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!

@rc22

So called best friend and I both had very precious scented orange segment rubbers. Somehow she damaged hers. I left mine on the table one day and went to the loo. She switched my perfect one for her damaged one. I never got mine back.

Omg this happened to me, except it was a ladybird rubber!

Robert Gershinson, I know we’re 30 years past it but I NEVER FORGET!!

The ending of free school milk.

None of my friends that I was in contact with as young adults forgot either. A longtime Tory seat beforehand has been Labour for many years.

I was a surprise late child and was close in age to my nephews and nieces.

When I was about nine I'd collected some little dolls with bean bag bodies. I think they were based on the seven dwarfs. They were pocket money prices but we weren't well off and they were a big deal to me.

While I was out of my bedroom my nephew found them and ripped all their heads off. I was in floods of tears over the remains and my sister told me off for making such a fuss because "they're only dolls". My nephew wasn't told off at all (He was about 6).

They weren't the only things of mine to be wrecked but the dolls really stung.

I was accused by a teacher of copying work from a classmate. I didn't do it but as we both denied it she decided to punish us both physically. Knowing full well that she was punishing one child who was not guilty.

It was the 70s and she was positively sadistic or "free with her hands" as they said then.

I was six years old ffs!! I'll never forget the sense of burning injustice.

I just remembered an even worse incident but I was an observer this time.

It was the 80s and I was in secondary school. One teacher had a violent but effective technique to demonstrate his authority to a new class. He would pick the hardest boy in the class and accuse him of something really minor that he may or may not have done.

He would then call the boy to the front of the class in front of everyone and beat his hands with a leather strap until the boy's hands bled and he starting crying.

The message was clear. If I can do that to the hardest boy in class just think what I can do to you. Sadistic bastard.

Utterflapdoodle:

These days that wouldn't ever happen because the hardest boy in the class would punch back or just walk out of the classroom. It's really hard being a teacher now because you can't just rely on fear to keep the class in control. I'm still glad those days of corporal punishment have gone though. It gave too many opportunities for sadists and abusers to get away with all sorts.

So many......

Never being chosen as Mary in the nativity despite having a beautiful blonde head of hair.

Being told to mime in said nativity as my singing voice was so awful.

Coming second to a boy called Paul in a competition to build a working model of a car, mine was using Lego Technic and had rack and pinion steering so the front wheels moved left and right. His was made of meccano and was shit.

All of these were over 45 years ago do never let it be said I don't hang onto grudges.

@peak2021

The ending of free school milk.

None of my friends that I was in contact with as young adults forgot either. A longtime Tory seat beforehand has been Labour for many years.

From my point of view that's about the only good thing Thatcher ever did. I hated milk. I still do hate it and even seeing someone drink it makes me feel sick. Generally I am a very adventurous eater, but there's something about milk that repulses me.

At my primary school we had a gardening club. I grew a siamese carrot and some little scroat ate it.

At my secondary school we were asked to bring in something that meant a lot to us and write an essay about it. When I was a baby, a member of maternity staff gave me 50p for my piggy bank as I was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. I asked my teacher if it was safe to bring it in. She said it was. Someone stole it and the teacher couldn't care less.

My younger sister (Golden Child) wanted to borrow my Harry Potter Goblet of Fire book. I said no, it’s a hardback first edition, you cannot read it. She had major form for wrecking my stuff and it not being replaced.

I was (as per usual) overruled by our mother, and the book was returned with a broken spine, dog eared and splattered with food and drink.

Told our mother, who completely ignored me.

I’m still raging.

A year or two later, I’d moved in with our father. Same sister wanted to borrow a video. He said text your sister and ask, it’s hers. I said no. I text my Dad to say I’d said no, because of prior form of ruining my stuff.

I got home, sister had gone, I fancied watching the film. Opened the box, it was empty. Little cow had taken the video and put the empty box back on the shelf.

My Dad got in the car, drove to my Mums, and refused to leave until my sister had handed it back over, stating that he wouldn’t tolerate stealing in his house.

“It’s not stealing, she borrowed it from her sister.”

“No, she asked, was told no, took it anyway. That’s stealing.”

“Well you should have told her to let younger sister borrow it.”

My Dad, totally confused “No, that’s not how that works. It belongs to her. She decides who can borrow it and when. She has every right to say no. Younger sister needs to apologise sharpish.”

Then my Mum started screeching and my Dad just left, utterly bemused at her attitude.

The Spelling Cup.

It was a whole school spelling test in primary school and after several rounds, all of which I had won, it had narrowed down to me and one other girl. Entirely coincidently she was a teacher's daughter.

For mysteriously reasons we then had multiple rounds, just me and her, all of which I still won.

It started to get a bit closer as the Headmistress was coming up with words no-one had heard of, in an effort to close the gap. She used a word that could have 2 spellings - I spelled it correctly one way, she deemed that only the other way was correct. Other girl had never heard of word any way so wasn't even close. Teacher marking mine by this point was agreeing that the whole thing was unfair.

Eventually the Headmistress gave up and said wouldn't it be fairest to call it a draw as we had both done very well?

No, it fucking well would not given that I had won every single round of the Spelling Cup and the Headmistress had had to resort to cheating.

However the Headmistress was also terrifying so Yes, absolutely it would be fairest so we shared the Spelling Cup as clearly we were both winners no, only I was the winner

A few days later, the Headmistress called me over and said she thought I had shown great sportmanship. So she knew, she knew it was wrong!

I shall have on my gravestone that I was the sole and undefeated winner of The Spelling Cup.

My teacher in middle infants humiliated me for not knowing the answer to a maths question. She made me stand up in front of the class when I couldn't answer and sneeringly asked a boy on my table to tell the 'stupid girl' what it was. I can still remember the tears and snot dripping down my face.
Later in the day she pulled me to one side and said she was sorry and not to tell my mum what happened. I didn't.
Fuck you if you're still alive Miss Gibbons.

In home economics class, we were making Swiss roll. Pamela, the class bully, told me to roll us hers, as she couldn't do it. I did. I got 8/10 for my own Swiss roll, as apparently the roll wasn't tight enough. Pamela got 10/10.
Another day in Home Economics class, the assignment was to make a healthy dish with cheese (???). The recipe I found was for a savory bread pudding. Marian had forgotten so asked to use my recipe but, while I had bought my healthy ingredients at the super-market, including a brown seeded loaf, Marian had to get everything from the corner-shop. I got 7/10, Marian got 10/10, because the seeds from my bread made my bake "less attractive" than Marian's which was made from corner-shop white plastic bread. And I lost a point for copying Marian's recipe when I should have done my won research!!!!!

Same Headmistress just to give a flavour what she was like - swanned in and decided that she would compare all of the children in the class to cars.

I got compared to a Ferrari which was nice. However I can remember my burning sense of injustice as the bitch went through the class, destroying children's confidence, 'a Golf' 'a Fiesta,' before finally comparing my dyslexic mate to a Lada.

She's dead now. And the school is now a housing estate. Which was the best thing to happen to children's education in my town. Also our parents were actually paying for this experience.

I was aged 7 and admitted to hospital. Their policy was that all sweets were taken away from kids, pooled, and once a day we were allowed to choose one bar of chocolate.

The phlebotomist visited the ward, she took my blood and moved on to the next kid. Well, that girl yelled and screamed and refused the blood test. A nurse asked me to talk to this girl, tell her it didn't hurt etc. I duly did this, the girl shut up and allowed them to take her blood. She was then allowed to choose TWO ITEMS from the pooled sweets for being so good. I got nothing.

That was in 1982 and I've held a grudge against the staff of ward E2 ever since.

Had to move to a new primary school part way through the school year after having been at the school and nursery with the same kids for 6 years. On my VERY last day, on the way back from handing in the registers a boy from the class below pointed at me and said “it was HER Miss, SHE stole
my pencil case!!!”

I was the goodiest little goody two shoes in the world. I never would have done anything like that. That particular teacher was --an evil
bitch who had never liked me-- not a very nice woman and said I would be kept in for a
lunchtime detention. I explained I hadn’t done it and said that it was my last day and I just wanted to play with my friends one last time. I started crying when she refused. She laughed and said “you always were a little drama Queen!” Luckily a boy from my class had witnessed the real culprit and told her so in front of me. She still refused to take back the punishment. In the end, a couple of hours later when it was time for lunch and he saw me being kept in my class teacher intervened but the nasty teacher was fuming that I wasn’t kept in.

Also...when you are the baby of the family,
at some point EVERYONE farts and blames
it on you.

@peak2021

The ending of free school milk.

None of my friends that I was in contact with as young adults forgot either. A longtime Tory seat beforehand has been Labour for many years.

God, I was so relieved to see the back of lukewarm milk every day.

I had a teacher when I was 10 who was obsessed with the fact that I'm adopted. She would correct me if I mentioned "mum" or "dad" by saying "adopted mum Alex".

We had to write a 'What I did in the summer holidays" piece and she corrected it (with a red pen!) by writing the word adopted next to any reference I'd made to my parents or siblings. It was utterly bizarre and I wish I'd told my parents but there were some sensitivities within the family about my adoption and I didn't want to upset them.

There was a girl in my class I'll call Susan who only had two fingers on one hand. Once a week a music teacher would come in to do recorders and obviously Susan couldn't play so she'd sit in the reading corner and draw while we were murdering playing London's Burning.

Every single week the bitch of a music teacher would make such a fuss about Susan not playing. She would say "Oh, I'd forgotten about you Susan, I suppose you can't possibly play" and then sigh and be all dramatic about it. We all hated her and I truly hope that wherever Susan is now she doesn't carry that with her. Such a nasty way to behave to a child.

I had to be the donkey in the school play for four years running during a time when I was being bullied. My nickname became Ass.

I have no idea why teachers turned a blind eye.

My dad always remembered an incident at his school, when he was whispering to the boy next to him. The teacher yelled at him and said "You talk again, and you'll get the strap." He sat silently, then the class had to start reading aloud from their poetry books, going round the class, one at a time. When it was his turn, he started to say the poem, and the teacher said"Get out here, now! I told you not to speak again." As he got strapped, he noticed the whole class went silent, all thinking how incredibly wrong it was. He never forgot that incident.

Not sure this is exactly an injustice but it still hurts to this day.
Some nights I wet the bed and this went on until I was about 7. My mother used to get really annoyed as the sheets were cotton, and we obviously didn’t have a tumble dryer, so in her frustration she used to rub my face with the urine soaked sheet. This was her theory to try and cure the bed wetting. The fear in the mornings when I realised the bed was wet was awful.

It still upsets me that my parents never came to my secondary school parent/teacher evenings.

They went to every single one for my older brother and younger sister, who were both quite rebellious and often in trouble at school. I was a goody-two-shoes, and my parents said there was no point coming to my meetings, as they all said the same thing anyway.

All these reinforce my belief that teachers assessments arent the fairest solution at the moment because although many of these were years ago there are still plenty of arseholes allowed near kids. my or my kids results bore no relation to predicted grades

Thought of another- DM and her then BF(later DH) took his DS14 on holiday to Spain and went to Barcelona FC. He moaned/complained the whole holiday that he was bored. I was 10 and football mad, I would have given my spleen to go to the stadium but wasnt 'taken' abroad until I was 19 and paid for myself. Still bitter about that!

My mum found my brother’s cigarettes in one of my toys where he’d hidden them. Of course I got the blame despite being like 11 at the time. I was fuming. She raised this when I was an adult to reinforce how untruthful I had been as a child (bollocks). She was taken aback when I absolutely hit the roof and told her the truth.

I was kicked out of the first school recorder choir because I played left handed and it would look odd seeing me and a bunch of "correct" players (I was actually bloody good and could sight read real music it put me off playing instruments for good)

I was accused of pulling my friends hair in assembly even she said I didn't do it the teacher was apocalyptic at me