Does anyone else have almost no connection to any family or friends from childhood?

[BoxOfFredoFrogs]

I am an only child born to two only children. By aged 22 I had lost both parents and all my grandparents - obviously I had no aunts, uncles or cousins. My parents had good friends but over the years we have lost touch. I live in a different part of the country so I don’t bump into people I used to know. I have one close friend from school but otherwise everyone I know are people I met as an adult.

Does anyone else have almost no connection to their childhood despite it being largely happy? By which I mean you didn’t choose to cut contact? Does it make you sad? Do you find it hard to remember your childhood with nobody to corroborate memories etc?

I find Christmas quite poignant as it somehow brings home how separate I am to my early years. I have a lovely family of my own now and great friends but my lifestyle is also very, very different from my childhood and when I think about my childhood it feels so disconnected to me now that I don’t really feel it was me. I can’t begin to get my kids to understand how different my life was to theirs. I can’t really compute how that girl became me. I just wondered whether others feel the same.

Who was it that said "the past is a foreign country"?
I think we all experience these feelings as we get older and further away from the world we grew up in.
But I do feel the same as you because of my specific circumstances as well. I'm not sure it quite helps, but I'm a member of one of those Facebook groups for people who grew up in the area where I was born, and it's a kind of way of feeling connected to that old world. I sometimes recognise names/faces, and that can be a little bit comforting.

That’s a good quote. I wonder if everyone does feel that. I watch my DH spending every Christmas and many weekends with his parents and siblings even though he’s in his early 50s and he seems so connected to his past. They have the same Christmas traditions he has observed with the same people every 365 days for half a century. We live where he grew up and we see his school friends still. His past seems to be our country!

I grew up in the military so I learned early on not to get attached to friends. And in ‘89 I emigrated.

I remember a wonderful childhood with extended family. To the extent that I have made sure everybody knows that at least one of my toes (would prefer teaspoon of ashes) is laid to rest at the park wall right behind my grandparents’ former home. Because that’s where the endless, magical summers I remember happened.

My sister and I are close, but we have a five year age gap so how we remember our joint childhood is very different.

I like to run the videos of the distant past in my head for the warmth and nostalgia. Actual connection is no longer there, but I don’t want the sharp focus of the present intruding on my (undoubtably) rose coloured glasses memories,

Me as we moved when I was a teen then a few more times. It makes me sad. I wouldn’t now move with my teens as a result

Yes - like you I wouldn’t move while my kids are still at home because I want them to have community and links to childhood. I probably won’t move when they leave so they can come back here regularly and see neighbours and friends as well as us. I also had four kids specifically to counteract the risk that like me they end up with no family in their 20s. My parents both died very young so I have spent some time worrying I might too and trying to create a strong stable base for my kids. Sod’s Law says they all love abroad and have no sentimentality about their childhood but at least I have given them the freedom to choose.

We live in quite a transient area but at least they’ll have some roots. We don’t have any family within 250 miles