Is this possible? I don't mean deliberately. I mean that through their treatment of me, they left me wide open to harm.
There was other stuff but something I've been thinking a lot about lately is about body autonomy and privacy. I had none - well, not much anyway. Both parents but especially my mum barged in and out of my room, went through my stuff, read any letters or notes I had lying around. She was so upfront about it that it was normal, although I hated it so much. If I ever told them to stop it I got told pretty crushingly it was not "my" room or "my" bag, it belonged to them because it was their house or their money that bought whatever it was.
My mum used to walk in and start rummaging through the bathroom cabinet if I was having a bath or a shower and again if I protested was cut off for being "silly" or would go out tutting and dramatically declaring something like "All right! All right! I am going!" They were quite religious and they did follow the "spare the rod" belief so I was often smacked which I know was fairly standard parenting practice once, but it was always like they had to put on a show for other people so I rarely got smacked at home - it usually happened in front of other people and was mortifying as they'd lift my skirt up. I can remember being about eleven and being a bit stroppy and sulky on the way to some event about the music they were playing loudly and I was trying to talk to my friend and they pulled over and made me get out of the car to smack me. Luckily for me the girl I was with was a sweet sort who was mortified and embarrassed for me rather than unkind.
They taught me NOTHING about sex or puberty. I was a pretty keen reader and always read books aimed at older children so I gathered bits from that and fortunately we had the "talk" at school in Year 6 and I started my periods only a few months later, a couple of weeks after my twelfth birthday.
They were actually pretty lax with me in some ways when I entered my teens, they'd shout at me sometimes but I didn't get pocket money so it couldn't be stopped and I didn't get grounded which seemed to be the punishment of choice for most of my friends. But they loved to give the impression to everybody of super strict parents.
I had a really horrible time of it with sexual abuse in my teens but it took me ages before I saw anything wrong with it at all. AIBU to think it was because of my upbringing?