Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

To find people reminiscing about their hard childhoods somehow repellent?

97 replies

NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 18/08/2013 23:42

I know my thread title makes me seem horrible but bear with me please.

I had a particularly poor childhood but in a very loving, stable home...but sometimes we were extremely poor...fine...that;s how it was and I don't remember minding too much because we all had such fun etc. My Mum also had a very hard childhood and not such a loving one as I did. But again...she's come to terms with it all...she's wonderfully balanced and loving etc.

MIL however LOVES talking about her poor childhood. She's the same age as my Mum and she gives anecdotes about things which happened or things she went through which actually aren't THAT bad...things like her Mum having to hand sew all the kid's knickers because they couldn't afford to buy any....nothing shocking and not half as ingenious as some of the things my parents made through necessity...and I grew up in the 70s when this kind of thing wasn't even that common,

She tells these stories with a sort of tragic expression on her face...and she's expectant of sympathy or shock...and I can't give it...no more than I could tell her some of my experiences as A they're too private and B it would appear that I am competing for "poorness"

Right. That's off my chest. I feel better already. Fire away! AIBU to not respond much at all during these long, self indulgent diatribes about her childhood and NOT to go "Aaaaah...." at the end?

OP posts:

middleclassdystopia · 19/08/2013 10:59

In my experience sone people get very uncomfortable when you talk about a difficult childhood.

Maybe it triggers their own buried issues? However it is interesting that people will read and read horrific tales of abuse in the tabloids, yet when faced with it in real life want it buried under the carpet.

There is a startling lack of empathy in this attitude. I don't moan on and on about my childhood, I have largely overcome it and have a nice family of my own now. However I refuse to keep silent just to avoid other's discomfort.

This is how abuse is allowed to prevail

mrsjay · 19/08/2013 11:05

your MIl was probably miserable getting pants made and feeling inferior poverty is shit and everybody deals with things differently I don't think your mil can get past how awful she felt as a child, My auntie says they were poor but happy my uncle says he was so poor he didnt have pants until he joined the army and didnt have any to take with him, 2 siblings different perceptives of how they lived,

My childhood wasn't all that eitheral ( i was in and out of hospitals) though I dont harp on about it I keep a lot internal but it had affected my life as an adult people who whinge can be tiresome but they are unhappy people make the right noises to your mil that is all she is looking for but dont pander to it either,

mrsjay · 19/08/2013 11:10

you know what I take what I said back pander to her let her talk it out then maybe say that must have been awful for you,

middleclassdystopia · 19/08/2013 11:12

Your thread title is nasty and 'repellant' OP. You sound charming.

givemestrengthorlove · 19/08/2013 11:18

If she had a tough childhood then be sympathetic..if you can't be then that may be because your own experiences have damaged you or hardened you emotionally.
I didn't have similar hardship but have experience in my childhood of family alcoholism... I sympathise with other people caught up in the lives of addicts but feel irrationally unsympathetic and angry with alcoholics themselves... I recognise this and don't let it show.

I think you aren't being very nice...have a heart

CorrineFoxworth · 19/08/2013 11:19

I apologise for my flippant comment early on in the thread. This is turning out to be an interesting discussion and the post about the Monty Python sketch was very thought-provoking.

mrsjay · 19/08/2013 11:27

I apologise for my flippant comment early on in the thread. This is turning out to be an interesting discussion and the post about the Monty Python sketch was very thought-provoking.

Least as you said you have thought about it and a sketch about poverty made by men who had lovely lives isn't that funny after all

CorrineFoxworth · 19/08/2013 11:29

I didn't actually reference the Four Yorkshiremen sketch myself but I don't think I will ever be able to think about the Monty Python team in the same way again!

Pagwatch · 19/08/2013 11:33

That is interesting OP.

I wonder if your resentment is something more complicated than a sort of irritation.

Perhaps somehow you have felt obliged to 'get over' your childhood. So her speaking freely about hers makes you feel as though she is not obeying the unspoken stiff upper lip rules that you have felt was the right way to deal with things.

When I first spoke out loud about my abuse a couple of my siblings were just furious with me. One said I deserved to die alone. It was horrendous. All these years later I think they were thrown, almost frightened by the act that I had said these things out loud.

Our childhood was a carefully constructed web of unspoken issues, secrets and a determined front of a happy united family.
I think when I said things their lives went into a free fall. It must have been terrible for them.

Maybe you feel as though being brave is the only way these things are supposed to be handled so her talking about it makes you defensive.

SconeInSixtySeconds · 19/08/2013 11:42

yy Pag - the need to just forget/rewrite history has happened in my family too.

And in more than one generation. :(

cory · 19/08/2013 11:43

I think what my SIL felt was that pointing out what her own childhood was like (after the initial revelation) would sound as if she was trying to upstage her MIL and trivialise her feelings, but keeping silent seemed disloyal to her parents who really did cope with horrendously hard things, so she felt she was in a cleft stick: either rude or disloyal.

Like the OP's MIL, my mother didn't just do it the once and stopped once she had been informed of the facts: she loved doing it, particularly at large family gatherings. I used to try to deflect attention and change the conversation, feeling really embarrassed that my own privileged childhood was being held up as some kind of example of fortitude. The truth is that my mother- who was actually a brilliant parent, great fun and very inventive- is not the world's most confident person; even after all these years she still needs validation that she did things right. But there is a time and place for validation, and a conversation that included my SIL was possibly not it.

AmberLeaf · 19/08/2013 11:50

Amber that was my thread yes. Maybe I'm going through something at the moment related to coming to terms with things....I don't know. I never thought about that thread I must admit but it's an odd coincidence that that memory surfaced recently and now I'm finding MIL hard work

I really don't even think this is about your mil at all.

Maybe down playing how hard your childhood was is a way for you to 'get on' and hearing someone talk openly about theirs interrupts that mindset? possibly its easier for you to feel irritated at that than to deal with the feelings it stirs up?

I don't think you meant to offend anyone with this thread. I think you are talking about how you feel in relation to your own 'stuff'

cumfy · 19/08/2013 12:12

AIBU to find people reminiscing about finding their MIL's reminiscences about their hard childhoods somehow repellent, somewhat contradictory ?

gotthemoononastick · 19/08/2013 12:19

I find it wonderfully uplifting to read about people who have overcome very difficult starts in life and will hang on their lips.
My childhood was on a different continent with other hellish issues for children if you are poor.
I have no idea of the class system here,so don't know what middle class means.

Yay!! for all the Catherine Cookson books that we devoured ...couldn't believe the hardship described.The Midwife also a real eye-opener.Seems only the other day too.Why would you look down on anyone?All just a luck of birth anyway.
Please let the stories keep coming!

appletarts · 19/08/2013 12:32

Compassion never hurt anyone.

middleclassdystopia · 19/08/2013 12:38

'a carefully constructed web of unspoken issues, secrets and a determined front of a happy united family'

Yes I know this Pagwatch. I have now cut contact with some family members who have gone as far to imply i'm making it up. Having to keep quite just to suit other's cosy view of life would feel like that trauma all over again

Feminine · 19/08/2013 12:45

Sorry neo just got that from a couple of your threads recently.

I prob imagined it :)

themaltesefalcon · 19/08/2013 13:08

I do understand about the tragic face, OP.

I was serving up a roast dinner and my mother got wind of the fact that my husband doesn't particularly like asparagus. (As in, he'll eat some, but will decline if there isn't enough to go around as he doesn't really enjoy it and wouldn't deprive anyone else.)

Cue tragic face and dolorous tones,

"It just makes everything so hard to bear when they behave like that."

You'd swear he'd razed her ancestral pile to the ground and sold all her children into slavery from the amount of feeling she managed to work up over three sodding pieces of overcooked asparagus.

cory · 19/08/2013 13:20

I think in some families in can develop into a bit of a family tradition, a common discourse of "adversity bravely borne". Which is harmless enough as long as it stays within the family (and can even be good for strengthening family bonds), but can be very annoying to outsiders. And almost guaranteed to make DILs/SILs feel like outsiders.

givemestrengthorlove · 19/08/2013 13:26

Maybe it excludes those who didn't experience the same? Life is tough and we all have our woes ...maybe the OP doesn't want to be the giver with her mil, she wants equal give and take ?

cory · 19/08/2013 14:57

Yes, givemestrenght, and it also excludes those who actually experienced far worse but feel churlish about saying so, like my SIL.

givemestrengthorlove · 19/08/2013 15:02

Yes..it needs to be a dialogue not just a one sided comment

Flip

1 2 3 4