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Do you ever remember something your parents did when you were growing up and feel annoyed?

184 replies

RosieLemonade · 02/08/2021 09:05

My mum would never ever pick me up on a night out, from a train station, from university etc. Every other parent I have known has done pick ups and drop offs. Me and my sister would have to walk an hour every Friday and Saturday night after working 9 hour shifts. I would never make DD get a bus after a 4 hour train journey (with a walk between station and stop). My mum was a good mum in lots of ways but this still annoys me years later!

OP posts:
Dontevernamechange · 03/08/2021 19:57

Insisting I went to the local dentist, a real old fashioned "drill and fill" merchant. All my friends went to dentists in other towns or even the nearest city 30 miles away but my Mum wouldn't hear of it. (I think she was afraid of "causing offence" which was almost the worst sin you could commit, just below "putting someone else to any trouble")

I never went back to that dentist after age 18 but despite having some excellent dentists since, the damage was already done and 30 years later I'm losing teeth that would have been fine if left alone.

FlyingRabbitsAtNoon · 03/08/2021 20:01

My mum (SAHM) would often pick me up late from infant school. It would be me and the ‘naughty’ kid left behind.

Neither of parents would pick me up as a teenager. There was two situations I remember - one I was 10 mins from the house but I phoned them because I felt seriously sick (I threw up repeatedly after they said no). The other was a broken leg from a friends house - my friends mum had to drop me back off at the house because they refused to get me and then I had to wait (with peas on my leg) for two hours until they eventually sighed and drove me to the hospital.

allfurcoatnoknickers · 03/08/2021 21:25

Oooh, I thought of another one. My Mum was always dressing me in clothes that couldn't get dirty then wouldn't let me play with other kids/absolutely lost her shit if they got grubby. Three notable times:

  1. Sending me to play outside in my new coat when I was about 6, then smacking me when I got the coat muddy. It had been raining for days! I don't know how she expected me to be not muddy.

  2. Being about 10 and going to a big BBQ at our local community center/church. She put me in a fragile pastel dress and then wouldn't allow me to play with the other kids. I had to sit with the adults :(

  3. Being 12 or 13 and going to a halloween party and wearing a pair of black party shoes with my witch costume. One of my friends dropped a fizzy drink on them and she absolutely lost her shit at me when I got home. Screaming at me for being careless and ruining my nice things.

I'm baffled by this now I'm a mum. DS gets filthy all the time, and it never particularly bothers me - I'd rather he were happy and grubby tbh.

Interested in this thread?

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MintyGreenDream · 03/08/2021 21:29

Never said it was OK to hit back if I was hit first.
I've assured ds that if anyone hurts him then it's OK to retaliate

BashfulClam · 03/08/2021 21:38

I also remember never going anywhere as well. No day trip, swimming etc…we never did anything apart from a caravan week once a year. My dad the. Just sat in the pub from early evening whilst we were away.

Maggiesfarm · 03/08/2021 22:08

@Dontevernamechange

Insisting I went to the local dentist, a real old fashioned "drill and fill" merchant. All my friends went to dentists in other towns or even the nearest city 30 miles away but my Mum wouldn't hear of it. (I think she was afraid of "causing offence" which was almost the worst sin you could commit, just below "putting someone else to any trouble")

I never went back to that dentist after age 18 but despite having some excellent dentists since, the damage was already done and 30 years later I'm losing teeth that would have been fine if left alone.

Same here.

My mother wouldn't have paid for dental treatment for me, she felt the National Health was sufficient.

It was terrible, I'm lucky to have any teeth left!

LostThings · 03/08/2021 22:10

My dad laughing at how I looked as a teenager and telling me no one would ever want to marry me. Well he was right, as I'm 49 and unmarried. My brothers told me I was too ugly to live as well. You can't choose your relatives unfortunately.

Timeisavirtue · 03/08/2021 22:21

When I was about 12 my brother 9 we were playing PlayStation and because I beat him, he got super mad and threw himself down the stairs and blamed me, my mum was a bit skeptical about it but my dad straight away believed him and I got grounded for 2 weeks. He also got away with everything. My mum would tell us to wait in to help with the shopping, he would go out and nothing was said, one time I was late coming back and got in trouble for that....
at the time I was super pissed. Now I laugh about it..

Maggiesfarm · 03/08/2021 22:56

@LostThings

My dad laughing at how I looked as a teenager and telling me no one would ever want to marry me. Well he was right, as I'm 49 and unmarried. My brothers told me I was too ugly to live as well. You can't choose your relatives unfortunately.
Your brothers weren't right! You're still here.
nevernotstruggling · 04/08/2021 00:23

My mum really struggles to say she loves me. I thought this was totally normal until I had my own dds who say they love me and each other countless times a day. Dd2 who is 8 says it non stop. I realise she actually makes dm say it back to her even though it sounds like she would rather say anything but - which is ridiculous because she adores the dds and is a lovely grandma and it seems to come more naturally than her being a mother.

I never got any reassurance about my looks from either parent and they both think anything above basic grooming is ridiculous. My mother can only tell me I am too fat or too thin or even too muscular! She cannot tell me I look well or nice. I tell my dds they are beautiful every day and make possible comments about their outfits and style and they seem to enjoy this. I really can't understand what her issue is with this it's so easy!

FiveGs · 04/08/2021 04:30

My parents aren't bad people, they just should never have been parents.

Lots of things that would make you Shock compared with today's standards, but the main one I've struggled with is boundaries and consistent messaging. "Do as I say not as I do" was my dad's favourite phrase and one which inevitably led to confusion for me as I tried to do what I thought was right, but which the opposite was being played out in front of me. Both morally dubious, it took my marriage to re-learn correct and healthy boundaries and left me wincing back to my time in my 20's when I was probably a right dickhead (and would definitely have me labelled as a CF in MN terms).

TheRealHousewife · 04/08/2021 05:13

@DeltaFlyer

My brother broke a antique glass fish and blamed me. He was 7 and I was 5. I said it wasn't me but my dad believed the golden child. I got a smacked bum, sent to my room and only allowed out for meals and toilet for the whole weekend so didn't get to go swimming but he did.

Still bummed about that.

Absolutely mirrors my experience. Except I was 14 and my db 10. It was Christmas Day. He broke an ornament but said he hadn’t so by default it must have been me. Nothing I said changed their mind. I was sent to bed, no dinner.
sashh · 04/08/2021 05:58

My brother's school was about 10-15 mins walk away, my school was the other side of town. My brother's school started at 9.00am, mine started at 8.45

My dad drove us there and occasionally my mum would 'come for the ride' so I would be dressed, bag packed ready for school when we were due to leave at 8.30.

That would be the point my brother started looking for his books, asking for things, generally pissing around.

I was late for school every day for school. Including my first day at high school.

If my parents had just once made my brother walk I'm sure he would have got his act together

Blueuggboots · 04/08/2021 06:28

My parents, throughout my whole life have constantly berated my behaviour as a baby. I was a difficult baby - cried constantly, spat up more than I drank, never slept.

Oh. Would that be the DAIRY ALLERGY I had, like my son?! I questioned my mum about it - oh, you didn't get things like that in the 70's?!

My brother had a psychotic episode as a teenager likely brought on by drug use. My dad decided I must have been misbehaving too so came round to my boyfriends and insisted I told him everything about my sex life and slapped me so hard I fell off the settee when I refused. I was 17!!!!!!

Maskless · 04/08/2021 06:37

In the 16 years I lived with my parents they only took me out to something fun twice - to a funfair, and to a zoo, when I was 8 and 10.

Neither of my parents ever once took me to the playground or park, or swimming pool, to a stately home, theme park, nor for any kind of day out suitable for kids. I was allowed to go but they would not come with me. The only time I left the house with a parent was to go shopping. Mum used to let me bunk off school to help her bring the groceries home on the bus from a street market.

We never spent the night anywhere but at home. We never visited relations as we had none. My dad's parents died long before I was born and his sisters lived abroad. My mum's mum was alive but they fell out before I was born so I never once met her, though she only lived 5 miles away. I had no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, and therefore this meant there was nobody to visit us, or for us to visit. My parents also had no friends. In 16 years not one person ever visited for a meal or a cuppa. We never had a party or gathering of any kind.

On top of this, my parents never did anything with me: never read me a bedtime story, never played a game, never taught me anything. I was just kind of "there", like a cat or a goldfish or a plant -- yes they fed and watered me, but that is where it ended. They both worked full time in blue collar jobs and all their time at home was spent either in household chores or watching TV. If I tried to ask anything I was told to "shut up" as they were busy or to "shut up" as they were watching the tv. Throughout my entire childhood they did not own a single book or belong to a library. They never went to the cinema, theatre or anything else.

They never taught me to cook nor how to do any household chore. Mum never taught me anything like personal hygiene or about periods etc. My father did not even teach me his native tongue. Not even one word.

They took zero interest in anything I was doing at school and they never attended anything like sports day or a school art exhibition. They never once walked me to school or collected me - they were both at work at those times, anyway. Even at age 5 I was walking to school alone. Neither parent ever once set foot in any school I attended.

From age 5 to 16, during all school holidays, whether half term or the long summer break I was simply left at home alone whilst they were at work. I was bored much of the time and would do all kinds of naughty things. I was allowed to go out but never had enough money to do much more than go to the park, the lido or just ride around on the buses.

Sometimes I would go to my parents' workplaces to visit them, out of sheer boredom. This involved catching the bus into the city centre. Mum always worked in shops so she could not give me much attention; she'd give me some cash and maybe chocolate or crisps if it was a sweetshop and tell me to keep out of the way of customers. Dad was a chef and he'd let me hang about in his kitchen watching everyone but he was always busy and had no time to attend to me.

We never had a holiday, weekend away or a night away together in my entire childhood.

The only times I ever spent nights away from home was one week on a school geography trip to Surrey when I was 15 and then a few weeks later we visited my dad's birth country, and stayed with his sisters in small, austere council flats. They did not speak our language, so me and mum could not even communicate with them - or anyone else in the country. It was for us just two weeks of listening to people we'd never met gabbing away with dad in a foreign language and we had not a single clue what was being said. I can't call it a holiday because we didn't go out anywhere or do any fun things. Just sat in someone's living room bored shitless whilst dad and his sisters and his bro in laws talked for hours and hours. For the first few days we kept asking dad to translate but it was just too much mental effort for him.

Guineapigbridge · 04/08/2021 07:14

Maskless, I hope you have made up for, or will make up for, that boring childhood with lots of travel, adventure, socialising and colour!

Pongo101 · 04/08/2021 07:19

Reading through these replies leaves me so conflicted.

I had everything most posters here wanted. Lifts here there and everywhere. Countless hobbies and money invested in them. Play dates and holidays. Day trips on a weekend to zoos, farms, theme parks, museums. Numerous pets over the years. Private tutors for different subjects.

All my friends always commented on how wonderful my parents were.

But behind closed doors my parents would just lose their shit and had zero temper control. Days out and holidays were a ticking time bomb waiting for an argument to break out. At home the dog would get so scared of the shouting and things being smashed/thrown that he would hide under my bed and I would crawl under to reassure THE DOG everything was okay. My mum would threaten to kill herself. There would be days of crying.

I grew up with no temper control myself and was always being punished for having the "wrong" emotions or opinions. My father didn't see anything wrong with slapping a teenage girl around the face because he was angry.

Today we go around in circles when I try to explain why I'm so angry at them. "But look at all the things we did for you." I think about going no contact all the time but the guilt overwhelms me. I've read the stately home threads.

I just wish that instead of all the expensive holidays, horse riding and music lessons they had spent the money on therapy instead so that we weren't walking on egg shells all the time.

That's not to minimize what everyone else is feeling who didn't get lifts and hobbies etc. It just leaves me so confused. Should I appreciate my parents because they did do all of those things? Is one type of parent worse than the other?

I would never hit my child and she also has days out, hobbies, and holidays. I'd never tell her I am taking her to the orphanage or lock her in a room and I would get up with her on a Saturday morning at 6am to play dolls. But could I be doing something else wrong she will hate me for?

I do get in arguments with her dad and argue in front of her though and afterwards I feel so guilty about it for days and days afterwards.

Am I overreacting and fighting a lost cause in holding my family accountable for their behavior, which still affects me today? Or should I just be grateful for all the things I did have, which probably also made me the high achiever I am today?

Lobelia123 · 04/08/2021 07:25

Put my sister and I into 'boxes' that defined us in very simple terms and strongly resisted us ever trying to break out of those predefined roles. For example, I was the clever but clueless one....'the nerd'. My sister was the practical, active one but not supposed to be bright academically. In actual fact we are neither of these things, but both a bit of both. It was very frustrating having ideas and dreams squashed or dismissed growing up because 'youre too scatty to do that' or 'no point trying to study on, we all know youre not really good at that'.

Bumpsadaisie · 04/08/2021 07:28

@memberofthewedding

When my sister was born I was 7 years old and very jealous. Im sure I was badly behaved but i dont believe that excuses the dirty trick my patents played on me. They told me that they didnt love me any more an that they were "putting me in a home". A "man with a van" was coming to collect me on saterday. I was totally convinced. I saw my mother drop a very distinctively marked postcard into the post box saying she had written to the home.

On the saterday they made me put on my best dress and wait for the "man". I van recall sitting on a stool by the door and crying for hours waiting for the man to appear. Eventually my mother told me that if I promised to be "a really good girl" I might be able to persuade my father to "get around the man to take some other naughty little girl".

For the next year or so I remained convinced. Then one day I came across one of these unusual postcards and recognized the logo. It was for Football Pools which my parents did every week. Long before the internet or the lottery people used to pick out a series of football teams that they believed would win and there were prizes.

I never forgave my parents for the psychological torture that they caused to an 8 year old child. When I taxed them with it they thought it was a joke.

Somehow I dont believe social services would agree now.

Sorry but - the bastards! How could you do that to a Child.

Hemingwaycat · 04/08/2021 10:26

Smoking, always hated the smell and it made me cough.
She always put my step-dad first and took his side. She also preferred my younger brother (step-dad’s child) so I felt like I had no place in the house at all.
We always had to be early to everything so often had to wait much longer than we had to which was boring.
The house had to be pristine at all times, nothing out of place at all. She used to ask me to tidy up when I got home from school so it was clean when she got home from work but she’d always find the one job I’d forgotten to do. Never thanked me or complimented what I had done, just picked on the thing I hadn’t. She’s still the same now when she visits me. I must spend hours tidying the house before she comes only for her to find a speck of dust on a sideboard or open the microwave and find a splash of food in there. She’s a twat.

My younger brother failed almost all of his GCSEs and his retakes too. He works at McDonald’s.
I graduated with a first and am an FE teacher.
She still prefers him.

Maskless · 04/08/2021 11:00

@Guineapigbridge

Maskless, I hope you have made up for, or will make up for, that boring childhood with lots of travel, adventure, socialising and colour!
Thank you Guinea for noticing my post.

Sadly their treatment left me shy, tongue-tied and nervous, with no self-confidence, and with severe social anxiety. I was so grateful for male or female attention that I let people do what they liked to me and even treat me badly, just so long as they would be my friends. I've always felt unwanted by everyone and prefer my own company as I find being with people such a strain that I cannot truly relax unless I am alone.

But yeah, plenty of travel and excitement in my life.
I never married and had no children.

Bumpsadaisie · 04/08/2021 11:54

@Tara336

10 years old stood with my suitcase after a week long school trip, all the other children’s mums were there excited to see their kids after their first ever trip away except mine. I stood there with my case watching everyone being greeted and chatting excitedly and leaving with their parents, the coach drove off and I was told there alone. I started to drag my suitcase as best I could and walk home alone.

12 years old first trip abroad with the school, France for 10 days on an exchange, get back to the school 10pm at night, same thing everyone’s parents are there but mine. A neighbour whose son was on the trip with me waited with me thinking my parents would turn up eventually..
they didn’t. Neighbour took me home and had a go at my parents for being neglectful... my mum had a go at me as soon as the neighbour left for causing trouble.

You poor thing. 😢
kwiksavenofrillsusername · 04/08/2021 12:21

Mine seem quite trivial by comparison. But my parents were real assholes about giving me lifts anywhere. When I got a part time job, I’d walk an hour there and back because there were no buses and taxis were so expensive. I didn’t expect a lift every day, but when I had a late shift I’d have to walk through dark underpasses and along empty roads which scared the hell out of me. They wouldn’t pick me up because it meant they had to delay opening a bottle of wine. When my younger brothers got jobs, my parents went out of their way to drive them around at all hours.

They made my life completely miserable at 18 because I still lived at home, so I moved in with a much older boyfriend. When I inevitably moved home a few months later to escape abuse, they were furious about losing their spare room, so I left home at 19 and was completely broke with no support. My youngest brother ended up living there until he was 27, paid no rent, was a disrespectful little shit and yet they were sympathetic to him because ‘things are tough out there’. I’m quite bitter about this because he saved a nice big house deposit and I’m stuck renting forever because they made my life so miserable I had to get out. I didn’t want to live there for that long, I just wish I’d had a more solid financial footing before being turfed out.

IHopeYouStepOnALegoPiece · 04/08/2021 12:23

Always believed someone else before me.

If I got in trouble at school they would always refuse to hear my side of it, if I said I’d tidied my room they would always say I hadn’t (without checking) and to go back and do it again, if my brother said I’d done something they believed me. I was never allowed to defend myself.

I have turned into the most ridiculously defensive adult because of this

Cavalierorwhat · 04/08/2021 20:11

These are so sad Flowers to those who’ve been treated so unfairly.
I thought I had a raw deal (my mother had schizophrenia) but there was never any intentional abuse, only understandable neglect.