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.

My mum had serious self esteem issues which she transferred to us all.

She is obsessed with whether people are rich, thin and attractive. The highest praise she can give a female is they are nice and slim.

I have struggled with my weight all my life - and unsurprisingly have an eating disorder.

I am in my forties, and earn a six figure salary. I am quite proud of what I have achieved. But she always reminds me that I am junior and people just see my as a little girl who doesn’t know what she is doing!

Thanks mum

They never said they loved me. Looking back I realise they really did, and they did a lot for me - a lot of the things they did wrong came from a place where they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. But not saying that they loved me left me emotionally distant and feel that their love was conditional and it didn’t have to be that way.

I tell my DC I love them all the time. They roll their eyes and say ‘yes we know, you’re always saying that’. I don’t care - I’m OK with boring them as long as my love for them is never ever in doubt. I will of course make other mistakes that my DC will berate me for I’m sure!

I agree on the denial!

My mum had a very bad temper when we were young and would yell at us a lot. I was quite scared of her at times. She wasn’t particularly loving or nurturing.

She is now a wonderful grandmother and if I ever reference my experience as a child she claims I am making it up.

I think we are just responding to each other with the drink memories? I don't remember having drinks on days out either until my mum went on this massive hippy kick when I was a teenager and became obsessed with the cleansing qualities of water, she had a Brita filter and a little metal spiral that you put in a funnel and this "energised" the water (she probably still does this) so she always had a bottle of water and we could share it if we wanted to/bring our own.

In general she was really great, ahead of her time in many ways and I only really have two gripes: Her own experiences in life had been sadly somewhat abusive so she was very careful never to push us out of our comfort zones and was always very accepting of where we were at, which was great in many ways but both my sister and I struggle massively with confidence as adults and find going outside of our comfort zones very scary, which I think is because we were never encouraged to do this and perhaps even reinforced in the view that it was something scary, dangerous and awful.

The other thing that was a problem is the hippy kick my mum went on included some dodgy belief system of "universal law of attraction/thoughts become things" (The Secret) which she thought was really helpful to teach us because it had been helpful to her. The theory is basically that if bad things happen, it's because you've been worrying about them, but that's OK, because you can make good things happen by thinking positive thoughts instead. ~magic~ However, the result of me learning this as a teenager was that I became absolutely terrified of my own brain and basically ended up with OCD like behaviours because in order to block out totally normal and safe worries, instead of thinking them through and processing them I had to fill up my mind with my own voice repeating "We are safe we are safe we are safe" "It's not going to happen" "We will get to our destination safely" and other things on repeat. I was in my twenties before I really was able to convince myself that bad thoughts absolutely cannot ever make bad things happen and it was completely safe to think whatever scenario through in my head because it wouldn't make it come true. And I still catch myself feeling anxious if I have a scary thought.

I had never heard of anybody else having this problem until I read this article. I still can't tell my mum about it because she believes in it so strongly it wouldn't make sense to her/she would probably worry about me wantonly having negative thoughts.
velamag.com/superbabies-dont-cry/

Also I remember playing with cigarette smoke when I was probably around three or four years old, being mesmerised by the shapes it made in the air and what happened if I disturbed it by moving my hands in the smoke. I don't think I was damaged by this (any more than the general passive smoking of the 80s) but I would never let my DC be so close to somebody smoking today!

Drank too much !

Mine were dead against me or my siblings learning to drive, and when we did so, as adults, they were really obstructive and wouldn't take us out to practice in their cars. I went out with my DF twice and he just screamed at me the whole time.

I'm now forty, have been driving for sixteen years and never had a ticket or claim on my insurance (touchwood!)

They also did absolutely no research whatsoever into the secondary schools in our town and just put down the nearest one because it was 'fine'. It was awful and my sister and I hated it there. It was literally one of the worst schools in the country, I think maybe the seventh worst at one point. I can't imagine sending my child to a school like that.

They were kind, supportive and loved us without condition. They were just a bit clueless about some things really.

@PenguinTherapy . I'm so sorry you had a shitty childhood like that . I do hope that you have found the love that you need to be truly happy as a grown up

Oh yeah and mine didn't spot I was autistic either. Mind you I think my mum would now, given how things have moved on. She died when I was younger so I don't really know for sure.

My dad thinks I 'just think too much'

Rarely bought me sanitary towels or tampons. Not sure how I was supposed to produce my own aged 13 with no money. I remember trying to play badminton with a wodge of rolled up toilet roll in my pants and praying it wouldn't fall out.

Had absolutely no idea about peer pressure and how if you didn't wear the same sort of clothes as everyone else your life would be made hell.

So I was made to wear "good quality" beige trousers from M&S and home-knitted frumpy wool cardigans and big sensible shoes.

Yeah, they were better quality and made to last and my mum had good intentions, but everyone else was wearing jeans and little ballet pumps and fun trendy stuff from the local boutique that wasn't the same quality but would have let me fit in - instead of coming home crying every day because I was a social reject and everyone ridiculed me.

Sometimes I think you need to ignore your principles to let your kid be accepted.

One think mine got wrong was not making much of an effort to help facilitate friendships, I don’t remember play dates being encouraged or suggested much as a toddler / primary age and I think I struggled socially as a result. Or was that normal for late 80s/early 90s? When ‘fall outs’ with friends inevitably happened as a teen the response was ‘that’s what girls are like’, there was no talk of emotions or feelings and how to resolve issues.

@SmellyOldOwls

Rarely bought me sanitary towels or tampons. Not sure how I was supposed to produce my own aged 13 with no money. I remember trying to play badminton with a wodge of rolled up toilet roll in my pants and praying it wouldn't fall out.

Yes, this has brought back memories. I wasn't allowed tampons because they were 'for married women', then got bollocked for leaking my very heavy periods onto my underwear and clothes. Also never had enough sanitary towels, and had to use great pads toilet roll often.

In 30 years time, your adult children will be in here posting about all your faults too

@Sugarplumfairy65

In 30 years time, your adult children will be in here posting about all your faults too

Of course, it's the natural order of things.

Also remember not having sanitary products, my lovely grandmother used to buy me them. I had to hide them unless my mum would pinch them 😳.

On the rare occasion she bought them they were cheap 20p ones, you could clearly see them through clothes.

Yes to the toilet paper wralled around my knickers.

Also teeth, never took me for check ups. I'm now paying over £3000 to fix them, only just affording it in my 30s.

Mine were great parents overall. Funny, supportive, reliable, encouraging. We did extra curricular activities and they thought hard made much effort to support us. They would always be on time and we would always have the right kit. My mother tried hard to feed us healthy and they both spent much effort reading to Us and doing music practice with us. They got little thought and attention from their own parents and they were determined to encourage us. They were determined to be open with us and talk to us about personal things like periods as well as political issues. I was not the wildest teenager but I did go to parties and drink and they stepped back enough to allow me that space.

There are things that I do differently though and I think that's a theme here.

The main thing is that there was little emotional literacy or expression. It wasn't until I was in later 20s that I began to be able to know what i felt and communicate it to my partner without a kind of block of wood in my throat. I tell my kids I love them a lot but that would have felt sissy and OTT to my parents. I don't think my parents had the tools themselves to teach this kind of literacy.

A child feeling overwhelmed was being "naughty". A quiet compliant child was "good ". They joke that they used the Fear of God" method to keep control and much as I did love them I did fear them. My mother had a very scary face and shouty voice at times.

They tended to express no emotions and then explode and rage. They would throw things and storm off in the car. My father threw a pizza in my face once when I was being a pain about eating it. My mother threw all sorts at the wall and smashed things when she lost it.

Neither DH nor I would ever do things like that and certainly not in front of our DC. I don't shout or rage at them nor threaten them and have never found it necessary.

Gave me tea to drink with meals. Never checked I’d done my homework/revised. Never attended any parents evenings/sports days/school plays etc. Never cuddled me or told me they loved me. Smoked in the house and the car. Sent me with a note to the corner shop to get their cigs. Never enrolled me in any clubs-had to use my own initiative to get into brownies, guides, dance, sea cadets etc.

My mum is an evil witch. I cooked and did the washing from ten. Took my younger sister too school from ten. We didn’t have a washing machine and she wouldn’t lay out for a launderette. I had to scrub her underwear. She also had me on a diet for years and I wasn’t overweight. I’m 63 and still have to be careful about my eating habits. So much more.

• we only had squash at mealtimes, no water ever
• my mum was so volatile. Sometimes calm and loving, often stressed and irrational
• we had to say no if offered anything, it was rude to say yes
• we did get hit when they lost their tempers
• I got laughed at a lot for being dim, or not with it. I was so shy and went days without saying a word, but I was mocked a lot. I have ended up fiercely independent and not at all dim. Of my 3 siblings and I, I got the best exam results, in fact the best in my year at school.
• by far the weirdest thing was not being allowed to disagree. To this day my parents maintain that our childhood was perfect and we all get on beautifully every day.

Never bought a drink or something to eat when out and about. The only exception was an ice lolly (bog standard orange juice lolly) at the beach ONCE a year.

Homemade haircuts until I left home.

My clothes as a teen were bought in the same shops as my mum and gran.

We were not poor, but I was raised as if we were.

I don't think drinking water was really a thing in the 80s though. I drank squash or tea all the time as a child. The only times we were given water was if we were unwell or if we got up and asked for a drink in the night.

I'm a primary school teacher and it shocks the children at school when I tell them in my day we got a small drink with our school dinner and we could queue up at playtime for a couple of gulps of water from a communal water fountain. These days they have lovely water bottles and, at our school, water coolers to refill them from!

I was the last one to be born in a family of many, many siblings. My mum actually thought I was menopause finally kicking in. My parents were so done with having kids by the time I was born, they were never home and none of them could remember which school year I was in. I never had school supplies or clean clothes / correct uniform. I remember constantly apologising to my teachers for not having pens or notebooks and constantly being told off for not being dressed warm enough / appropriately. I had a childhood filled with embarrassing moments and I now buy way more clothes and shoes for my daughters than I should. I remember once I ended up at some friends’ flat in the middle of a very cold and snowy winter and they had a shoes off policy. I couldn’t take off my shoes because I was ashamed of not having any socks on. Anyway, let’s just say my children are experiencing a very different childhood.

Every Sunday, my dad used to take me to the sweet shop around the corner from our house and bought me 5 pounds worth of sweets every single Sunday that the shopkeeper put in a white huge paper bag full of bonbons, white chocolate fish and chips, honeycomb chocolate, jelly beans etc (it was our thing); that's about 30 pounds worth of sweets in today's money ! I could never buy my kids 30 pounds worth of sweets but seemed so normal then plus I never had any issues with weight gain or anything as a child. Very odd that I didn't even though used to wolf it all down when i got home

@pussycatunpickingcrossesagain

Removing the stabilisers from my bike when I had no sense of balance.

My dad tried to teach me to ride a bike by taking me to the top of a nearby hill - in a busy London suburb - and letting go.

I was under 5.

To be fair, he was very sorry when it eventually turned out that I was extremely short sighted, and the reason I could not ride the bike was because I could not see beyond my nose.