If your parent went to boarding school, what are they like?

[FullBoard]

My dad started boarding school at age 7 (in the 1950s), and went straight from there to university, he never returned to live at home.

I feel awful for saying this, but thinking about ttc has got me thinking about my own upbringing, and if it's "normal" (though whose is??).

My dad is loving in his own way, but he's never said the words "I love you" to me or my siblings. He played with us when we were younger, but as we've grown up it's almost like he can't relate to us as adults? He is very academic and intelligent, but seems to struggle to understand other people's emotions (and I suspect his own). He is retired now, but was a workaholic and even now he has to be 'doing something' in the day. I know it's good to keep busy, but it's a bit martyr like at times: he won't let himself have a lazy morning and a rest if he is tired or unwell; he will make himself garden for hours and then complain about how tired he is, or how his back hurts etc, but if I suggest that maybe that's because he's doing too much he will disagree and say he's lazy etc.

He can be very regimented about certain things, he has to watch the news at 10 live at 10pm for example, not on catch up, it needs to be watched live, even if we are halfway through watching a film. He won't outwardly demand that we change the channel, an example would be:

Him: oh the news is on in 5 minutes.
Me: do you want me to change the channel?
Him: oh no, we're watching this film.

But if I don't then he will sulk. There's other examples of this: him being particular about something with no obvious reason why he's so particular about it, him not clearly expressing what he would actually like, but then having a sulk if he doesn't get his 'own way' (that he will deny is his own way). It sounds silly, but it can be infuriating that he doesn't clearly say what he would prefer, and it makes family things like Christmas and holidays abroad, meals or days out, much more stressful than they need to be.

I'm sure much or some of all this is related to growing up in boarding school and not having much personal control over his day or life. Maybe he finds it hard to express what he actually wants because this was discouraged at school? Sorry for my waffle, just wondering if anyone else has similar experiences of a parent who went to boarding school?

My dad is like a few on here. I think its very likely autistic too. He was a rubbish father and I've spent too long trying in my head to unravel whether hes crap due to autism/boarding school/actually being a dick.

Def unable to show affection to children and yet did to my mum (before they split). He will take his new wife out for meals/holidays/special presents etc yet resent anything for his kids/grandchildren and see it as money grabbing. Def more like a vaguely interested godparent.

Im fairly screwed up by it all tbh as I didnt have a caring mum to balance it out.

Bizarrely my uncle, who I rarely see, is loving and affectionate and nothing like my dad. Went completely the other way and very family minded!

My dad went to boarding school at 13 (so he would have started there in about 1960), and is the loveliest, warmest, sweetest man alive. He is cuddly and kind and told me he loved me every single day when I was a child. He is also very funny. I couldn't have wished for a better dad. He has never really spoken about his time at school. I think he found it a wrench as he liked being at home and was unprepared for it. But he doesn't really talk about it. I imagine he probably thinks it was just the way it was.

XH went to boarding school at 8 and I don't know if it was this that damaged him, or whether his family background was the problem (his father used to taunt his mother with all his affairs, and there was also a general disregard for their children). One of his siblings failed the entrance exam so went to a day school - but he's also completely screwed up.

I think there are so many other variables that it's impossible to know how much of an effect boarding school has. As the parent of boarders, I can also say that they seem to be at home far more than they are at school!

I think boarding school is very traumatising for many children. I can remember lying in my bunk listening to the screaming and crying, on and on from the next dorm where the little ones were. They would have been five or six. I would think I’m glad I don’t do that. It was very tough, all the grieving had do be held in and not shown. We went home three times a year. I thought that was normal. I find it hard to express emotions but I can cry when I’m on my own. For nothing in particular, just grieving.

My dad was 7 and didnt go home in all the breaks (family abroad). It really sounded awful. Caned for all sorts...

As much as I resent how awful he was (is) as a father I think boarding school damaged him.

DM went to boarding school aged 7 in the early 1950s. A lot of what you've written about your Dad rings true. She didn't have a close relationship with her DM and was and is very critical as a mother. Very much always busy. DM mainly said 'I love you but I don't like you' which I suspect was parenting advice in the 1970s before we decided it was better to label the behaviour not the child.

Not saying 'I love you' is probably generational, DDad never said it to us but I always felt very secure in his love for me.

The person I know best who boarded from the age of seven is a fundamentally lovely but pretty emotionally broken man who is married to my best friend, but it’s hard to distinguish between essentially leaving home aged 7 — he very much returned home as a visitor for the vacs — and his old-school dysfunctional minor aristo parents. His mother was a debutante in 1950 and thinks having emotions is rather vulgar, and his father was in his mid-50s when're was born and was straight from gruesome toff central casting. Neither of them were happy with him ‘marrying down’.

I found this book enlightening -
www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Them-Attitude-Children-Boarding/dp/0953790401?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

It explained my ex DP.

Have a look here too - www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk/books/the-making-of-them/

I got I love you but don't like you from my parents too :( I wish I could afford therapy.

Both my parents went to boarding school, as did I. I have a close relationship with my parents. My df tells some real horror stories of how the children were treated by the teachers in the 1950s. Would definitely be considered child abuse today. Being given '6 of the best' with the cane for looking in a window 😏 a child of 8 being beaten and forced to swim in a frozen swimming pool, which was seen as discipline and character building. I could cry for those DC I will never send my DC to boarding school. I wish I hadn't be sent at 12. I still don't have my confidence back and I'm over 40 now. I was closed off emotionally to parents as a teen and struggled with my MH. It had a negative affect on my relationships with other people today.

My dad is also like you have described. He didn’t go to boarding school though. Born in 1940s.

But I can well believe that boarding school has a big impact on people.

@notanothernamechangemother it's really heartbreajing isnt it. I both feel for the childhood my dad must have had and feel sad I didn't have a functional parent. I'm in my 40s and feel its still all causing crazy in me.

My dad went to boarding school and is quite reserved in his interactions with his DC. He does however love them deeply. I am not sure how much this reserve is a product of a boarding school education and how much is typical of the behaviour expected of boys and men in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

My mother also went to boarding school. She is bubbly, outgoing and very affectionate to all.

@PerseverancePays

I think boarding school is very traumatising for many children. I can remember lying in my bunk listening to the screaming and crying, on and on from the next dorm where the little ones were. They would have been five or six. I would think I’m glad I don’t do that. It was very tough, all the grieving had do be held in and not shown. We went home three times a year. I thought that was normal. I find it hard to express emotions but I can cry when I’m on my own. For nothing in particular, just grieving.

This seems barbaric. When we went to look round the school our first child went to, they said, very earnestly: you do know you'll have to do without him for three weeks at a time?

I was a bit surprised, as I had been expecting six weeks.

Boarders - even at a full boarding school, with no day pupils - are always at home now. It doesn't half create some logistical issues, though, if your boarder isn't local.

My Dad was orphaned and nannied and sent to boarding school, and really didn't do emotional intimacy or 1-1 relationships. Superficial friendships, being on committees, yes, but strong emotions, no (though he cried when the dog died or so I was told). He literally did not know what a loving family was like, so although he was ok at the sort of more public social relations you would see at boarding school, when it came down to "how to be a loving husband and father", he didn't understand there was more to it than being a provider and taking the family to Stately Homes.
I still feel sad about all this. He didn't have a bad life on the surface, not at all, but so much of the richness in our lives comes from the relationships we have with those we love dearly.

Many humiliations and desolate days at boarding school for me ...I remember begging..actually begging ..a not very close friend ( I had no close friends at boarding school) to let me go home with him for a Sunday home visit ..too many other hurts to list but they stay with you .

I spent my last five years as an overseas boarder. I think I am quite repressed, have a need for order and control. I find it difficult to understand my teenagers lack of order and study ethic but I had no choice. You studied when you were told to study at boarding school. I tell my kids I love them though.

My DM was sent to a boarding school on the other side of the country at the age of 10, 1950s. She is the most emotionally available person and generally very tactile and affectionate. Actually she talks far too much about her personal feelings (I did NOT want to hear that much about her sex-life) she says I’m repressed (never went to boarding school). However, she has many issues which she attributes to her experience at boarding school. She describes it as an incredibly damaging experience and has had counselling for the trauma caused. She may have been an emotionally available mother but she is also quite unbalanced, to the extent I had quite an abusive childhood, mostly at her hands. My father was also sent to boarding school during this period, however, it was later, at about 13 and was his choice, as his wanted to escape from both an unpleasant home life and the secondary modern school he’d been sent to. He loved his boarding school experience but he was very much emotionally repressed. My mother always put it down to his unpleasant childhood more than boarding school though.

My dad went in the 1950’s as his parents were in the forces. He had a great time. He wasn’t particularly emotionally demonstrative (but neither am I and I didn’t go to a boarding school), but he was a normal loving parent.
He died about 10 years ago, but whilst he was alive, he was a great role model.

My dad is controlling, lacks empathy and has avoidant attachment behaviour. He's loving and kind in his way but he's been HUGELY damaged by his childhood which includes what home was like when he was at home (upper middle class neglect and emotional abuse)
I would never do it to my child.

think he might be slightly on the spectrum (think we all are to some degree)

I know this was a throwaway comment but no, we aren't all on the autism spectrum and this isn't a helpful or supportive thing to say. It diminishes and belittles the experiences of people with autism.

Fucked up.
My dad went to Radley College. I believe it was deeply damaging; he lost his dad at the age of 4 then my granny sent him away to board at 7. He won't talk about it. He has some very strange views on life and is quite distant.
I went to a public school but as a day pupil. I wished I had boarded, as did we all. The boarders seemed to have such fun.

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

think he might be slightly on the spectrum (think we all are to some degree)

I know this was a throwaway comment but no, we aren't all on the autism spectrum and this isn't a helpful or supportive thing to say. It diminishes and belittles the experiences of people with autism.

Unless you meant all your family of course

My father went to boarding school and was an utter arse. By all accounts, though, he was an arse already.
OTOH, there is an old chap up the road who went to boarding school who is absolutely delightful, and whose adult daughters adore him.

These boarding school threads are depressing.

My DCs went to boarding school, had amazing opportunities, great fun and loved every minute.

They are currently at university and are kind, thoughtful, confident, high-achieving, well-balanced young people with a wide range of interests.

Please remember, boarding school in the 1950s,1980s whatever has very little relevance to the experience children have today.