Most people like their families

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Most people have decent relationships with their families.

If you insult someone's family member, that is a personal attack on them.

Sometimes siblings will tease each other. Or kids will moan 'my mum never let me'... Or parents will say 'my kids are a pain'. That's ok for them to say. Not for you. You reciprocate with 'yeah my mum was kind of a pain like that too' or 'sounds like me and my sis' or 'yeah mine were tricky at that age too'. It's all just joking banter, nobody actually hates their family if it's a healthy dynamic.

Exceptions are stuff like I can insult my (technically, blood only) 'paternal granddad' to my dad cos the guy was abusive and my dad hates him. Or for eg if someone's kid turns out to be a serious (rape, assault, murder) criminal when they grow up then you can insult them. But these aren't things you ought to be assuming about everyone. They're extreme cases!

When talking to people - assume they love their family unless massively stated otherwise. Don't insult other people's family members when talking to them.

When my dad's talking to someone if that person brings up a dad, he assumes the relationship is a normal, healthy one. If you yourself have a truly horrible family member, do like my dad does and default to what's the norm rather than what's your own situation when talking about someone else's relative.

Actually, all assumptions about one's familial relationships should be avoided.

I knew that.

My mother has been shamed here on WP one time, a few years ago now. I know the people in the thread meant well but they were all saying that my mother sounds abusive and that I should get her out of my life as much as I can, all because I said that she used to spank me as a child. Most parents did in those days. It wasn't abuse. Don't abuse my mother please. She's the best friend I'll ever have and she is not a "bad parent" at all. If it wasn't for her I don't think I'll be as loving and caring as I've turned out to be.

A lot of members here say they have abusive parents (in fact it seems quite common here, sadly). So I think those with abusive parents may feel bitter about those with loving parents and try to get you to believe that your parents are abusive like their's.

But the OP is right. Unless you frequently express how badly abusive your family are and that you hate them, I don't think people have the right to badmouth your family, even if you are whining about your family here. Everybody whines about their loved ones, maybe you had an argument or whatever but that doesn't give strangers on the internet the right to say that your family are "abusive" or "as*holes" and that you should "have nothing more to do with them". It's upsetting. I love my mum, OK? She's a wonderful mum.

Ya, I learned that the hard way as a kid. It was never about other people's parents, it was about their siblings. Then again, there's also the thing about insulting and complaining about your friend's annoying sibling together with the friend. There are friendships where that is allowed; I had a friendship like that once. Me and this one boy were friends, and his older sister was a friend of my older sister, so we talked trash about them together, he about my sister and me about his sister, too, while our sisters talked trash about both of us (I know because my room was right next to my sister's. We heard them and they heard us.) The tricky part is how to tell when you have that kind of relationship with someone and when not... and how to not take the insult jokes too far.