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

[RosieLemonade]

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!

My folks generally had a good marriage, but after they’d had a row, my Dm would sometimes go into a very moody sulk with my DF, and would apply it to all of us. She’d have a ‘face’ on, and a particular voice to go with that face, often for more than a day - it made a horrible atmosphere and I’d dread these episodes.

On one such day, when I was maybe 12 and we were all creeping around so as not to make things worse, I walked into town (well over a mile) and spent all my pocket money (which wasn’t very much) on some flowers for her.

When I gave them to her, she said (still in that same ‘off’ voice, ‘I don’t want them.’)
Whatever had caused this mood was nothing to do with me, so I was frankly seriously pissed off. I went straightaway next door and pretended I’d bought them for their old granny.

My DM later asked me where the flowers were (I dare say my DF had had a go at her) so I retorted, , ‘Well, you didn’t want them, so I gave them to Mrs X!’

She was then cross with me for that - probably worried in case I’d said I’d bought them for her and she hadn’t wanted them! (I hadn’t.)

She died some years ago. We did generally get on pretty well, but I could never forgive her for that - I couldn’t imagine ever having behaved like that to my own dds.

@IHopeYouStepOnALegoPiece

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

I had that too. I was always the scapegoat and nobody ever stuck up for me.

All my siblings got taken to activities, whether that was after school, weekends or holidays. I literally never did, unless it was an activity one of my siblings was already doing. It meant I never got to try things out to see if I like them. So as an adult I didn't really have any hobbies or activities. I decided to change that and now pursue my own interests with my own time and money. Turns out I'm an excellent swimmer and archer

Left me in the car when they went into the shops. I was so anxious about it, yet they did it anyway

@ohthatbloodycat

Left me in the car when they went into the shops. I was so anxious about it, yet they did it anyway

My parents did that once when we were away. When they came back to the car they were horrified that I had the car door open and was chatting to two people.

Thankfully the two people were little old ladies with a Yorkshire terrier.

Oh, bless you!
I don't think I'd have felt anxious if I had the option of getting out of the car ... but they must have locked it.

Trigger warning: childhood abuse.

My mum married my stepdad when I was 4, and he went on to sexually abuse me. Not consistently every night, but on occasion when he could get away with it. I don't blame my mum of course, she wasn't to know. But... I am the youngest of 4, we only had a 3 bed house and so if we had visitors we'd all be shuffled about for sleeping arrangements, and I'd always inevitably end up sleeping on their bedroom floor. Same when we went to hotels or holidays and there wasn't a room for me - i was the default who didn't get to share with a sibling but with mum and stepdad.

Again mum didn't know he was being abusive to me, so in a normal situation this would make sense. But every single night when I'd be sleeping in their room they would have sex. And I'd ALWAYS hear it and have to lie silently dying of embarrassment. It felt like it went on forever too. I now know that the reason he did it was because he was a sick fuck getting off on me being in the room. But WHY would mum do that? Why would she be ok to have sex when I was 5 feet away? I don't think their love was so carnal and passionate that she couldn't possibly have waited to do it another night. I wonder if she was perhaps coerced by him it still annoys me that that happened all the time. We had frequent visitors as well so I'd say it was at least a monthly occurrence

Used to make me make mine and my DSis packed lunches every day. If we'd fallen out, she'd get a really duff sandwich 😳.
I also used to have to take her and pick her up from brownies/ballet/tennis etc.

Rehomed our dog when we were kids without telling us 😡.

Once I got a Saturday/Holiday job I had to buy ALL my clothes...

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop - 🌷 for you. I'm sorry that happened to you.

NC for this.

These aren't stories of significant abuse like some of those on this thread, but they did have cumulative long term effects and I still feel serious annoyance about them.

I was not a very confident young teen, was a late developer, small, glasses, crooked teeth (which my parents did not have fixed as they didn't want to spend the money, that's another lifelong annoyance too now I come to think). I thought I was ugly (of course when I look back at pictures now I see I was perfectly normal looking). I lived in an era and a place where the Miss World competition was a big deal, photos of the girls and all their statistics etc all over the papers. I mused that I wished I could be Miss World, my father replied "they would have to put a bag over your head". That massively worsened my self-confidence for years.

Moving forward to about 3 or 4 years later, just started university, and overheard my grandfather saying (without bothering to check if I was nearby) "she's such a funny little thing, how do you think she'll ever get a boyfriend?". After that I became a massively, even notoriously promiscuous young woman for a number of years, always feeling I had to prove them wrong and that I was attractive rather than ugly and inadequate. I had some fun times and have ended up fine in life in the end, but i do look back and wish I had not spent some much time and effort trying to compensate for those stupid and thoughtless remarks.

Without a doubt it was smoking in the car. If I think too hard about it I still feel nauseous (and this would have been 40+ years ago!)
The upside to this is I have never smoked a cigarette in my life!

Nowhere near as bad as some of these, and my DM is wonderful, but she has a real problem with throwing things away. She's a bit of a hoarder but it's all good stuff, we're not talking old bottles or magazines or anything like that. But whenever we talk about sorting some of it out (some of it is mine, admittedly), I just know it won't happen because she can't bear to get rid of things.

When I was younger she used to go through my bin and make sure I wasn't throwing anything away that she thought I should keep. It made me feel really violated, and still rankles. Nowadays she judges what I want to get rid of, so I don't tell her if I'm going to the charity shop or anything. I also dont throw ANYTHING away in front of her, unless it's very obviously rubbish.

She's worst with toys and books. She kept all of my stuff from when I was a child, plus obviously my DC have their own things. I have 2 DC and their stuff is taking over my house, but every time I try to sort through everything I hear her voice saying "Ooh, but what if they want to play with that again?" or just simply "You can't give THAT away!" and so I don't. It's ingrained and I try desperately to ignore it, but I find myself agreeing with her and thinking, well DD doesn't play with it anymore but DS might. There's a 4 year age gap.

The other thing she does is says "But I/your Nan/random person you don't even remember bought that for you/DC!" and guilts me into keeping it that way. She's done that since I was a child, too.

My dad worked away half the week so wasn’t there enough to temper my mother’s behaviour. She would hit me, belittle me and Chuck all of my belongings out of the window into the front garden followed by chucking me out of the house. I would sit in the front garden weeping until she would let me back in.
Nothing I did was ever good enough. From around the age of 10, I did all of the housework and was paid 5p per activity-eg hoover whole house-5p. I had to use my earnings to clothe myself and pay for toiletries etc. Had to cycle everywhere. When my younger brother was born, I had to look after him as she would just go out and do whatever she wanted…I was 11 and had no idea what I was doing. Younger brother and sister were golden children. My sister once threw a chair at me and gave me concussion-that was my own fault as I made her do it apparently. They were sent to private school-I went to the local comprehensive. I am the only one who went to uni but was treated like shit for doing so. She used to write me horrible letters. In my first year was seriously ill and admitted to hospital for three weeks-never came to even visit.
We are NC.
I probably over mother my children to make up for it.

@catandcandle that's awful and completely unforgivable of them both

@Cavalierorwhat

These are so sad 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.

My mum is schizophrenic too; She was the sahp while dad worked long hours. She would send us to school without brushing our teeth or hair and without feeding us breakfast. The teacher kept a hair and tooth brush for me and take me aside to help me. Once my dad found out our grandmother used to take us to school instead. Mum wasn't trying to neglectful, just not enough headspace to care for anyone else but herself. I can see this as an adult but I hated her as a teen/older child.

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop I think I never did forgive them. I never really liked or communicated with my grandfather after that (he is long dead now). I was very close to my grandmother and would just focus on her whenever I was with them.

My father, well that is more complicated because although he has been a dickhead in other ways too (for example we are extreme opposites politically, he is racist and right-wing), he has also done some things for me which were above and beyond what he would have been expected to do. It helps that I live on another continent from him and have done for 35 years. I see him every couple of years and am nice to him because to be otherwise would upset my mother. I feel sorry for him as well, he amounted to very little in life despite being largely an opinionated arsehole, whereas I have been extremely successful and in fact financially support both he and my mother these days.

I just feel sad when I look at pictures of myself as a teenager and young woman and see that I was a normal, not-stunning but perfectly pretty girl, who absolutely did not need to be so self-conscious about how I looked (actually, in my thirties I could almost pass for beautiful at times...I was a late developer as I said!).

Some of these stories are so sad , makes me feel grateful for my relatively normal childhood.

Anything my DPs did wrong, they did so out of the notion it was probably the right thing to do rather than the horrible neglect some posters describe.

I don't think my father or grandfather MEANT to be abusive at all...both of them consider/ed themselves to be caring people who were great parents/grandparents. They just did not think...and that is important... you DO need to think. (I am absolutely sure if I had ever asked them about the comments, they would not have remembered them at all, they were throwaway comments that were said with no thought at all, I am sure they would have been massively surprised to hear they had had a huge long-term impact on my life).

When my dad left home mum put us in a children's home for 9 YEARS.
This was in the 50s

@DeltaFlyer I understand, not an easy childhood, living with the embarrassment, feeling different and not letting anyone in emotionally. It's only as I got older that I realise it wasn't on her, she wasn't capable, she was dealing with something beyond her control. I have many regrets, having to look after myself so much, I didn't have time or insight to love her enough. I miss the childhood I might have had.

Not so much my parents, but my older sibling was (and still is) so manipulative and a liar. I was bullied by them so much that I spent every day of my childhood walking on egg shells and doing everything they said to avoid the revenge, which would range from drawing on walls with permanent marker, ripping wallpaper and loads more. My parents believed them and I got in trouble.

Only the other week I was talking about all of this with my parents as my older siblings manipulative behaviour has come up again and my parents apologised to me for believing the sibling and blame themselves for believing it all.

Like a PP, it's made me very defensive and if someone doubts something I say, I will go to all ends to make sure I can back up what I am saying, and I fully believe this has stemmed from my older sibling.

@cavalierorwhat
I know exactly what you mean by missing the childhood you didn't have.
Truthfully it's only really since I had my own ds and postnatal depression that I truly began to understand how she could have been feeling when we were younger.