I’ve thought about this a lot in the past, too, because my parents didn’t exactly come from loving homes themselves; their upbringings were defined more by strictness.

I grew up the same way. There was a lot of arguing—it rarely turned physical, but they didn’t take much interest in me, either. I had to sort out many of my own issues on my own. Fortunately, I had grandparents on one side of the family who loved me dearly and made me feel like I belonged. They also always encouraged me and supported my talents.

Now I have children of my own and think about this a lot—especially since my wife’s experience was similar, yet different. We decided to do things better with our kids, and we try to put that into practice every day.

Here’s something that crossed my mind: I’ve certainly achieved a degree of success in life, partly because I had to be very independent from a young age. If I wanted something, I had to take care of it myself—at least in most cases. But I’ve come to the conclusion that while my sons might turn out to be more "normies" or conventional, the psychological toll of that kind of upbringing—the low self-esteem and the lack of pride from one’s own parents—far outweighs those benefits.

As much as I dislike the poster you're responding to ... I think he has a point in fact. I've been running "social inquiries" on linguists who opened new perspectives in their field. It's always the same pattern of finding in their intellectual constructs the life elements that put them in tension on the affective plane.

Maybe I'm speaking from "survivor bias", but I'm bit offended by your clinically framed attempt to pathologize my upbringing here.

I never said that we weren't loved or that basic affection was withheld.

We were expected to do beyond what we thought was our best, or else we would be disappointments to our parents. Would they still love us? Sure. Kick us out...? Not unless our responses involved gross insubordination. But we were called to explain ourselves as one would in a court of law.

What was at stake, and this is what I think you may misapprehend, was not parental love. It was parental respect.

In order for that to function, you actually have to love them and know that they love you. Otherwise you wouldn't give a shit whether they respected you.

Which is why withdrawing respect at times is not abuse, it's teaching someone how to conduct themselves.