To think small children in boarding schools aren’t there because they want to be?

[SwearyG]

I am trying to unpick some of the gaslighting from my family at the moment and one of the things I am constantly told about being sent off to board at age 8 (I took the entrance exam on my eighth birthday) was that “you begged to go”.

I have no memory of this “begging” and neither does my DS (3 years older) but it is written into family lore and used by my parents as the reason that I was sent. I can’t make head nor tail of this as an adult as I certainly wouldn’t put that sort of decision in the hands of a child. It’s presented as my choice and nothing to do with them.

AIBU to think they’re gaslighting me and it was their choice to put me into boarding school, and not something any parent would do because their child asked or “begged”?

I should try not to hold it against your parents. It does sound like a load of nonsense that you 'begged' to leave home but you don't want to hate your folks now, do you?

My mother went into hospital when she had my sister, for over a week. When she came to pick me up from school after she had the baby she walked towards me and then seemed to be walking past me. I faltered and walked on a bit bemused and alarmed, having expected her to rush forward and greet me.

Forever afterwards this horrible experience (I was five and a half and thought my mother had not recognised me) was told as a rather spiteful story about ME not recognising HER. It went on for fifty years until mum started to develop Alzheimer's and it was never told without my trying to put her right and she ignoring what I said.

Mum was a very loving mother but I think this was her one way of letting off a bit of steam and ire. I decided it wasn't going to make me angry with her as I had no desire to dislike her.

I worked at very well known private girls school
The boarding kids there only really had a problem with it once they were older (teenagers) as even though daddy would come and take them shopping and think nothing of spending £500-£1000 on them I think they felt a bit lonely from a family point of view
Some were foreign students so I think their outlook on it was different
A lot of kids had parents in the forces etc
Having said that the younger kids loved it - they treated it as one big sleepover / party and only occasionally had a bit of a wobbly moment

All in all the majority seemed happy to be there

I think that some young children do want to board. My DS (aged 5) is a day pupil at a boarding school, he is already asking when he can stay over. I don’t like the idea and won’t encourage it, but would let him stay over a couple of nights a week when he’s 10 or 11 if he really begged me.

My friend has reluctantly agreed that her DD (aged 8) can stay over 2 nights a week after months of asking.

So IME some young children do want to, and do ask to, board.

I vividly remember getting home from school aged 12 to find my mum had left and taken my 2 younger sisters with her. She didn’t contact me for 3 days and then she rang asking if I was going to come and live with her to which I said no because I was so angry at her for leaving me behind. Never happened according to my mum!!!

I think you probably would remember if you begged to go. As someone who was both a housemaster's wife (=housemother) to 11-13 yr olds who were mainly "Boarding-Need" boys and a NeuroPsychologist with a large interest in memory, I have views on both aspects of your experience. To me, your mother feels guilty about your going at eight and possibly holds on to that one time (when perhaps your sister was taken back there and you were not yet there) that you said something like "I want to be at school with my sister." That would have been a natural thing for a younger sister to say. I think your mother feels guilty and is holding to some memory of your saying you wanted to go. Building it into your begging to go, is her way of coping. As the past cannot be changed, can I ask you not to ask your mother about it any more? It might be hurting her very deeply and she may have reasons for having to cover her feelings. As for boarding at the age of 8, well, it is far to young. There are not enough adults to give enough individual attention to the children for a start. But there is never a better place than in the family. However, sadly, that is not always possible. We catered for children who could not be with their family for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it was not such a bad reason such as they had been bullied at their local school and the distance to us from their home meant they needed weekly boarding. This was from age 11 when the curriculum changes and starts to become more specialised in each subject area. There were big advantages to boarding at this age. It was easier to do homework (prep) since everyone did it together. There were teachers available to help during prep. The school facilities, tennis courts, cricket nets, theatre, music etc were all available, you could always find enough people for a game, time passed very quickly so holidays came soon and Saturday morning school meant the holiday period was longer. We had one boy who began with us so distressed about having to board his parents promised he could Iive at home after the 2 years while they could not have him with them. They returned at the end of the first term to say his mother was returning at the end of the first year so he would only need to board for two more terms. He burst into tears and said boarding was the best thing ever and he never wanted to live at home during school term time!
This does not help you. I can feel your pain. I think you have been gaslighted. But I think your mother has also made herself believe her own story. I also have to say that even if a child begs to go to boarding school, the age of 8 is too young to make the child responsible for the decision. The decision is the Parents' or Guardians' and theirs alone taking into account their knowledge of the child, whether she can adapt to new surroundings, make friends, tell adults if she needs help and so on. They should not allow an 8 year old to sway their decision because it is impossible to make an informed choice at that age about where you want to live and with whom. But if there is no need to find care outside the home, 8 years old is too young to be going away to boarding school. None the less please do not blame your parents. It will simply upset you more. My own mother had many problems and did many bad things to me. I find the only way to cope as an adult is to let go of it. She is dead now, but when she was alive I gave up trying to reach the truth about some of my childhood, since to talk to her made it harder. Enjoy your family and your life now. Lots of love and best wishes.

I think also a comment is sometimes misinterpreted in a way which makes sense to the adult mind. I was told I'd begged to go on holiday abroad at 8, so we did, purely because I wanted to! All I remember is vaguely asking once, why some of my friends went abroad while we didn't - I wasn't jealous at all, I just wondered about why the difference.
I did very much want a space hopper, and/or pierced ears, but both were 'too expensive', so I somehow doubt we flew to Spain because I seemed to fancy it!

There were lots of similar, fairly unimportant examples, and I did wonder if I was just forgetting a lot of things...until my DM stated that I'd demanded a book which I didn't even remember, then barely looked at it when they got it for me...inside the front cover, neatly written in a child's writing, was her maiden name - it was her book from when she was a little girl, not mine!

I don't think she was doing any of it deliberately though, just weaving a story where her memory wasn't clear on details.

Op, I’m sure you’re right judging by what you’ve said about your parents, but there might be a slight possibility that you have, subconsciously, forgotten because it was such an awful experience. If you read The Making Of Them, and Boarding School Syndrome, it’s obvious that a lot of things do get buried because they were part of dreadfulness.

I was sent at 9 because I was ill and hated my day school. My school was wonderful, massively improved my health and mostly I loved it. But DM was honest and reminded me later how homesick I was at the beginning of each term and at the end of each exeat. She was also honest about why she sent me later to the school she, my aunt, DSis, and Dcousin all hated and kept me there when I was unhappy. So I do think your parents are into self justification mode.

OP I am currently in therapy thanks to a toxic mother and this is apparently a common way for toxic parents to placate guilt of a bad choice, or avoid taking responsibility for hurting someone.

For example, when I was 10 I was on holiday in Italy and got so badly sunburnt that I had enormous blisters all over my body. My mother told everyone that I absolutely point blank refused to have suncream on because I wanted a tan like my older cousin. And so she didn't put any on, she warned me apparently that I would burn and I still refused.

I have never, at any point during adulthood or adolescence, sought after getting a tan. I am pale and I like it that way, and I am a fan of being in the shade. I know for a fact I wouldn't have refused suncream.

Even if I did who the fuck let's their 10yo DD dot on a beach in 40 degree weather unprotected?

The worst thing was she told family that story at the time and I remember thinking how I didn't refuse suncream, and that was only a couple of days after the alleged event.

She still says it now, over 20 years later and it makes deeply angry. But my therapist has told me to remember that I know it's not true, she has lied for her own gains and that it is gaslighting and I (and you) have a right to be angry about it.

My daughter's best friend at school left at the end of year 3 to board. She was very upset about having to leave her friends and apparently is still really struggling to fit in. Her mum is a SAHM, dad works abroad a lot, eldest is boarding too. It's a family choice apparently...I do struggle to understand it!

I suppose if this was my parents I would just say ‘well you were wrong to let a small child make such a big decision.’

I can remember age 7/8 begging to go to boarding school, but this was entirely because of books like the worst witch, St Clare's and Malory towers. I'm not sure I really understood that boarding school wasn't like going off on Brownie pack holiday for a few days. My parents wouldn't have made a decision that big based on me begging when I was that young even if they could have afforded to send me.

Seems there may have been a tradition of children boarding in your family in that both you and a sister did so. Why are you so obsessed about what the reason was? Do you have horrible memories of it, is your view of life tainted by the time you spent at the school. Times have changed and children though supposed to be much more mature than say 20 years ago and far more aware than their counterparts of then were don't seem to board quite so young nowadays. If whether or not you demanded to board is all that is niggling you your are lucky. Forget it, you survived.

My siblings and I all boarded, my brother from the age of 4 yrs. My parents were in the army so constantly posted abroad in different countries. I can vaguely remember at the age of 7 wanting to go to be with my sister who was 4 years older. So, perhaps you were close to your older sister and wanted to be with her, or felt that you were missing out if she seemed to be enjoying it. It's possible, would your older sister not remember. I can also remember always wanting what my sister had so it's possible you may have wanted to go but as a parent I would not have left the decision up to my 8 year old daughter.

It's possible your older sister would remember.

Just re read your post and realise your sister also does not remember. So, perhaps there was a reason why you were sent but maybe your parents did not want to share that reason with you. Ah, families, how deep and secretive they can be! And people's memories and perceptions of the same event are all so different. But IMO, a parent who says I sent you to boarding school because it's what you wanted is not telling the full story. If I had given in to my children everything they wanted they would be coming back to say 'Why did you let me do that'!

What a fantastic post Ellyess

Another Mallory Towers and St Clare's fan here. I remember asking to go to boarding school as well.

And another, those fecking books have a lot to answer for!

Maybe your parents were criticised at the time for their decision. In an attempt to justify it to other people who disagreed, they would say 'She wanted to go' which develops over the years into 'She begged to go' and they come to genuinely believe it themselves.
When you question the truth of the situation now, they are hyper sensitive because it is a direct line back to that stinging criticism of their parenting.

Like I've said upthread there is no blame on my part at all, and I don't have memories of being particularly unhappy there, or feeling that it's a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's the inability to mention anything about prep school without the "you begged" line coming up - whether it's about a reunion or a book coming out or seeing something on Facebook etc.

It's the invalidation I suppose. That I am told I begged - when I know I didn't, and my sister knows I didn't, and that as a result that whole period of my life has become unmentionable. That's what I find unsettling, not that I went as a small child, but the denial of their own agency in it and the fact that it's so taboo now I can't even acknowledge having been. It's deeply peculiar.

SwearyG I totally get why you want to check your perception against reality here. It's the difference between having parents who are basically honest about most things with maybe one or two sore points that they gloss over, and having parents who are determined that your childhood was perfect, and they will steamroller any recollection that doesn't tally with that. You go around as an adult with a lack of confidence in your own ability to perceive reality. I knew someone whose head had been so messed with that when he recalled parental physical abuse from when he was like 9/10/11, he wasn't sure if he should blame his parents because it was his word against theirs, and innocent until proven guilty. Even though he could actually remember it happening! I also, a very close friend of mine with similar situation said her therapist commented that she presented her life history like a case in court, any memories she shared were things that other people had witnessed, there was always some impartial record or reference or whatever. Unfortunately when you say this stuff to people who've not experienced it they often just don't get why it's important (because being given enough credence and attention, as a child, to develop confidence in your perception of reality is a really basic thing that healthy parents do without making a conscious effort) or worse, when we tell our stories, the corroboration and extraneous detail make us sound like we're lying. It's not easy.

I think there is a process in recovery (which it sounds like you are in the middle of doing) where we start by examining the disputed memories that we can remember, and we try to get impartial evidence one way or the other - like this thread. But in time hopefully you can move to a place where you just trust your own memory, because it's yours, and not just in a "everyone has their own version and the truth is somewhere in the middle" way - that may be true a lot of the time but if your parents did gaslight you, then 99 percent of the time your memory is going to be the one closest to the truth.
I agree with PPs though that there's not much point trying to get your parents to see any of this. They had reasons to want to spin things differently, and those reasons are probably even stronger now that your childhood is over and there's nothing they can do to have been better parents back then.

And also yes you are very welcome on Stately Homes!

Were you happy there? You may not remember the reasons you were sent away, but you should remember if you were happy and wanted to return at the end of each term.

I can see well imagine this.

When I was a teenager my parents decided to have a holiday abroad without us. I remember clearly DM explain that it was a holiday just for Mum and Dad and me and my brother would stay at home. I'm hazy on whether me and brother had a holiday at all, we certainly didn't have a family holiday or a holiday abroad that summer.

When my parents returned they told us what a great time they had and then DM said "Oh well, you'll know next time". The implication being that we had both said that we didn't want to go. Brother, dad and I looked at each other slightly taken aback but said nothing.

It seems within the space of a week Mum had convinced herself that it was our decision not to have a family holiday.

Yes I was fairly happy there - some homesickness, but that was normal among my peers but I settled and had friends. I wanted to go back each term and was very sad when I left.

I think you are right Niche.

My DS (aged 5) is a day pupil at a boarding school, he is already asking when he can stay over. I don’t like the idea and won’t encourage it, but would let him stay over a couple of nights a week when he’s 10 or 11 if he really begged me.

I think there is a world of difference between choosing to stay as a weekly boarder at 11+ when you already have an established group of friends who board, and being made to stay as a termly boarder at 8 or 9 from ground zero when you know no-one. .A massive, massive difference.

It also depends entirely on the character of the child.