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 did have a lovely childhood and I was happy. However, my parents were utterly indifferent to my schooling. I can never remember them listening to me read. I know I could read fluently by the end of reception year…but they never encouraged it. We weren’t taken to the library or brought books or anything like that. They never checked I’d done my homework, or revised for exams. They wouldn’t have been able to tell you what gcse courses I picked, or what a levels I chose. As I was a geeky little swot this worked out ok for me. However, my younger brother got to secondary school not being able to read or write. Turns out he was severely dyslexic! They’d never bothered with parents evenings or anything like that. How on earth had they not noticed how much he was struggling? I’m always trying to keep up with my kids schooling and be as involved as possible!

Ah yes! Swimming in the weir! I am an 80's child and we also roamed in packs. I took my family on a walk near the local weir that was about a mile or so away from any road or civilisation. It was horrifying to see it through adult eyes, a wonder any of us survived!!

From the comments on this thread it seems like a lot of parents didn't teach their children the difference between small things and big things. Or maybe simple reading and comprehension.

I posted upthread about wearing really unfashionable clothes but I've been reading the thread and thinking about how critical my mum always was. I grew up feeling like I was constantly doing something wrong. No compliments, just always reminding me that I wasn't doing good enough and making be believe that I wasn't very competent. It took a long time after moving out to realise that I am actually more than able to do things! I can organise my time,shop, cook, work a washing machine, just generally live. My mum was just so negative and critical. Still is but I've finally learned to ignore it.

My parents met when my Dad was 30 and my Mum 17 (ok in the 70s obviously!) My Mum has spent her entire life pretty much waiting hand and foot on my Dad. She’s never done anything for herself and my Dad encouraged this.

As a result of the idea that women are to look after men my brothers and I were treated totally differently. They were excused any bad behaviour as boys will be boys, they never had to do anything in the house, never tidied up after themselves. My brothers and my Dad continually pissed all over the toilet seat but I was told that was normal. Only when I moved in with my DH did I find it wasn’t normal to clean piss of the seat before you use it!

My Mum was obsessed with me being thin and finding a man. I’ve been on a diet my whole life and when I developed anorexia and bulimia in my late teens she told me to pull myself out of it or my boyfriend would leave me. He’s my husband now and she still tells me how lucky I am he stuck by me. I was an inpatient for a short while and they never visited me. They have no tolerance for mental health issues at all.

I honestly can’t ever remember being told I was pretty. I remember being told I was chubby, a lot. Or that I would be prettier if I wasn’t as chubby (I feel quite sad writing this!) I am tall with a sturdy build, like my Dad not my 5ft 2, small boned petite mother.

As I’ve grown up, and moved away, and had a successful career they definitely define me more by the fact that I’m married with children. I still resent them though. Although I obviously love them and have sympathy for my mother, she was young and naive when she signed up to be a stepford wife and it’s all she’s ever known.

My parents really couldn’t be bothered. My mum always told me she never wanted kids, but got pregnant and ended up having to marry my dad. It was my fault for existing that got her into an unhappy marriage.

No tooth brushing, baths and clean clothes on a Sunday for the week ahead. I only got a few sanitary towels when my period started so I had to wear them till they were sodden. No love or affection, when I heard my boyfriend telling his sister he loved her my thought was “oh aye? What’s going on there then”. I had no idea people actually told others they loved them!

No fuss over birthdays, Christmas, I can count on one hand how many birthday cakes I’ve had. No holidays, no days out, no parents going to school concerts/plays/parents nights.

My mum spent her days curled up in a chair by the fire, smoking, drinking tea and reading her library books. The house was filthy and disgusting. I wouldn’t eat now out of a kitchen like the one I grew up with. Because the house was such a state we were never allowed anyone over. If she did clean we would ask who was visiting, this earned us a slapping, and about the time we stopped crying, some ancient relative would show up for a visit.

Not enough food in the house. Now I have so much things go out of date, but I can’t stop. We never got to eat anything my father didn’t like, and he didn’t like anything that wasn’t meat and potatoes.

It was a crap childhood, I’ve gone overboard with my kids and they were probably spoilt. I wonder how they will answer this kind of question in the future though…

This obsession with water and being hydrated is really very recent. I still don't drink water, only tea and coffee. I'll drink water if out hiking but that's the only time.

It is quite a recent change. Hopefully it'll mean that future generations of elderly people won't be as plagued by UTIs as old people now are!

@A580Hojas

From the comments on this thread it seems like a lot of parents didn't teach their children the difference between small things and big things. Or maybe simple reading and comprehension.

None of the things I mentioned would have been thought of as a big thing by my parents.

Yes but you know they are big things Thursa. OP asked for, literally, small things.

I grew up in the 70's/80's and not being encouraged to drink water was very common I think. We used to get deliveries from the "pop man" or had squash. Saying that I've still got all my teeth and no fillings

I was brought up on council estate but my working class mother was a dreadful snob. I had to attend church every Sunday, play the piano and never eat while playing indoors or out. She tried to force friendships with children from wealthy families. Not sure why she did this as we as a family didn't have money.

@toastfiend

Took their roles in making sure I accepted responsibility for things very, very seriously.

I love them, but they have never been able to just say to me "I'm sorry that happened to you, that must have felt bad/made you sad." It's always been "Well, what did YOU do to cause that to happen?" They do it to me even now and I'm almost 30 and I still find it upsetting and frustrating that they always seem to be looking for a fault in me, to the point where the mental gymnastics they undertake to lay blame at my door are sometimes amazing to behold. I don't think that's how they perceive it, but it's absolutely how it comes across and if I phone them for support I invariably come off the phone feeling more upset than I did before.

As a result, I am an inveterate people pleaser, say sorry to the point where it drives people to distraction and am often anxious/lacking in confidence. I have also definitely learned the fault finding behaviour from them and it was only when, a few years after our marriage, DH vocalised how shit it made him feel that I recognised those feelings in myself. I try SO hard not to do it to DS (or DH any more!), I am absolutely determined that he will never feel like he can't come to me with an issue for fear that I'll twist it back on him.

Yes, always what had I done to make them do that and always being told why is it always you. The lasting impact is that I obsess over everything I've done wrong even minor things that happened 20 years ago.

Always being told I wasn't good enough, clever enough, pretty enough and that I don't have enough confidence.

Agree with always being thirsty on days out and never drinking water. The exception was at the pub where we seemed to be spending hours where we would get a Panda pop. Most people seemed to drink drive back then also.

Breakfast was a crunch corner and a glass of coke. That’s why my two front teeth were veneers since my early 20s.

I was never shown how to apply makeup so would try to work it out myself. One time my dad burst in on me trying on lipstick and call me a clown. Still feel a bit self conscious nowadays if I wear lipstick.

Some of the posts are really sad. And some really are not "small" things at all.

Mine was probably more to shut me up than anything but my mum let me get a full on perm when I was 10. I remember I nagged her for weeks and weeks, we walked past the hairdresser everyday and I asked her relentlessly. I got the usual "you won't look after it" / "it's costs too much" / "you won't sit still still the hours it takes to do it" etc and in the end I think I genuinely just ground her down so she shipped me off for a few hours peace (we knew the hairdresser, mum dropped me and collected me a few hours later). This was late 80's so perming a 10 year old hair wasn't quite as frowned upon!!

I had brushed it out within the month 😂

I always smile at this memory as I have a DD just like me when I was young. I know exactly how my poor mum must have felt as I'd gladly park my very chatty, active and "naggy" 7yo in the hairdresser for a few hours of peace .

@maddiemookins16mum

They moved house twice between my 11th and 15th birthday. - back in the day when we had 1st year, 2nd year etc at school. So…. 1st year - yay new big school school all my friends from primary - very happy 2nd year - moved house half way through - new town, new school 3rd year - at same school as 2nd year 4th year - moved house, new town, new school (this was the worst one) 5th year - same as 4th year school. I went to three different senior schools. It was awful.

I went to 3 different primary schools and 3 different grammar schools in completely different areas. I'm not very clever zo it really wasn't helpful. My poor brothers were bullied as they were always the new kids as well.

Never had sun cream applied to us. Every summer would have red shoulders, burnt necks., they would i was about 23 when I first used it!!!
Never had a drink. Would play out all day and be so thirsty!

The drinking thing resonates.
Me and my friends were primary school during the 1976 drought.
We went to school. Had a tiny bottle of milk (not refridgerated) in the morning. At lunch we had a small glass of water. That was it. Plus no sun cream or hats!

My parents were (are!) generally brilliant, engaged and loving parents - it's noticeable that the things I think they did get 'wrong' were all hyper-corrections from their own childhoods:

My mum put too much emphasis on my appearance and gave me a bit of a complex about it - but because she was always telling me how beautiful I was, in contrast to her (which confused me even as a child as we look very alike). Her own mum never complimented her, ever.

They were a bit over-protective and it made me a bit fearful and too risk-averse - but I think this was almost a deliberate choice to deviate from the patterns of their own 60s childhoods.

They spoilt us a bit, and overemphasized material things - they both grew up poor and I think delighted in giving us what they hadn't had. I think my brother and I both ended up a bit unrealistic about money as a result, though.

They were very keen not to be pushy, which worked quite well for me as I was quite naturally driven, but I think my brother could have been stopped from drifting as he did in his teens.

I am absolutely certain that I'm making just as many mistakes as a parent if not more, but I'll have to wait for my children to be able to tell me exactly what they were!

@abirranostalgia do you live up North? When we went to visit out grandparents in Yorkshire for holidays then had deliveries from the pop man. Lime-aid, cherry-aid, cream soda, dandelion and burdock. My grandpa was a tutor and the kids would be very kindly offered a glass of pop but then expected to sit quietly for an hour of maths!

Also never had decent haircut!

My mums obsessed with weight and used to buy my sporty brother biscuits and crisps to store in his room.

I know its difficult as a parent to get your kids to eat healthy, but I felt so worthless that my brother was given treats and I wasn't. Probably wasn't helped that I had a tiny bedroom and felt always second place.

They were talking about it recently and they said merrily, 'oh Chebby didn't mind the small room, did you?'

Yes I did, massively. Especially knowing there was space to renovate to get a larger bedroom.

I've read before on here women of previous generations thinking we're all guzzling water all the time and chugging it in the street from massive bottles 😂 Never realised that people used to drink so little. I wonder whatever for..

@Calandor

I've read before on here women of previous generations thinking we're all guzzling water all the time and chugging it in the street from massive bottles 😂 Never realised that people used to drink so little. I wonder whatever for..

Yeah, there's often a weird edge of moral judgement to those posts from older women disgusted at people 'guzzling' water - as if it's terribly greedy and unseemly and a bit self-indulgent not to be dehydrated. I'm not sure if it also stems partially from a concern about needing to use the toilet?

I hadn't realised this before but in the 80's we never had a drink outside the house! My dc always seems to have their water bottles with them. We weren't even allowed a drink with soup because it was the meal and the drink

Mum made all our clothes, and we weren't bought things from the shops. Fine in primary, less fine when it's secondary and you have home sewn and knitted school uniform and very few casual clothes. Non uniform days were a nightmare.

They didn't keep on top of making sure we had decent shoes and I remember being in trouble for wearing scruffy trainers at high school when my shoes had fallen apart and weren't replaced for weeks.

No time spent making sure we brushed our teeth - I NAGGED my kids about that if they ever tried to get away without doing theirs. No money or time spent on hair or makeup.

The only fizzy pop we had was a bottle of coke or lemonade left to go flat if anyone felt unwell. Otherwise it was squash or tea (with sugar).

I don't remember my parents ever saying that they loved me, though Dad was a bit more verbal about it, meeting us with a 'hello love'. Mum is very reserved by nature. I'm sure that they did love us though.

I do wonder though - what will our kids say is the little things that they felt we did wrong if asked the same question in ten years time?