Tell me about your idyllic childhood (or not) and where it took you...

[MaLarkin2]

NC’d for this as I feeling it could come across as quite privileged (though that is not my intention)

Following on loosely from The Enid Blyton thread it got me wondering how everyone spent their childhood (particularly those who grew up in the countryside) and if they look back and think they were privileged, lucky, happy or angry, hemmed in and missed out on lots of opportunities...

I grew up on the outskirts of a capital city, 1 of 4, happy enough and never needed for anything but when my friends went to Disney or Spain we went camping in wales, My clothes were always practical and non named and often 2nd hand and we very very rarely ate out or had a visit to a theme park/attraction, more sandwiches in a biscuit tin and a car run to a ruined castle.

This all however I could have absolutely overlooked for the one thing I wanted my entire childhood and early teen years...riding lessons!

I begged and begged and in the end we compromised and I was allowed a lesson a month and I also used to spend my weekend with a pack lunch up at the stables where I would work solidly for 7/8 hours for a 10 minute ride along to the field or occasionally a half hour blast around the school on the lunch hour.

My grandparents used to live in the south west in horse country and seeing girls and their ponies riding past their house in the morning or driving past them turning them out in the evening light in the beautiful countryside just made it all seem even more of a lovely life and I remember never wanting to leave so I could be part of it all.

I was never particularly that good at riding, I wasnt really brave enough but (I’m not sure why it’s became so important to me, I have thought about lots, possibly because it also carries guilt that felt I deserved more then my parents could offer) it was never completely about the horses, I did love them, but what I loved and yearned for more was the type of life that one had to have to be able to have one.

I wanted a dad like those whom I seen on a Saturday morning strapping on travel boots and reversing trailers for their daughters PC meet, I wanted to sit on my own feed bucket with my pony’s cute name written on it with a pair of hunter wellies, matching socks, hat silk and numnah not a pair of Dunlop’s that my mum has got off the neighbours son and my old school coat, I wanted to be in the shop ordering feed and being allowed to choose a new brow band or treat for my pony while someone else was scraping at the bottom of their jacket for enough money for a pot noodle and still being 3p off.

Ironically (or maybe not so) I now live at the other end of the country to my home city and somewhere very rural. I have never gone back to riding but my two children are pony daft and we have 3 horses and are very active members in both PC and RC.

Giving my 2 DC the kind of childhood that I dreamed off has become very important to me and I’m constantly analysing if I’m doing and giving them enough of an idyllic and fulfilling life (there is more to just horses I promise)

I have also married someone who would give their every last penny to our kids and I still get a lump in my throat when I seen him helping my daughter putting travel boots onto her pony and reversing the trailer round to load and take her to an event.

I would liked to say that I have I’ve grown up and realised that I had more than most and that my parents loved and did the best they could for me but even writing this down many many years later I still feel a weird kind of resentment and something else that I can’t put my finger on...

Which I could afford a therapist!!!
(just to I do have a wonderful relationship with my lovely folks though!!)

Sorry this has been quite a bit longer than I anticipated, it’s been very therapeutic to write down...

I guess what I’m wondering is If you had the kind of life that I yearned for how did it stand you for adulthood, do you look back and feel privileged and lucky and like it was the kind of childhood you want for your own kids or is it a case of always wanting what you can’t have. Likewise is there anyone else like me that had a nice childhood but had a dream or wanted more for their own kids?

My childhood taught me always to help others so they never feel the way I did or go without like I did .

I’m lucky as I was eventually long term fostered and was kept safe but I won’t ever forget the kidness of others who tried to step in and help

I’m afraid I cannot relate to your post but I appreciate the lessons I’ve learnt and the kindness of strangers to help those in need and I’ll spend my life paying it all forward perpetually

I had a very privileged childhood - detached house with big garden, family holiday abroad every year. I had a lot of nice things but was always told I was very lucky to have them and knew it was rude and spoilt to 'expect' expensive stuff.

My parents hit a financially bad time when I was about 9 or 10 due to recession and my dad's business folding, but we were bailed out by my grandparents (I only realised decades later that round about that time they sold their flat in a swanky part of London and moved to a much smaller one that had belonged to my great grandfather, so they must have given the difference to my parents)

I only really came to realise how lucky I was as I got older - most people say their family home felt smaller as I got older, but the more I grew up and the more people I met, the bigger I realised my house was compared to most.

I think my parents taught me the value of money and that it's to be respected, but I know the main reason I've never been in debt is not that I am fantastically astute but that I come from a lot of capital.

I have a deep love of art and classical music from them, but also a taste for the unconventional from my mum - when other mums were at the school gate in their Laura Ashley, there was my mum with spiky purple hair, a ripped top, combat trousers a steel-heeled stilleto boots. People would as 'why's your mum a punk?' - I loved it!

I married an interesting but difficult man, a bit like my mum. She always encouraged me to have kids and family is more important to me than a stellar career (though I really like my job), but I think with my own kids, especially my daughter, I will preach less compromise, as I'm only now learning to assert myself more in my relationship with DH (I'm in early 40s, married 12 years). My mum just put up with things for an easy life, like doing all the domestic stuff and I'm actually trying not to do that - DH does loads more at home than my dad ever did, but I am being more assertive now about asking for more from him. I will also tell DD that it is fine for her not to have kids, or get married, if that's not what she wants.

We live in a suburb near both our parents, but we are Jewish and being near family/synagogue is important to us - I have no particular wanderlust but this country is going so to the dogs I am beginning to come around to my husband's long-held dream of emigrating somewhere that's not sliding downhill.

@Chouxalacreme..you sound like a lovely person.

I had a happy childhood, would have loved a sibling , but wasn’t to be. I was much loved and wanted .
I think being the only child I carried a lot of my mum and dads hopes and dreams.
It would’ve been nice to have shared the load with a sister but on the plus side there was no sibling rivalry.
I might have been the ugly thick one 😂

I don’t know when I yearned to have a big house , probably when I went to grammar school and was invited to a friends big house for tea that I realised there was another world out there.
I lived in a council house as did many of my friends.
Not a problem

Then I went to college and was invited to stay over at two friends big houses. The houses were lovely but the mothers left a lot to be desired. I never saw either mother at breakfast, whereas my mum would’ve been up cooking a big fry up for me and my friend

Also, these mothers, all three of them, put their daughters down in a way mine didn’t
Hmmm

So the yearning continues. I can actually afford the big house now, thanks to inheriting property but as I’m getting older, it’s mote to maintain and more to keep clean and heat.

I suppose living in modest houses, I’ve always had enough money for a holiday home and at one point I was lucky to have three dwellings in three countries at the same time. Since 1979 , I’ve only been one year without a holiday home, but dh is from a different city , so I thought of his home as my weekend holiday home in that time.

What I do yearn for now is land. It’s so expensive. If I had my time again, I’d buy land. Even if it was only to put a static on.

We’ve just rocked up at our static now having only left it on Monday.

I’ve got the best of both worlds. Two low maintenance properties one near the beach and one in the country.

I can’t stop looking at big houses though.
I bet I would hate living in one,especially if I was living alone.

At least I had a lovely mum.

Childhood was very rural for the first 8 years, medium sized village for the rest. Ist house was an old and tiny ploughman's cottage, second was a council bungalow.

My parents were much older than everyone else's, Dad died when I was 12 and mum had MS. Very little money, always behind on the council rent and other bills. Until I worked out the washing machine and got to grips with some basic cooking I was the dirty, smelly kid with heath issues and crappy teeth from my really bad diet. I had brothers and sisters but mum was very difficult, so they withdrew after dad died.

My take away from my childhood is too make damn sure - while understanding that life could fuck up all plans - that my kids life is nothing like that.

Was happy and loved. Only went abroad twice to France camping and once to a villa in Spain that had a swimming pool. We thought this was the best thing ever. Two older brothers. My mum says I was always a content child.

My mum made it look so easy. She's a very special woman. I hate most of the parenting I see others doing these days.

I had a fairly privileged childhood financially (not at the private school and ponies level but we lived in detached houses and had holidays abroad every year) but pretty stark emotionally. Bio dad was abusive to my mum and stepmum and not great to me; mum was a bit narcissistic and unpredictable, abused by various older people in my teens, moved houses and schools a lot and was often bullied.

What I always wanted was a cosy nuclear family, where they played board games and the parents took an interest in the kids hobbies and gave their friends lifts. DD is only 2 but so far our family life is good. My partner is a very gentle man, the polar opposite to my dad, we don’t shout at each other or DD, I’ve chosen a career that doesn’t require 60 hour working weeks (my mum worked in finance and I hated spending so long in before and after school club).

I had an atypical childhood, from atypical parents.

But my childhood had similar
issues to Little Miss Typical: things I wanted but didn’t get, things I had but didn’t want, some boredom, some disappointment, some glorious moments, some knowledge that very few have, some lack of education that “everyone else” knows, I hope to improve on it for DD, but won’t w er be able to Improve o the wide open spaces that I enjoyed.

I was a real: "children should be seen, not heard" child. In that context I tried and failed to be the perfect child in the hope to get some acnowledgment.
My teens taught me: I am alone with my problems so it's help yourself, because nobody else will.
had a very neglected and abusive childhood

I give my DC all the love, affection and attention they deserve. Emotionally, they want for nothing. For material things, they can always have what they want as long as we can afford it.
We always try and have a holiday each year and encourage DC to try lots of different things.

But most important of all is my relationship with them, open friendly fun - but also parents that guide and support. Basically all those tangible things that come naturally to most parents- the things I never had.

I had a privileged childhood in the sense that I had two loving and thoughtful parents who held me in mind.

Not very well off but we had a week in a cottage in Scotland in May and a week in a friends caravan in Wales in the summer each year.

I had piano and violin lesson and lots of encouragement in extracurricular stuff.

My mother was conscientious and would always be on time, I would always have decent breakfast and a decent coat for the weather etc.

My sibling was 7 years younger so was an only got a long time and got a lot of attention.

Where things were more difficult was emotionally, I think. My mother had difficulties in her own childhood and she was determine to to a good job with us. At times though it meant she could be a bit like a teacher with a child development project as opposed to a mum.

There was something about teaching emotional literacy that was lacking and she also struggled to contain her own emotions meaning she could be volatile sometimes. I struggle to express love and affection with my parents and sibling as it was thought a bit "wet".

So it wasn't perfect but I have learnt in therapy to value what I had and to appreciate what I was given even if not perfect.

I was also a very high achiever while my mother was a very bright woman who didn't achieve her potential. It led to her living vicariously through me to some extent and to me striving for success and prestige rather than what I might really have been passionate about in my heart.

I had a very happy, if rather overcrowded childhood.
One of four siblings, shared a room with all of them and shared a bed with my sister right up until leaving home. Didn't realise until secondary school that this was quite unusual.
My parents are lovely people- relentlessly pragmatic but very caring- and I do model how I raise DD and DSD on how they raised me and my siblings.
Holidays were either camping in Britain or visiting family in Ireland, which was great.
We often had guests or family members staying on the sofa (or occasionally sleeping on the landing if we had a really full house).
My parents were very knowledgeable, despite not having any further formal education and both being in menial jobs, they read lots and were very clued up about politics and current events.
One thing that sticks in my mind is when, shortly before my sixteenth birthday, I was in the local Waterstones and saw my dad there (we were out separately) talking the ear off a sales assistant. He was going through subject's he knew I liked (quite unusual stuff, I was a very nerdy teenager) and was trying to find books on them for me. He apparently knew nothing about the subjects, had had no previous interest in any of them but kept the poor assistant talking for about an hour before they managed to narrow down what I might want. He told the assistant that he was off to the library next "to read up on some of this stuff. I'd like to be able to talk about it with her."

I had, for the previous few years, assumed that the reason my dad was so good at getting books I loved was because he'd known and liked them too. It was only then I realised the amount of effort he went to each Birthday and Christmas to ensure that I had books I loved and that we could talk about them together. And I loved doing that.
Sorry for the ramble, but I love this memory of my dad

Thanks for all these reply’s they have been really interesting to read!

I lived in the suburbs of a city with Grandmother, [single]Mother, and Aunt. I was a happy child, loved school, lots of friends, good at lessons. We didn't have a lot of money and had no holidays but did day trips. I would always have egg and chips and an ice cream...I though that was wonderful.

I had freedom all day and climbed trees, went into the country and played in streams, scrumped apples, rode my bike, loved my skates and comics...and read loads of books [including all Famous Five books]. I was a Brownie, and learned a lot there in the process of earning badges.

I did want a tricycle and a scooter but never got them. No dad and no siblings which made me feel sad sometimes. But wasn't impressed by the dads I knew.

I've always been appreciative of freedom and hate being tied down, always looking for the next project, and I learnt a moral code and certain standards of behaviour, cleanliness and good manners. I do not follow the crowd and always try and treat others as they treat me...also do not taking any abuse from anyone. I know when to walk away. All legacies from the way my family lived. My Grandmother was a wonderful person who taught me so much. My memories of childhood years make me very happy.

My stepfather came along when i was 11...not so happy after that.

09CaptainCorellisPangolin, what a lovely memory to have.

Our house was chaotic, overcrowded and mostly miserable. There was a lot of walking on eggshells with incompatible parents constantly at each others throats. Loads of shouting and physical fights.

I used to think all families were like that. It was only when I became a parent I truly realised how bad it was.

I feel sorry for my parents though because I can see how their childhoods were abusive and neglectful, and it streches back through the generations.

Middle class family. Parents very well thought of in the community. I enjoyed school and was very sporty and had some opportunity to do some sport but it was frowned upon by my family. Family were quite sexist and found my sporty nature a hassle. Moved around internationally for my first 3-4 years. Settled in a Town in south east England for primary school. Left primary school a year early as my parents were unable to look after me so I spent 1 year living on the west coast which was miserable and my parents refused to visit so I saw them and siblings once every 2 months roughly. Then lived 2 years in London where my family were able to have contact weekly but my DM complained constantly about having to drive to me and I overheard her on a call trying to reduce her pcontact with me as it was too much for her. Person she was talking to stood up to her and told her it was not in my interest to reduce contact further and she needed to get on with it. Returned to my family in in teens. My family were (as you’ve probably noticed by now) delightful. The abuse from my DM exploded when I was back. she absolutely hated me but did a very good show for everyone outside the home pretending she was the victim somehow. School was keeping an eye on her and a teacher tipped her off that they were about to act so she removed me from that school. Next school was better at dealing with her but no one really intervened sufficiently to protect me. By the time I was independent enough financially to leave I had lost all sense of joy in life.

Despite this I had managed to establish some really supportive friendships in my teens and I hope my children have that too. These people probably kept me alive in my teens.

It took a while and I had to learn a lot of things as an adult that children usually learn (largely soft skills, emotional intelligence that kind of stuff) but I feel like I’ve now landed on my feet. I have a job that I enjoy, I know where to get support if any of my childhood issues come back to haunt and most of all I love my children and support them in the things that make them happy and offer them stability. I feel like I’ve broken the family cycle and freed the next generation. An idyllic childhood for me would be about how it feels rather than any specific activity, location or setup.

Always felt an outsider: partly because my mum was from a different country, but more because my parents saw themselves as 'different'. They saw this as a virtue, and laughed at my desire to fit in. I think a certain amount of it was self-defence on their part, but it's a bit shit being the outsider in a small NE Scotland village.

I have tried to root my DD in our community - especially school - and love seeing how she feels a sense of belonging and acceptance there. Notwithstanding my own parenting boundaries, I also try to let her do and have things so that she fits in, even if I'm not super-keen myself (lol dolls, I'm looking at you!)