I can relate. The thing was, my grandmothers and my father were the softer ones, and my mother was the hard one, like her father. I remember, when I was 11, my mother calling me a wimp because I wouldn't engage in ruler fights with my brother. I still remember, when I was at school, two boys having a ruler fight and the teacher saying, "If you keep doing that, I'll get you to bring it down here and I'll show you what I can do with it." (i.e. hit them with it). My mother could also be manipulative in that if I had done something, I wasn't a naughty kid, she'd tell my father to hit me and if he didn't, she'd tell him he was weak, but if he did, she'd get upset.

I was never a kid who liked violence or cruelty. I am a trans person and am happier for it.