What small things did your parents get wrong when you were a child?

[Forevergold2838]

My mum and dad were/are wonderful but I remember a lot of stress about meal times. We had to clear our plates even if we didn't like it. I was allergic to eggs but it was dismissed as fussy eating even though I would vomit every time I ate them. They also never took a drink for me anywhere. I remember being thirsty on car rides and they'd offer me a sip from their flask of coffee or if they did bring me a drink it would be a small carton of 5 alive that would be gone in 2 seconds. I didn't drink a glass of plain water until I was in my late teens, we'd always have vimto.

I don't ever remember having water except at school. It was squash or tea in our house. We never had drinks with meals either.

Food portions! Seriously, I remember mum trying to force feed us while trying to persuade us with the "if you don't eat x will happen". At the same time gran was telling off mum for scolding us, and offering to cook anything we'd like.

Now that I think about it, my whole relationship with food is screwed up since then

I remember the flask and limp sandwiches on days out, and never ever being allowed to buy a drink out. We went through a period of being very poor and then a period of being really quite wealthy but those habits never changed! I treat my kids when we’re out, partly because it’s just nice to do that and partly because I want them to think I actually like spending time with them!

Both parents getting really cross at accidents. Say, dropping an ice cream or something completely inconsequential. I was always quite scared of being told off, I wouldn’t be punished or anything but the potential of being shouted at was horrible. I’m very very careful to not lose my rag at stuff like that - I do make sure they know to try and not be careless (for example) but I’ll never tell them off. Also - linked to the above - I don’t tell them off for trying new foods and drinks if they don’t like it.

This makes my parents sound horrible but they weren’t at all, I had a great childhood.

There seems to be a common theme here, of parents refusing to buy food or drink while they were out. My parents were the same. I don't think I ever had a drink,or something from a cafe throughout my entire childhood. As far as they were concerned,it was a waste of money. I remember going to Jersey with my parents when I was 17,and for the first time ever,my dad offered to buy me an ice cream, from an ice cream van. I nearly fainted with shock. 😂

You see, we did go to pub gardens sometimes after a walk. My parents would get a beer and they would always ask for three tap waters for us kids! We just thought that was the way it was. Never questioned it.

My mom would talk about me within ear shot to her friends, not all bad (though some) stuff but personal and embarrassing

She also allowed me to eat anything I wanted past age 11yrs and would often not cook in favour of buying stacks of microwave dinners and heaps of canned processed food that I would shuck onto the stove top myself. She would buy all manner of shite. So I became an overweight teen with life long food issues.

With cool bags etc. and different kinds of bread and sandwich fillings, I think it’s easier now to make decent picnic food that’ll keep a few hours and is more inspiring than the limp curly sandwiches of old. I do remember the Tupperware lidded beakers though. Your squash always ended up warm and slightly plasticky tasting, and it didn’t matter how carefully you put the lid on, it always leaked. I soon learned not to put my packed lunch anywhere near my homework!

Didn't take me to the dentist - root canals at 15
Didn't cover me in the sun - ginger/white skin - can remember blisters on occasion
Constantly around smokers

My parents didn't buy food out. It was expensive and they didn't have the money. Things were different then. Street food, takeaways and cheap cafes weren't as plentiful or affordable as they are now. I think it's easy to forget that looking back through modern eyes.

I think each generation tries to correct what they think was wrong in their own childhood - born in the 60s and 70s a child might have been born to parents who were affected by rationing so didn't get many sweets or treats. So when they had their own kids in the 80s and 90s they overcompensated and let their kids have unlimited access to things they wished they'd had (without the benefit of modern knowledge about just how bad unlimited sweets and things are - so much focus on this is a very modern phenomena) Now those kids have grown up and had kids, they are going back the other way because they wished they hadn't been allowed access to as many sweets as they wanted. And so it goes on.

My mum had too much freedom because her mum couldn't have cared less what she was up to, as long as she got her chores done. So my mum went too far the other way and was very controlling and stifling with me and my siblings. I'm trying to strike the right balance with my own children.

Some of the stories of abuse are horrific. I'm sorry for what you went through.

Where do I start ! Not going to as counselling would be needed.
my friend from school would constantly moan that her mum would always give her the same sandwich and the meat was too thick. How I wished that was my mum.

Letting me make too many of my own decisions too young. At age 11(ish) I remember asking my mum if I could dye my hair from my natural blonde to burgundy red. Rather than try and talk me out of it, she bought me a box of dye and helped me dye it. I hated it, got teased at school, and my natural blonde never came back, only a mousy brown. Also, braces. Dentist recommended I have them, but as a young teen I decided I didn't want them, so my mum and dad agreed it was up to me, no further discussion. As an adult I ended up having them (for much longer, and at considerable time and expense) as my teeth were noticeably crooked and I was embarrassed by them.

I suppose I just wish sometimes they'd at least talked through my choices with me and tried to encourage me down the right path a bit more 🤷‍♀️ But they were otherwise loving, caring parents.

I’m torn about this thread.

I was on another a while ago where it was pointed out that the ‘cold’ and ‘distant’ parents of the 1950s/1960s were actually just busy as fuck. Can you even imagine being a mum back then? Washing nappies, clothes, bedding and crockery by hand for the entire family, having to visit several shops just to buy the ingredients for one meal, everything cooked from scratch. Things needing to be knitted/sewed/mended, no cheap fast fashion. Fires to be maintained and
cleaned in winter. No CBeebies to occupy small children, no screens or anything like that. A lot of them had elderly relatives to look after. Literally everything took more time and was physically hard work. I can absolutely see why they didn’t have time to play as many games or have emotional chats with their kids as are expected today.

I also think it’s unfair to blame parents for things they did which were commonplace back then. I was smacked quite regularly as a child, most of
my friends were as well. I’m not ‘traumatised’ nor do I hold a grudge about it, nor do I retrospectively judge my mum for what was clearly normal parenting at that time.

It seems fashionable now to reach middle age and suddenly decide your parents are ‘toxic narcissists’ because they’re typical of their era and upbringing, and simply a product of their environment. I think we all need to let those things go and not dwell on them.

They literally didn't, I honestly had a great childhood, mainly due to Mum as Dad worked a lot, but I don't remember anything I can think of that would have made it different.

Some sad stories on this thread but also a great deal of moaning.

And what the Jeebus is the bizarre obsession with constantly drinking water?

You know your own DC will think it’s weird that some of you constantly and entirely needlessly drank water out of endless plastic bottles (causing pollution). You can’t not know this.

Most of these things people are posting are not small things, they’re quite big things, including the OP. There are a lot of neglectful or spiteful things.

@Everydayisabadhairday, I was born in the sixties and my parents were of the rationing childhoods. I have spoken about this with friends of a similar age. Our parents were keen for us to have the best of everything; in particular the foods that they missed out on so it was plenty of fruit, especially oranges, lots of milk, which was always full fat and sugar. We would have a dinner and a pudding. Always plenty of vegetables. We generally ate well. Fruit squashes were a common drink by then, too. We also had sweets and biscuits but in sensible amounts. I think they were definitely compensating for the rationing years. As I grew up, l felt that there was too much sugar involved, though, and when my own children were born in the nineties I was very restrictive with sugar, while allowing them the occasional treat. I don’t regret that I did this but I think most people like me and like my parents do their best.

Yep! ‘How could they have let me drink out of plastic, wasn’t it obvious it was harmful’ ‘they weaned me far too late at 6 months, everyone knows it’s 4, probably why I have allergies now’ ‘why did they let me have a tablet at 3? They should’ve known it would give me concentration problems’ and so on.

Really tired of this retrospective parenting police. We’ll be up against it one day!

This obsession with drinking water out of single use plastic baffles me, tap water is fine for me. Growing up it was always tea after a meal and when we went out for the day a flask of tea always came with us. My dad always took a flask on his allotment and my brother and I shared the small inside cup. I loved those weekend days. Lunch was a potato dug up and baked in the ashes of the bonfire with salt from a scrap of twisted paper. The dog got a drink of tea as well. I dare say my mum had a well-earned rest on Saturdays. My brother and I got a bottle of Corona each from the bread man once a week and it lasted about 3 days. I have no bad memories from my childhood, I'm sorry about some of the posters here who seem to have had such a hard time of it.

@Roxy69 That's a lovely anecdote about helping your dad on the allotment. It's painted a charming mental image.

My mum was generally lovely but she was so bad around periods as in she would rarely buy pads. I’d go to the bathroom with dread every month and there’d usually be nothing there or maybe one or two pads. I’d have to spend my pocket money buying them. It was all females in my house as well, mum, her female partner, me and my sister. There should have been loads! She seems to have rewritten history and told me recently that she made me an ‘emergency pack’ of pads/wipes/pants, for my school bag. There was no such thing.

Thanks, we really had lovely times.

Bet that was frustrating and annoying! Hopefully you've proved her wrong good style ! 😜