calm voice that's totally out of place from his earlier growling #“if i'd known my best friend was the type of man who would target a child for the sins of their parents i might have chosen to be alone.”#verbally slaps clark #and that's how clark agrees to go to therapy

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maiko-san · 4 months

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Catnap + Dogday x Reader ( Part 2 )

<<< Part 1 , Part 3 >>>

Relationship: Fluff

Character focused: Dogday, Fem! Reader

Plot : You're giving Dogday a groom after he got himself covered in mud.

A/n : I will try to include the other Smiling Critters in here, they deserve love too.

A month has passed and things went on normally with your life. All the Smiling Critters get a minor check up everyday either by you or other coworkers.

These mascots work with children 24/7, they often are climbed on, tugged around or have paints/food stuck on their fur.

"I guess that's all of it"

"Oooh! My mane looks even prettier and shiny than before!"

You just finished cleaning up Craftycorn from all the glitters and paint off her white coat and cyan hair. Which took you half an hour to clean.

You put on a pink bow on her braided mane so she looks cuter.

"I really love how you do my mane! You know, we should do this more often! You're so creative, just like ME!"

" *chuckles* I'm glad that you like it, Craftycorn but I am NOT that creative as you are"

You dismiss the unicorn and give a handful of candy for her to enjoy. You call in the other mascot and Dogday pops his head in.

The dog is covered in mud from head to toe.

"Now, what did you get yourself into this time, Dogday?"

It was the third time this week.

Dogday only looks away, both hands on his back as he kicks his feet.

"KickinChicken and I got carried away while playing football, sorry..." /he lied.

You quirk an eyebrow, you know Dogday is really bad at lying. There are no muds at the football field since the field has fake grass carpet.

You wonder where he got all the mud from....oh well.

To Dogday, he likes being around you and wants to see you everyday but the other staff members didn't let him. Not even for a bit.

So the only way for the smiling critters to see you was to getting themselves dirty, either by accident or on purpose.

For Dogday, he did it on purpose so he could see you.

You usher the mascot on to the large bathtub so you could wash him up. You run the warm water over his body and rinsing the mud from his fur.

You know that they can clean themselves up but they seem to prefer having you to clean them.

It's a lot of work to clean a two story high mascot but it's fun.

You and the smiling critters would have a conversation, sometimes the smiling critters would tell them about their days.

Like a child telling their parents what they do at school.

"How's your day at the play care today?"

"It's really fun! We do a lot of things!"

"Oh, really? Tell me all about it. I'm curious"

"We play tag, we play hide n seek, we play red light green light with everyone! It was fun!"

"Did you have fun playing football with KickinChicken?"

"Oh, yes I did! The football was fun but what's even more fun is when you play in the mud!"

"Oh, really? KickinChicken just came a few hours ago and he told me he had fun playing skateboard"

"I—"

"Ha! Gotcha!"

You smirk as Dogday hangs his head down slightly. You scrub off the dirt from his ear and tell him that it's fine if he wants to see you.

Just don't get himself dirty all the time.

"The other staffs doesn't let me see you..."

"And why is that?"

"They said you stole their work...."

"....."

Recently your coworker has been glaring behind your back, gossiping and telling you to quit your job. Saying you were proud of your work which you never at all.

It is not entirely your fault that the mascots prefer you over them.

You knew how these mascots were treated before. It was during your interview at the playcare and your manager gave you a tour around the place.

You witnessed how the maintenance workers strapped these mascots in a tiny space and treated them like a wild animal.

"It is our fault wasn't it?"

"No, it's not. I'll deal with that matter myself and it is not yours to worry, alright"

You gave the canine mascot an assuring pat on the head which he leans into and his tail wagging behind him. You continue with your work and dry him in the blower machine and then you begin to groom his fur.

You notice that his fur had gotten longer by the day, so you decide to give him a little trim.

You hold his large paw, combing out the matted fur and snip some of them so it looks neat.

You did the same thing with his ears and chests.

Dogday watches you do you work, out of all staffs in this place. You are the nicest and the most gentle out of all staffs. You never strap them down or keep them in a small cage.

You treat them like a real person.

Like they used to be.

Dogday wants more from you, he wants to feel loved by someone. Someone that cares for him and everyone's well being unlike those scientists....

You care for him, so he will do the same to you.

You are his angel, after all....

"Alright, everything's done!"

You fix his collar and give his pendant a little shine. You decide to wrap a red scarf around his neck to compliment his orange colour.

"Is this for me, angel?"

"Yeah, it suits you well"

Dogday brings you into a tight hug, with his tail wagging aggressively behind his back. It seems the canine couldn't contain his excitement.

I mean, who doesn't like gifts? Especially from someone you like!

"Thank you! I will cherish it, always!"

"You're welcome, bud"

A/n : Since the first chapter received a good amount of views, here is the second chapter for all of you, sweeties!

I will assume that Dogday is the oldest out of all Smiling Critters, maybe around 13-15. We don't have a clue who Dogday really is but I decided to make him one of the older orphans.

Also, all the Smiling Critters in my stories share sibling relationships! and the reader is their oldest sibling or maybe parent figure! ☺️

#poppy playtime x reader #poppy playtime chapter 3 #poppy playtime #dogday #dogday x reader #catnap x reader #various x reader #fluff relationship #platonic relationship #Reader is a parental figure #catnap #smiling critters #smiling critters x reader #craftycorn #bobby bearhug #bubba bubbaphant #hoppy hopscotch #kickinchicken #picky piggy

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