If you had a miserable/abusive/unhappy childhood, do you remember having the opportunity to see how others lived?

[imaginethemdragons]

I mean, to explain, my home life was pretty shit.

I had the opportunity to go on sleepovers or was invited to friends occasionally and found them to be equally, if not worse than my home life.

Frequently made to feel uncomfortable because of my scruffy clothing, not invited to eat with the family when they ate meals, left in a room alone for hours by the hosting kid while they went off to play, uninvited, I distinctly remember the mother of one of the kids looking in at me sat alone in the room and sneering at me then slamming the door, I was absolutely bewildered as to where the kid had gone and what I had done wrong. ( sat with my plastic overnight bag in my hand being told to wait there in a strange house)
I always felt on edge, frightened to speak or do anything in case I annoyed them or made them hate me.

I found one place of sanctuary which was my grandmothers house who I stayed with as often as I could.
But I understood that everyone was as unhappy with horrible parents like mine.

I could or would never make a child feel like this now, it beggars belief that grown adults did this to a child then.
The 70’s were brutal for kids.

I'm sorry the other adults involved contributed to the abuse and neglect. Punishing you , for your parents fault.

Mine is different because on paper I had everything. Professional parents, with good reputations. People liked them and wanted them in their circle. I was clean, fed etc. so I was never marginalised.

It also meant no one cared, listened or watched for signs that things are terribly wrong. The problem was always me not my wonderful,respectable parents.

Tbh I don't think any of them gave a shit about kids being abused or neglected, regardless of who their parents were. It just wasn't on their radar.

As a 70s DC I think other families were equally bad. I remember being excluded from things because other DC's parents didn't like me because of my parents. I can't think of a single normal family. There were affairs, sexual abuse, violence, alcoholism. The other side of town was more affluent and I had two friends whose parents wouldn't invite me round as they said I was too independent. We looked after ourselves really. I remember people being unkind about clothes and us not having haircuts. What a different world our DC live in, thankfully. But having a connection through work, neglected DC do very much still exist, it's harrowing. I'd never have guessed they were in our area, at my DC's schools, living in neighbouring streets. I've learned so much in the last few years. If you encounter a DC with difficult behaviour, they may well have had an awful time of it and witnessed some terrible things. I hope that I'd see the bigger picture and be kind.