Parents of LIIs-INTjs?

[Kirana]

I was wondering, what are the types of parents of LIIs on this forum (maybe also siblings), and how did that affect your experience growing up? Does anyone have Fe-ego parents, and what was that like? I'm finding that socionics is also pretty useful not just for present or future interactions, but also in looking back at past interactions, and identifying things in myself that is basically 'damage', to be able to consider what I could do differently to break from habits resulting from the damage.

My mother is LSI (quite certain), and I think my father is IEE. Lots of spirited 'discussions' between them, but generally my mother will give in or it just dissipates. Two younger brothers, one ILI and the other SLE. Intellectually it was pretty good, particularly between the three Ne valuers in the family. But it was not great for closeness. In restrospect, every interaction type at home was draining for me - no Fe supplied, and very little Si. I remember going to my dual best friend's house the first time, which was awash with Fe. It was great. Kind of like how you see babies' expressions when they try tasty grown-up people food for the first time, after only having baby food before.

I hid out in my room a lot. What I was doing, in hindsight, was instinctively removing myself so that I did not press on my parents' PoLR and cause them to react in controlling or judgmental ways. Recently I've had a few friends asking me to go easier on myself - not in a dismissive or flippant way, but in a really personal, sincere, "because I care and wish you would see you're already great" way. Anyway, it was direct and insistent enough that it got me reflecting on what drives me to be hard on myself. The thing about being LII, is that because you're usually so advanced in your reasoning ability, people much older than you forget that you're actually very young otherwise, and expect you to display forbearance and wisdom against unfair pressure from others, that could only be realistically acquired with much more world and life experience - and this was true even when I was still a child/young teenager. I think today, I can be unnecessarily hard on myself, because of this unrelenting demand. It affects my coaching style too. I'm unrelenting in the objective standard to be achieved, but I make sure the standard is achievable in the first place (achievable to the mentee, not to me or just generally on average - a distinction many people and parents fail to make) - and actually, am very lenient and realistic about what steps they need to pass through, starting from what they are able to do today and considering strengths and weaknesses (again, a person-specific starting point many people and parents fail to define). I know what it's like to be expected to know something I couldn't possibly have been positioned to know.

Additionally, the Se + rejection of Ne did not make for a close mother-daughter relationship. In hindsight, considering that just being LII female comes with a predisposition to having difficulty in culturally relating to other females, associating the only home female relationship with discomfort and judgment probably locked it in. I can't do very much about the effects arising from the former, but I can try to deal with the effects from the latter now that I realise it. After all, I have acquired several supportive close female relationships by now. I could reflect on how I might think about this differently today, had I had those relationships first.

So yeah, while not terrible, growing up involved a lot of defense and compensatory measures for me, identity formation while resisting pressure on the Super-Ego functions, with my Super-Id block not at all supported. I think in the context of development years, Super-Id support, and protection around Super-Ego functions are more important priorities, as it respectively communicates a nurturing home cocoon, and a feeling of psychological security for identity formation.

[lemontrees]

I think parent-child relations are often hard, particularly if the parents have troubles in their relationship too, stress builds upon itself. I can really understand the feeling you describe of withdrawing at a young age b/c you felt that doing certain things would negatively impact your family. For me, it was partially that I had a very overbearing (stressed, physically violent, low-health E2) mother, who neither responded in a positive way to other people's more genuine reactions, particularly reactions to her (for understandable reasons) nor would "allow" the idea of private space- for instance, she would threaten to beat me if I locked myself in the bathroom to get away. I realized at one point that I would simply go silent around her to protect myself, which I believe further played on her insecurities.

I can definitely see how being LII female comes with a predisposition to not culturally relating to other females. I actually don't think I've ever met/known an LII woman; I've met more EII women, for instance. I will say that, although I'm pretty stereotypically "girly" (...just take a look at my apt... cushy floral slippers right at the door) I've also always had trouble culturally relating, but attributed it for a while to being an immigrant and growing up in a closed off family before I realized the feeling was more pervasive and innate. It's nice though to build close friendships now, and change the quality of relationships in your life moving into the future.

I think maybe one part of growing older is to learn how to be yourself (and, as a result, develop your strengths) in spite of all of the environmental factors or early childhood conditioning that make that challenging. It can take a lot of work, but it's hard to be fulfilled (ish) otherwise.

It's hard sometimes though, fighting those E-4 impulses ("everyone else had it better!") and trying to accept that most families/ most people's lives, by nature, are just a wildcard. (I still get agitated occasionally when I see people who grew up liking their families though... sometimes I can't help it and immediate "ugh!" feelings kick in. Then I realized I could be like my LSE friend, who I think grew up with an IEI and EIE... explains her cloying overuse of Fe-role.)

ps- An LII female friend sounds awesome. Where do I find one?

[krieger]

sli + eii

lsi + lie siblings

[Esaman]

LII father, SEE mother, ESI older sister. Did not affect well.

[ashlesha]

LII father, SEE mother, ESI older sister. Did not affect well.

lol i would like to hear the story here

[Saberstorm]

My dad was an IEE, my mom is likely an IEI my brother is a delta ST.

Pretty much a black hole as far as Fe is concerned. Very bad for me. I am still recovering.

[Kirana]

LII father, SEE mother, ESI older sister. Did not affect well.

sli + eii

lsi + lie siblings

Yikes. I understand if the lack of elaboration is intentional, but would appreciate if you could share. What's it like having an identical dad? Was having an SLI dad all right - I always thought it might be ok for me, but mothers and fathers have different expectations from sons and daughters. Or was Fe-ignoring from your mom the difficult part? You are both guys, right?

My dad was an IEE, my mom is likely an IEI my brother is a delta ST.

Pretty much a black hole as far as Fe is concerned. Very bad for me. I am still recovering.

Really? with an IEI mom? Would like to understand why this was not an reasonably ok combo. I usually get along reasonably ok with ST deltas (but they're non-family).

[Kirana]

ps- An LII female friend sounds awesome. Where do I find one?

I dunno. My SEI friend seems to think so too, to my utter confusion. I appreciate her for being able to so transparently articulate why she appreciates the way I am and the way she takes my arm and thereby shields me with her utter niceness from people who would normally be negative to me for my social passivity. I mean, in Asia, it is incredibly difficult to go against sweet and warm motherly females - it makes you look like a dastardly barbarian, quite enough to deter socially-conforming and protocol-oriented types. It may not be as effective in the West, though. But I do owe my dual and the other accepting friends (like the SEI) I made along the way. Without them I wouldn't have known what it's like to feel safe enough around my Super-Ego functions that I could risk not constantly protecting it - which is necessary to open up and work on developing new traits and behaviours. Fe-Si makes me feel accepted. Being affirmed in the way I currently do Fi, and having Se being made not a big deal, makes me feel safe.

Anyhow, you could try engineering or science consulting workplaces. There's another LII female in a different team where I work, and another one might also be LII but I can't tell so far - before working where I am, I've also never met another LII female other than on the web. That's not counting the LII male consultant I work with across company lines. So, it seems we are over-represented in this sort of work LOL.

[krieger]

Was having an SLI dad all right - I always thought it might be ok for me, but mothers and fathers have different expectations from sons and daughters. Or was Fe-ignoring from your mom the difficult part?

there weren't any problems afaic, i'm pretty cool with my dad, although i don't always feel i can interface with him on what matters to me in life. i feel like he is always preparing things logistically and maintenance-wise, but never gets to the point where that upkeep is turned into something of real value beyond just survival and comfort.

i think a lot of his SLI ish traits have rubbed off on me, which translates into me not being as obviously Fe valuing as certain other alphas. a world of subdued "Fe" is the norm for me; it's the world i grew up in. and i'm not bothered by that. another thing is that i tend to have a subdued carpe-diem attitude to life, not very high expectations of things, expecting to just coast by with no big prospect of dramatic intrigue. but that sensation is also a thing of melancholy to me, like i want things to be different but i'm resigned to it or something. ugh.

as for my mother idk if i notice the "Fe ignoring" much; she's been pretty compassionate and emotionally enabling... the thing about INFJs is their ethics is Fi but its still rational + narrative, not to mention supported by Si/Ne function, meaning its similar to ESFjs'. so apart from similar issues as with my dad that relation has been positive.

[lemontrees]

I dunno. My SEI friend seems to think so too, to my utter confusion. I appreciate her for being able to so transparently articulate why she appreciates the way I am and the way she takes my arm and thereby shields me with her utter niceness from people who would normally be negative to me for my social passivity. I mean, in Asia, it is incredibly difficult to go against sweet and warm motherly females - it makes you look like a dastardly barbarian, quite enough to deter socially-conforming and protocol-oriented types. It may not be as effective in the West, though. But I do owe my dual and the other accepting friends (like the SEI) I made along the way. Without them I wouldn't have known what it's like to feel safe enough around my Super-Ego functions that I could risk not constantly protecting it - which is necessary to open up and work on developing new traits and behaviours. Fe-Si makes me feel accepted. Being affirmed in the way I currently do Fi, and having Se being made not a big deal, makes me feel safe.

Anyhow, you could try engineering or science consulting workplaces. There's another LII female in a different team where I work, and another one might also be LII but I can't tell so far - before working where I am, I've also never met another LII female other than on the web. That's not counting the LII male consultant I work with across company lines. So, it seems we are over-represented in this sort of work LOL.

That makes sense. I've spent time in both China and Japan and while the memories are vague it did feel like there were certain biases in terms of female behavior. Good to hear that things feel better now.

It's really funny; I briefly dated an LII once who used Fi-role a *lot*- every time he did, I felt a bit weird about it, like he was just deflecting me. The Fi-reactions didn't feel fully developed, more like... some sort of knee-jerk "babe you're fine" sort of answers (not in those words exactly, since he was also super nice). But Ti is a lot nicer. With many LII's I've encountered, I've felt quieted "understood" and responded to by the Ti (and Ne).

I have zero connections to science or engineering consulting workplaces haha. But that makes sense- maybe one day I will have my alpha friends.

[Esaman]

What's it like having an identical dad?

It can be like being disappointed in, being insecure about and then despising what you are not at all sure is not yourself also.

[under the bridge]

Father: EII-Ne
Mother: ESI-Fi
Younger Brother: ILI-Ni
Youngest Brother: SLE-Ti

In hindsight I can see how my parents led me to put more focus on my Role function which put a certain amount of stress on me, especially when I'd try to explain how I intrinsically needed to do things in life a certain way and didn't feel understood. As a teenager I began to assume I was just more intelligent to ease the dissonance(learning about psychology and personality types has enabled me to abandon this "better than others" style of thinking). I never enjoyed the Fi emphasis growing up but now I'm thankful it was present because ultimately it helped me learn to respect the way other types live and understand why they react to certain values and impressions I have. For the most part I preferred spending time with my dad because he seemed to see where I was coming from more often than my mother. I highly respected him and learned so much from how he dealt with others and his work ethic(although I always thought he erred on the side of being too selfless). My mom also was a lot more concerned with societal standards than I ever cared to devote much thought to(although I still conformed to some aspects of it for her during a few years in my youth). Keep in mind my experience was convoluted with the effects of a high-control religion demanding us to live a certain way.

I spent a lot of time alone as a child and more with my friends as a teen probably from the subconscious need to be more myself. While a kid I did really enjoy playing with my ILI brother; we'd invent all sorts of games and encourage each others' imaginative creativity. As we grew older I could see we went a different way about things but we could always achieve some great results working together. My SLE brother was a little too boisterous for me to desire spending a good amount of time with(the four year age difference was probably another big factor) but because my parents divorced I garnered a lot of respect and admiration from him due to me stepping up for the man-of-the-house role.

Can't really talk about how we interact now because of what happened when I was 18 but that is what I remember from growing up with them.

The only major habit I can think of having to break was trying not to be overly nice and polite to others. While possessing this habit it hindered my ability to be authentic with strangers and make friends with people outside of my established circle and reinforced my tendency to avoid speaking my mind lest I offend others. All in all I think my family's configuration of types helped me to appreciate others and their individuality yet pushed me just enough to find my own path through this crazy adventure known as life. If any elaboration is needed let me know.

[Kirana]

You sound really grounded. And your account sounds very familiar, except that the Ne/Fi position swap in your dad makes for an interesting result. You even have the same sibling types as me. But I think my brothers are ILI-Te, and SLE-Se. However, I don't understand how over-niceness and avoiding speaking your mind hinders friendship formation. In my cultural context, that should be a plus. Maybe it's culture-specific. My direct and open communication style does get taken as a plus in some nations other than my own. It still feels tremendously weird any time I think about it, as I have all my life associated those very same traits as killers of relationship potential.

The Role pressure - particularly from my mom - was also mixed for me but certainly affected identity comfort a lot. In terms of the conformance to superficial societal expectations - I resisted. Did not rebel, but resisted. So in the end it was a mix of bare compliance on some points, mostly avoiding social gatherings, and non-compliance on other points. I suppose it is more feasible to assert oneself on this against an LSI mom than an ESI. My ex-husband is ESI, I can imagine. Growing up, no one was able to articulate to me why certain social rituals are such, nor why certain things that must or must not be done are so. My mom insisted that as no one had to explain it to her, so no one need explain it to me - they're just things you pick up. But me - I could not do mimicry for long, or at all, without needing to understand why. So I never got any good at it - by my mom's standards anyway. And it gave me the impression that people in general are incredibly touchy and judgmental. My sense of fairness prevented me from developing your habit of over-niceness. To me, as people are likely to be ungenerous and judgmental of odd people like me, thus they shouldn't have the cheek to expect to receive unconditional politeness from all and sundry just because maybe their social hierarchy is higher. Anyway, I stopped trying because it didn't seem possible to succeed. Today, I have a lot more knowledge on this, quite laboriously and sometimes painfully obtained. I can try to unpick all those things that weigh me down but perhaps were never actually true.

But, otoh I do take ethics seriously - the focus forced me to expend effort to think about it. No sense throwing the baby out with the bath water, so as it was possible to consider it as a related philosophical paradigm to Logic, I did adopt many elements of it - more honestly so than the people most invested in policing the societal standards probably. Religion for me is a mix of first resisting what is socially imposed but without basis, accepting the cost of relative isolation, and then subsequently it became volitional and fulfilling once i studied it in a scholarly way. I am fortunate that within my mainly presumption- or personality-driven cultural-religious context, both my parents have an actual knowledge of religion, distinguishing between cultural nonsense, unfounded hearsay/ambiguous arguments, and actual religion. That's probably due to the lasting influence of my late maternal grandmother (I think she might have been EII), without which my mom might have been much more black & white in her views.

[nefnaf]

LII father, SEE mother, ESI older sister. Did not affect well.

Wow, that must be hard. I imagine a family like that must be split into Alpha and Gamma factions. I have an LII father and ESI mother. I also have two younger brothers (EIE and ILE). My mother is the black sheep, yet she was always the only one willing to do basic household tasks, including managing finances or paying bills.

Yikes. I understand if the lack of elaboration is intentional, but would appreciate if you could share. What's it like having an identical dad? Was having an SLI dad all right - I always thought it might be ok for me, but mothers and fathers have different expectations from sons and daughters. Or was Fe-ignoring from your mom the difficult part? You are both guys, right?

It feels like having a window to your own future self, and it ain't pretty. I read a description once along the line of "you grow up hating what you are ultimately not sure is not also yourself." I wouldn't go that extreme but the gist is accurate.

I would say the best types to have as parents for an LII would be Alpha SF > Delta ST > Gamma NT > Beta > everything else. Although maybe that's just a case of wishing for what you don't have on my part.

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

it would be really cool to make a baby just to type it and nurture it according to their type needs and see what happens.nah it would probably turn out a bitch

mum exxj,father sxi (nut good relaetionsheep) ,brothers entp and beta st