How was your childhood?

[sleepfortheweek]

When you reflect back as an adult, especially with DC, how do you recall your childhood?

And why?

Do you see it different now than when you were a child in the moment?

Purely a Sunday reflection

It is definitely a thing.

I think this is one of the key points
One of the other posters said "as an adult I can see the holes"

I know we are all doing our best but when I look at what my kids have it's so much more stable than what I had.

I know the military had a hand in some
Of this

But my parents were always quick to take trips just the two of them, take the opportunity to travel and left us with grandparents or at boarding school
In fifteen years we have never been abroad without our kids and have only done 2 nights away once and in total have probably only done about ten nights away together

I also feel like my parents now are wary of the choices we are making and consider it a criticism of what they did.

But equally they are appalled that we send our children to state school
My sibling are both better off than me and they send their kids private
We just can't afford it (and if we could have done we would have had to take them out as my dh got made redundant and we have had a pretty rough ride financially recently)

I had a private education but in retrospect almost all I learned were social skills, my results were pretty average and certainly not to my potential but again my parents didn't get involved in my school work at all

As I've got older I realise how shit and disfunctional my childhood was

Religious parents. Never a kind word. Physically and emotionally abusive

Snooped in my room then made fun of me in front of my sisters. Never allowed nice hair so I was bullied at school for that

Even at college I wasn't allowed to mix with people who were divorced or older

Now I'm stuck looking after DF who is just not a nice man. My sisters think the sun shines out of his arse but in this last week we have had

The sun was right about Liverpool supporters
The pope is right about Ukraine
Refugees should be deported

Refuses to accept that his family were "refugees" from NI.

I hope my DC have better memories of me

My DF worked very hard outside and inside the home to provide for us. My DM apart from very short lived part time jobs did very little that wasnt for her sole benefit.

She was emotionally abusive, babied herself (she still called herself a girl when she was 50), was obsessed with money but wouldnt work for it, cheated constantly and ranted and raved. She never praised me, encouraged me, told me I was pretty, my feelings were never valid.

I find it hard to reconcile that her family saw this and refused to help.

Because of her refusal to work we rarely went on holiday or had the things that others had. It left me with a sense of shame and feeling alone.

She has been dead a long time and I still hate her. I grieve my DF every day.

My mum is very nice but married the most horrible man when I was 14. He ruined my teenage years as me and my sister hardly dared to breathe as we would get such a bollocking for it. We were both shy quiet girls but he was determined to put a wedge between us. We had had a lovely childhood up until that point. Not much money as it was just Mum but we always had everything we needed and were always out doing things. Had absolutely wonderful grandparents as well.