Childhood injustices you can't forget

[TheScurrilousFunge]

Please tell me about your childhood injustices.

I was just reminded of one by something on the TV - I found my classmate's bag strap behind a loo at school. It had clearly been hidden there, but not by me - and yet, I got the blame for it! It rankles TO THIS DAY.

Tell me I'm not alone in not letting this stuff go!

@Ludo19 I do think my teddybear drawings were too lifelike to be Daddy's or Grandma's and that's what gave the game away. I was too good an artist and therefore hoist with my own petard.

Otherwise I'm baffled as to how my Mum could have known it was me!

Nannewnannew that’s just so shocking to read! What relationship do you have with your Mum now?

PhylisNightsisawesome I am so sorry for how you were treated 💐💐💐

I was given a detention in RE in year 9 (my only ever one) for not doing the homework that was set the week before. It was my first ever RE lesson and I had only started the school two days previously. I was too scared to say anything to the teacher

In p1, my class was taken to the music room for our very first music lesson. The room was laid out with every sort of percussion instrument imaginable including xylophones, glockenspiels and lots of individual chime bars. As soon as we arrived, the music teacher said she had to step out so we were to sit quietly until she returned. Many of my classmates went wild as soon as the door was closed; banging on the instruments, making so much noise and wrenching the bars off each instrument to hit each other or throw across the room. I was a bit of a goody two-shoes and was very upset that they were not only disobeying orders but potentially causing damage to the instruments. I knew that the perpetrators would get into trouble but I also worried that those of us who were sitting by and doing nothing would also get into trouble for not stopping them, so I decided to collect up all the bars and put them back into place and then get between my classmates and the instruments to try to stop them touching them again. I was 5 years old and this was one of the bravest things I'd ever done. Of course, both the music teacher and our class teacher eventually came flying in because they had heard the noise but at that point, all they could see where the instruments sitting untouched. They asked everyone who had touched an instrument to come forward. Some classmates owned up. Then they asked the rest of the class if they were truly the only perpetrators and to point out anyone else who had touched the instruments. Of course, everyone pointed at me. I tried to explain that yes, I had touched them but only to fix them and to stop others causing damage. I hadn't been playing with them at all. I was accused of being a naughty little liar and then each of us in turn had our bottoms smacked my the teacher (this was still legal/widespread at the time). I was so scared, upset, angry and embarrassed to be punished in this way and that moment of realising what what was about to happen has never left me.

A few years later, at the same school, my mother asked the teacher during a parents' night, why children of our age were not given homework. The thing is that we did have homework every evening and I used to get it done as soon as I got home and then went out to play/watch tv/whatever. I hated telling my parents I had homework because they made such a big deal about it, almost treating it like a punishment. They would tell me I couldn't do it when I wanted to but as soon as there was something on tv or a friends came to the door they would impose the homework on me and use it as a reason to not allow me to to what I wanted. If I told them I had already done my homework, they would tell me that it probably wasn't done well enough and would make me do it again, so I told them that the school had stopped giving homework. The thing is, it should have been obvious to the teacher that I was doing my homework as I handed it in every morning and always got high marks. I was one of the highest achieving pupils in the class. My mum didn't say a word to me after the parents night but the next morning, right at the start of the class, I was asked to stand up. The teacher then told the whole class that she couldn't quite work out my game but that I was clearly some kind of cheat. I was then banned from all class trips for the rest of the year.

Isn’t it funny that these injustices burn so badly when we are young and are never forgotten?

When I was small I was in John Lewis (Trewin Bros, actually!) with dm and someone had made a mess of the boxes of handkerchiefs, getting them all out. So I set to and was tidying them all up and arranging them properly. Suddenly an assistant bustled over and told me off in the strongest terms for touching the merchandise and what a naughty girl I was. I was mortified.

In fact to this day I always feel slightly uncomfortable in John Lewis and actually feel a bit grumpy about giving them any custom!

@50WaysToLeaveYourLover

I was given a detention in RE in year 9 (my only ever one) for not doing the homework that was set the week before. It was my first ever RE lesson and I had only started the school two days previously. I was too scared to say anything to the teacher

Surely the teacher noticed they had a new person in their class?

@itsgettingwierd

You would think so, wouldn't you?! But no she really didn't. My parents said they would write a letter but I found that too embarrassing so I just went to it.
It didn't help I suppose that I started about 4 weeks into the September term of year 9 so she may not have recognised all the class yet and it was over 25 years ago

I was always a good swimmer. In primary school I had my Bronze, Silver, Gold and Honours Awards for swimming. School Swimming cup was awarded to another girl who was also the Headgirl, who had her Silver Award. I could swim faster than she could to. The girl came and apologised to me after assembly when she got the cup. She knew I should have won cup but still don't know why Headteacher awarded it to her.

My DD in secondary school. The school had a rule that you can only go to the bathroom during break & lunch. No exceptions.

As children are allowed to hydrate with large bottles of water throughout the days lessons during class time, sometimes people would soon feel the need again despite having gone at break times as advised.

Some teachers were more relaxed around the rule and allowed children to go during class occasionally as long as not too many kids all trying to go at once or too frequently.

A few years ago at Age 13 my DD however had a teacher that was known to be a mean b and super strict. She wouldn't allow her go to the bathroom despite being absolutely bursting. She begged to be allowed to relieve herself and was harshly refused, berated and belittled in front of everyone.

My DD was so desperate to pee and so upset that she just bolted from the classroom without the needed express permission. When she returned she was torn to shreds again and even more so than before.

It caused so much distress, fear and dread that my DD trying to make sure this never happened again started to seriously reduce her fluid intake for the entire school day, every day, for fear of having to need like that again or having to ask in any class, to any teacher. My DD never told us about any of it. She sadly just went into herself. Internalising everything. Suffering in silence.

This severe restriction of fluid combined with deliberate holding her bladder and trying to ignore the need to go lead to a urinary tract infection, and because she had become used to holding it in to the point of a lot of discomfort - she did not recognise or realise that she had symptoms of a UTI, so it continued to spread and infected her kidneys and bloodstream causing septicemia, and that lead very quickly to life threatening sepsis, which treated even hours later could have killed her.

She had initially spent a day and a half resting in bed unwell, having only fluids, with what until that point only seemed like a flu bug.

It was only at the point she was suddenly complaining of kidney pain that we realised it was not a bug, then she went downhill very rapidly in A&E.

She was hospitalised for two weeks, luckily IV antibiotics, IV fluids and great care got her back to physical health. Sadly she had PTSD from that severe illness and her horrendous near death experience, and also had been mentally and emotionally scarred by that power mad teacher and those stupid rules. Teachers/adults need to take heed that their words and behaviour can seriously affect young people. That particular incident led to nearly costing my child her precious life! 😡😭

@TheScurrilousFunge

OMG I hope you wrote to the school.

I've done a lot of supply and some schools actually lock the doors outside break time.

As I had very heavy periods I have never and will never stop a child from going tot he toilet.

I might only let one out of the class at once so the longest someone would wait would be a couple of minuites.

In year 2 of Primary I was accused of stealing a hymn book (friend had lost hers and I gave her mine from home but teacher said I'd stolen it)

There followed a year of what I can only call bullying from the teacher. I was made to sit on my own frequently reminded I was not only a thief but a liar as well as I wouldn't admit to being a thief. I was ignored in class if I put my hand up and if I was allowed to speak was told my word couldn't be trusted as I was a liar

Cue parents evening when teacher ranted about my thieving and lying that the book had been my Dads. He confirmed it was.

Teacher at least had the decency to sort of apologise in front of the class and there were gasps that actually I wasn't a thief or liar

To be honest it destroyed me for years and for a long time I would panic if someone 'lost' anything

Age about 8 at prep school..choir service and parents in next room , quiet required . Bench I was sitting on was very loud and squeaky if you moved on it , I stood up and away from it , furious prefects made me stand and sit on it so it made even more noise. Given reprimand in assembly ..no one asked for my version of events...man I hated that place . More than 50 years ago ..sheesh.

Two teacher-related stories concerning two women who should never have been allowed near children.

Background to the first story: We lived in a naice neighbourhood but we were not a naice family. Looking back, it’s quite clear that we brought the tone of the neighbourhood down and that the neighbours looked down on us. One of our neighbours was the deputy headmistress at my school. Her daughter was also in my class and we were good friends although her mother would turn very frosty when she saw us playing together. This particular incident happened when I was around 6/7 years old. The age when you still believe your parents know everything and don’t question their values. We had a dog and I absolutely loved her. It was my job to walk the dog in the morning and I would genuinely get up really early and happily take her out – it was my favourite time of day. As this was the mid-80s, the concept of cleaning up after your dog was not widespread. Whenever this was mooted in the media, my dad would get really angry, saying that only perverts would willingly get that close to dog shit and that the onus was on people to look where they were going. Obviously I know now that his views were wrong but I accepted it at face value at the time. He had also trained our dog to always pull into the road and do her business in the gutter and would say that doing this made us exempt from any incoming laws around cleaning up – these only applied to pavements and public walkways. Anyway, this one morning, I was returning home with the dog after a morning walk, which meant walking past the deputy head’s house. She was outside in her garden and beckoned me over. She started by saying, “I think it’s lovely that you walk your dog every morning and your parents must be so proud of having such a good daughter…” I was absolutely glowing at this first bit of praise she had ever given me but then she turned really stern, saying “however, I’ve noticed that you don’t clean up after your dog which makes you a very naughty and disgusting girl. What would your parents think if they knew you were leaving mess on your walk?” I was confused because my parents did know and were fine about it so I told her that, and explained about the gutter exemption. She told me I was a liar and a nasty little girl. I ran home in tears and told my mum and dad what had happened. They laughed, said she was a snob and that she was wrong and they were right. I asked them to go to her house and explain but they refused. Later that day at school, the deputy head came to our classroom with a message but while she was there, her eyes settled on me and she said “there she is, the dirty girl”. I was utterly distraught. The next day, the same thing happened. She came out of her house and watched me walk up the street with the dog and then gave me another earful when I returned. She pulled me out of class to ask if I’d thought about my dirty ways and she forbade her daughter from playing with me. I begged my parents to talk to her but they constantly refused. I started refusing to walk the dog. I was terrified by this point. My parents refused to see the connection with what was going on and started telling me I was just naughty and lazy. I tried to explain to them but they would tell me not to let the woman get to me. This situation never really resolved itself; the deputy head eventually moved to a Headmistress job at another school and they moved house but this whole incident blighted my school and home life for about 2 years. The injustice here is as much my parents’ fault as the Deputy Head – she really didn’t handle the situation well but, looking back, I realise that my parents knew they were in the wrong and were too ashamed to face her so they just left me to it.

The second situation concerns the same school but a few years later. Our teacher was about 100 years old and a real tyrant. Everyone was afraid of her and she had a ferocious reputation – most of us had parents who had also been taught by her. I was a good student and an excellent reader but had a very quiet voice. We were putting on a play and I was the only person who didn’t have a part. I had been completely overlooked but I didn’t really mind. In the week of the play, the narrator fell ill and it was clear that they would not be back for the day of the play. The teacher stormed around, furious at this turn of events but, one-by-one, classmates started suggesting that I could fill in. She dismissed it, saying that nobody would hear me but I think she ended up with no choice. I knew the narration parts of the play off by heart anyway and also knew I could read the big words which the real narrator kept stumbling over. For the few days I had available, I practiced like crazy, making my voice as big as it could possibly be and then, on the day of the play I had tears in my eyes from yelling my lines so loudly. As we came off stage, the teacher congratulated everyone on their performance but then turned to me and told me she couldn’t hear a thing and I had ruined all the effort she had put in. Once back in the classroom she screeched at me that I had ruined the play for everyone and made her a laughing stock. She then said that she wished she were still allowed to belt me as she would happily flay the skin off me in that moment and I should get out of her sight before she did something she would regret. I spent the rest of the day sitting in the corridor, upset and terrified.

I spent the last two years of primary education at a very cliquey junior school. If you hadn't been through the whole of the school then you really stood no chance of being part of the community. It was in a town with a large naval base and if you were there because your parents were employed at the base you were the bottom of the heap.

As we approached our 11+ exams we regularly had tests that we were told "were under exam conditions". We sat where we were told and I was sat next to someone who had bullied me from the time I started the school the year before.

I became aware that she was copying me - or trying to - I would see her straining to see my paper. So, for my own satisfaction, I decided to put it to the test. I crossed out an answer and replaced it then went back 10 minutes later and corrected it to the original answer. Both times I was aware of her scribbling on her paper.

A few days later the headmaster came into the classroom and said that he was so upset that there had been cheating and certain members of the class would have to do a new test instead of playing games after play time. He read out the list of names including mine and the girl who had been copying me. He said that he would be speaking to the parents of anyone who had been cheating and they might not be allowed to stay in school.

At break time this girl was crying and I was surrounded by her friends telling me that I had upset her, she was crying because she was missing the fun and it was my fault. She would never have cheated. It must have been me. I needed to admit that I was the one who had cheated.

I was upset by the shouting and name calling but tried to hide it, thinking that the truth would come out and everyone would know it wasn't me.

So we sat the tests and ---- that was the last I heard of it. I was so upset. I had been bullied and picked on by the class and yet had done nothing wrong. I know now that there the school wouldn't make an example of her to the rest of the class but I was labelled as a cheat by the girls. That, together with being a naval child, meant that my last months in school were horrific.

I have told these stories before on MN, but they still rankle. Both are about my mum and my sister (Golden Child).

All through my childhood, up until I left home, we only had baths twice a week - Sunday night and Wednesday night (due to the cost of heating the water, I assume). Dsis and I always had to share the bathwater, as did mum and dad. Dsis always went first - but as I got to stay up later than her, because I am the older sister, this didn't bother me too much - but when we hit our teenage years, we had the same bedtime, and I started to resent always going second.

Not only did it mean that my sister got the bathwater that was clean and hot, while I had to bath in lukewarm, grubby water, it also meant that I always had to clean the bath afterwards, and hang up the towels and the bathmat.

Eventually I plucked up courage and asked my mum if dsis and I could take turns at going first, so it was fair - and she refused, point blank!! Looking back, I wonder if she didn't want to accept that it was unfair for me to have the dirty water and the cleaning up afterwards because she always went first, and dad always had her dirty bathwater, and did the clearing up too, and she didn't want to have to change what she did - but it still makes me feel as if she preferred my sister to me (which I am sure she did).

Dsis and I were told that our 18th birthdays would be the special ones - they couldn't afford to give us special presents for both our 18ths and our 21sts - which was absolutely fine - we both understood this. When I was 18, I asked for a clock radio, which cost £21. When my sister was 18, she got an oboe that cost £250.

Mum also did the sum total of fuck all when I was bullied at school, even though I was in tears when I told her. She just said 'sticks and stones will break your bones but calling names can't hurt you' - and told me that, if I ignored the bullies, they would stop.

Of course, they didn't stop - the bullying went on from when I was 10 (we moved to a tiny village in the countryside where we just didn't fit in, and where everyone else had known each other pretty much from the cradle, so we were the outsiders) until I went to Sixth form college at age 16. During those years, I became more and more withdrawn and unhappy, and I had no friends. My mum was an intelligent woman, and she must have noticed how unhappy I was - but she did and said nothing, and I didn't feel I could tell her it was still going on, because I knew she'd just tell me I hadn't ignored it well enough - basic victim blaming.

It's left me with a life long history of depression, anxiety and low self esteem - I didn't realise it for years, but I was depressed when I was in my mid teens - it wasn't until I told my therapist that I remember thinking about how to commit suicide, and she told me that this was NOT normal for a teenager, that I realised I was clinically depressed all the way back then.

It still hurts, even though I am in my 50s, and have a good life (a long, long way away from my mum).

I was in a play at primary school and had a speaking part with my friend. Only she forgot a load of her lines of which I was meant to 'reply' to so I couldn't and ended up barely saying anything.

Afterwards she was banging on for ages about how it was so amazing she remembered all her lines and what a great job she had done. I bit my tongue and didn't tell her that she actually messed up and as a result ruined my part. Story of my life tbh.

RobotandPenguin I want to give you a big hug!

RobotandPenguin did you talk to your parents about that woman when you were older & explain to them how their attitude affected you?

I have never forgotten this!

I was going a whole year sponsored silence on the school hall when I was 12. Four mins before the end I got thrown out for talking, only I hadn't said a word, not even a whisper. It's just not something I would do and I was mortified.

EternalOptimist No, I'm not very close to my parents these days. They are not the type of people to listen and apologise - hence not being close to them.

One I've hung onto is that I was desperate to go on the French exchange at school and my DPs said no, because they didn't want 'a stranger's child' living in our house for two weeks. Never mind that it would be an educational experience and it was my favourite subject. I was gutted. Then, when my younger DSis got to foreign exchange age, DPs offered her the chance to go - she didn't even have to ask. AND she turned it down the ungrateful mare !!

Also I remember begging and begging DPs to get a cat. Various reasons were given as to why we couldn't have one. Fair enough, not everyone wants the hassle. Yet when DSis asked a few years later when I'd gone to uni, they got a rescue cat.

Those two injustices are a bit 'first world problem' I know, but there was one which was very wrong. I was 8 or 9, and the school swimming gala was coming up. On one of the practice days I vaguely remember there was a coach taking us to the pool at two different time slots and I got confused about which time I was meant to go, so ended up missing the one I should have got on. It was an honest mistake, but my teacher went apeshit even though I tried to explain what had happened. I remember he was SO angry, his spit hitting my face as he yelled at me. He then grabbed me by the shirt and shook me so hard a button came off, slapped me across the back of my legs and left me sobbing outside the classroom. I was too terrified to tell anyone what had happened. I was a good girl who never got into trouble, so I thought I'd done something really awful, plus it was the 80s and corporal punishment was still allowed. The teacher in question was exposed as a paedophile years later and I believe he went to prison. Bastard.

Primary School in a small (and old fashioned) seaside town. 1970's
My parents are POOR & I am illegitimate. Everyone knows both facts.
On the annual school trip to the local beauty spot my Mother forgets my packed lunch (relief, it would have been spam or jam sandwiches and water and I'd have been teased). My nice class teacher asks each other girl to choose 1 thing from her lunch she can spare until there is enough for a lunch for me. Someone gives me a fresh doughnut from the bakers shop from her lunch. I feel tearful and leave it until the end to eat as it's a real treat for me. The Head (who doesn't like me, I never found out why) reaches over and takes it and says: 'You need to learn there is no such thing as a free lunch' and eats in in front of me. I tried really hard not to cry but a tear slipped out and she seemed pleased. I was about 8. Nasty old witch.

I have one, teacher said I got a maths question wrong. I knew I hadn't. I was aged about 6 or 7 at the time and she belittled me so much. The next day i went in and did the calculation the same way as the day before and it was correct.

I have never forgotten that and how that teacher made me feel.

@52andblue that story makes me tearful. What a nasty old cow! Some people shouldn't be allowed near children.