Does anyone else wonder what their parents were thinking?!

[Destinedforfakeness]

A few things have happened lately which made me reflect on some not great or questionable stuff from my childhood. I'm not talk abuse, but stuff which I think of now and do wonder what my parents were thinking! I know parenting is hard and time have changed so maybe that's it. Some examples are things like, sending me to the closest school because it was close but a terrible school, moving to a rural location when I was a teen and it being really hard and disruptive, making us stay with grandparents for a day/night every weekend throughout my childhood (not for work).

To then smaller incidents of which they are many and quite detailed but what sticks out is the lack of attention / child centric approach. But tueh I do think being more child centred is a more contemporary thing. I'm late 30s.Such as a time when we were on holiday and I was poorly and left to walk home from a bar alone. Or nothing being fixed of my possessions if they broke,just a few examples.

I have an ok relationship with my parents now they are quite self involved, so I'm not sure if this was just a different era or its them.

Did anyone else have a childhood like this? And have thoughts about it with an adult perspective?

Please see my update on the grandparents. It was the time away from my home and life.

Also just to clarify on the school there were 3 options I was in the catchment area if and could go to. But went to the close one, which I do think was normal. But as my dad was a teacher so knew about these things, I think now you wouldn't chose a failing school (now closed) just because it was close when you had options.

Anyway I did say I'd leave it as I think the time hasn't come across right. Even though I said I didn't think it was abuse that how it's been read, which I really didn't intend. As honestly I think it disrespectful to people who've experienced abuse. But I did say isn't not that I'm saying its abuse so not sure what else I could have said.

It's common I think when you get older or have your own children, and so have greater life experience and distance to reflect, to start being able to piece together how your childhood has affected the adult you've become.

To me it sounds like your parents didn't fight your corner, they didn't always keep you safe and they didn't necessarily particularly enjoy parenting either, which probably came through in their interactions with you. And in response to your question, there are a few moments in my childhood I look back on and think "wtf!" or that I'd never let my own DC do that or be in that situation. But I also have the comfort of knowing that my parents did the best they could for us at the time with the resources available to them, which it sounds like you don't necessarily have.

I used to have angst around the negatives in my parents but I realised and told myself that parents are just people, just like me, you, the local druggie, the local brain surgeon... we're all just human beings, flawed and oftentimes to put it bluntly, mental. Sometimes we're born mental, go mental, act mentally, have a mental breakdown/period.

There is absolutely no reason why becoming a parent means you stop being the twat you always have been, and many people are twats, and some of them have children. It's that simple.

When I stopped expecting anything of the man and woman who gave me life, my life became far easier. My mum and dad both have their own issues, childhood trauma, parent problems, losses, abuses... they're just flawed people who had a baby, nothing special and it doesn't change you. It can wake you up and make you more responsible, or send you crazy, but it won't make you a good person if you weren't one before and it won't make you make better decisions necessarily.

Sometimes there's more to their decisions than you realise. I'm in the position of sending DD to a mediocre to crap level school because it's literally the only option in our town. All other choices would require extortionate bus fees that we can't afford or for one of us to drive her there and back which would interfere with our jobs and make it impossible to get to work on time. Flexitime isn't an option. Sometimes things aren't always black and white and I try to keep this in mind when I look back on things my parents did that I disagree with.

I also think things parents do now that we all find perfectly normal will be seen as really neglectful or bad in the future. Attitudes change, I'm sure there are things I can't even see negatively now that my kids will cringe at. It's just how things change between generations.

You’ve said you don’t think it was abuse @Destinedforfakeness bit you’re clearly working through stuff about your childhood. Is there something that’s making you question things now?

I think as parents we make decisions with the best of intentions without honestly knowing whether it’s the right thing or not - and often only time will tell. It’s easy to look back and question things and under a modern lens which does distort things a bit too. My guess is your parents made decisions without really considering the impact on the children in the family, which certainly would have been the case with my parents and not usual for those times.

This.

Parenting is different now adays but there are still things that are simply unkind to do to your kids no matter the time.

I think parenting style will depend on what type of person you were when you didn't have children. I was one of the mums who took her children to theme parks in spite of hating rides myself. I have friends who never took their children to places on holiday unless they themselves liked them..e.g. me Disney.they a gite in the loire. I try to do what makes people happy and am a good parent in some ways. My friends are not so good as me in some areas but better in others imo. Parents can never get it 100% right.

Things have definately changed with parenting, im of the generation of here's a sandwich come back when its dark.
I was never walked too or from school bar the first 2 days aged 4, lived about a quarter of a mile away with a very busy main road. ( There was a lollypop lady.)
I was often sent with my sister to stay with relatives, some i found very scary and odd, (think religious, kneel and say your prayers before getting into bed) which my parents were not. They would stay and watch while i did this.
When ill i walked myself home from aged 11, 2.5 miles, no car so not picked up.

My child, was playing out in the street at 5 with ALL the other kids, not allowed out of the close though.
I didnt take her to school as it was across the cul de sac road, i watched her go through the kitchen window, as did my neighbours, not many people had cars.

I think things/times were just different then, we move on, some things are better, some are worse.

I think the op believes it was very unusual to be sent to stay with grandparents every month.
When I was a child you either walked home from school alone, from a young age or parents (always the mother) picked you up. Grandparents did not get involved. Nobody had a childminder. After school clubs , except for the odd thing like gymnastics club, did not exist. School started around 9am and finished around 3pm. That was that.
I can’t remember any of my friends telling me they were staying over night with grandparents so I guess it was unusual.
Everyone walked. Everyone. You thought nothing of walking a quarter of a mile or more to school even at primary. Lots of my peers went home for school lunch, it was common. I did when I was in 6th form. Took a good 10 minutes maybe longer each way. It was the sone thing. Nobody took a packed lunch.
Life was not child centric. Children were not welcome in many places and quite frankly I think there should be more adult only spaces.
Dh played out alone from the age of around 7 ish. His parents never questioned where he was. He says he had a great time out with friends.

Maybe a mixture of the era and their personalities. I’m 52 and never would my parents have let me walk home alone while they stayed in a bar. But maybe I was modycuddled- who knows!
we weren’t sent to nearest school but to the school that my mum thought would be better.
Sounds a bit neglected to me but everyone is going to judge from their own perspective and experiences so if that’s how you feel then it’s valid and I’m sorry it was like that for you.

I feel so guilty as me and my ex h sent our dc every Friday night to mil and fil. It's only after it stopped when older dc was a teen that I found out how much they hated it. Tbh I think I knew they didn't love it but my exh was very insistent. It was the only time we had to socialise together but I still feel bad.

Who knows what drove their decisions, we're not always party to all the information.

Idk without context. However I was beaten by my mother daily as a kid and only realised it was abuse at 40.

My 19 year old lives with us rurally in the Surrey Hills and is having intensive counsiling. I have never said a unkind word to him, never hit him. Catered to his his every physical and mental needs yet he daily tells me the house is toxic.

I honestly know being beaten was very wrong, but my son has such weird view in 360 degrees the other way I think he would be happier if he had grown up with an occasional beating and mental abuse like telling him he was a fat ugly stupid piece of utter shit before kicking him in the head. Even when I told mil she said I must have deserved it. So my abuse has been negated to nothing at all. My sons is all consuming.

My son can't even tell me why it's toxic except its not like his mates with 6 beds and a tennis court.

To compensate for my childhood I have raised a narcissistic very unhappy human being

My first day at primary school my mum walked me to the bus stop and put me on the bus. After that I had to wait at the bus stop alone, aged 5. We weren't well off and she had to get to work.

So if the OP is in her late 30s now, she was a teen in the late 90s/ noughties. Hardly a different era really. Some people are talking as if she was a child in the 1930s or something!
My children are considerably younger but I did have 3 of them by around the time the OP is describing and they have older cousins who are about the OP's age, plus I dealt with teens through both my paid and voluntary work. I don't think parenting in general was that different then to nowadays really.
Some of what the OP describes is I think just a reflection of different parenting styles. Staying overnight regularly with grandparents for instance. This has always been the norm for some people and an anathema to others and it probably always will be. I don't think it is any less or more common than it was in the 00s. Likewise school choices. It was certainly possible to "shop around" when the OP was at that stage. I remember my SIL agonising over the subject and her children are mid - late 30s now. But in some places there basically isn't a choice. I grew up in a town that had one, shit, secondary school. Moving wasn't an option for my parents, there was no way they could afford private or even transport to a better state school so that was that. I imagine it's still the same for kids who live there now. I don't think that the parents who send their kids there as their first preference "don't care" in the sense that they don't love them, but they may well not mind as it is what everyone does and they probably went there themselves and don't have a different expectation. That doesn't necessarily make them uncaring parents.
But other stuff the OP experienced such as walking home alone at night whilst unwell doesn't sound normal in any era or circumstances to me. I would see that as neglectful, whether it's 2023, 2003 or 1963. It certainly wasn't something everyone was doing 25 years ago.
So it sounds to me like the OP experienced a mix of some stuff that is pretty common, even if it's not things she liked, and other parenting which does sound to be rather uncaring.

Have you asked your parents why they went for the closest school? I'd think it is really unusual to have 3 catchment schools that you could have gone to. Being in catchment doesn't mean you'll get in these days if there's a closer school, we'll it was the same 28 years ago when my oldest was a child

To be honest it does all sound pretty normal for the time (I'm the same age as you). I mean, not ideal by todays standards and you're not wrong to wonder what they were thinking...

I think a lot of people used to have kids because it was what you did, rather than because they really wanted children. When they had them they didn't seem to think they needed much input.

@Destinedforfakeness

A lot of these threads are interesting because of the amount of peole who become defensive on them. They lash out at OP's about how "soft" people are or that we have a terrible habit these days or analysing ourselves or "that's the way it was" as if thats an excuse.

I grew up long before you and back then smacking children was "the way it was" There are some incidents that are still with me and i had no idea how negatively they had affected me until I was much older. If you are questioning all of this now then that is totally fine.

Leaving a sick 12 year old to walk home alone is never ok. Outsourcing parenting to grandparents every weekend is very selfish on the parents part, unless there was some genuine reason like work or illness etc. It does sound as though your feeling weren't really considered.

Taking your childs feelings into account is not necessarily "child centric" it is a more balance way of looking at things though. A lot of people are still of the opinion that childrens feelings don't really matter and when they get to adulthood they should "suck it up" A lot of these people are the same ones who can't understand why they have commitment, mental health, anger and other emotional issues.

It sunds as though talking with a a therapist might be the best idea to get your thoughts clear.

I know I said I'd be better of leaving this. Because it seems like the tone hadn't come across well. But I'm finding myself feeling I should explain better. But also I'm feeling very uncomfortable with some of this race to the bottom / never did me any harm type comments about being hit as a child. Those things are not ok.

@MrsAvocet ywa you have the timings right!

Also I don't know if pp's haven't read properly, but the walking home from the bar thing wasn't about the walking!

@Daffodilwoman it was weekly not monthly BTW.

@TimeToMoveIt I wouldn't bring this up with them now. We don't talk about things much like this and they wouldn't respond well. I think they'd see it as an attack on them. So I wouldn't being it up.

@Destinedforfakeness , i hope you got something from this thread, even if a lot of posters answering you were tone deaf.

I think many posters are thinking about the general shit parenting of the 70s when replying, and missing that for the OP this happened in the 90s.

Parents have had a choice of school since 1988. By the 90s most parents were aware that they could try to avoid failing schools.

OP it doesn't sound to me as if your parents made much effort with you. Do you have children yourself? My "wtf were they thinking" moment came when my dd was a toddler and I realised I'd never treat her the way they treated me.

Sounds a bit like many childhoods then TBH.I mean letting you walk home when ill is a bit much ,but there was often only one nearby School of choice really.We moved to the countryside too and I wasnt too keen! Now its much more DC led and parents are adapting to their needs. then the other way around!

Irs a shame you have to justify what you mean. Too many people here make everything about them and dont listen.

My parents were very child centric and I'm older than you. They made a lot of sacrifices to give me and my siblings the most love and attention they could. They are also fantastic grandparents. Children and family are what they live for.

My ILs aren't the same at all and as grandparents they have a "children should be seen not heard" attitude and my DH is constantly frustrated with them.

I don't think it's generational, it's to do with values and personalities. Sorry you felt your parents were lacking, it must be very hurtful.