To ask what you would change about your own childhood?

[Bluetree]

I'm interested to know what you would have changed about your own childhood? Or how you wish it was different?

My mother lost custody of me and my sibling when we were only toddlers. So obviously I would have had a 'normal' mother. But also things like, I wish we did more as a children. I wish my father took us out more, explored more, interacted more. I would have seen more family. Changed our house into a home.

Things like that..

What would you have changed or wished were different?

Not moving so much. Or more accurately, not moving from place to place until we were living somewhere I hated and was very unhappy in, and then deciding this was the place we should stay in long term.

I wish my DM hadn't always assumed the worst of me, and been so intrusive and weird about it.

I wish I hadn't been repeatedly sexually abused at 9. I'm 45 now and I always think I've recovered and generally dealt pretty well with it. But then, once in a while, the memories come back and I feel like I'm on a mountain looking up at the avalanche coming towards me and I lose all sense of peace. I feel so angry with my mother for the way she handled it. But I'm not sure there was a better way. She never told my dad because he would have murdered the man and that would have had a worse outcome for all of us. I am sure she struggles with it all still. I really hate fuckers who come along and ruin a perfectly decent childhood. I was pretty much fine up until that point.

There's a lot that I wouldn't change. All the time spent with my truly wonderful Grandparents. That was amazing, they were kind and supportive and well, just the best people I have ever known.

Likewise with my parents, they loved us, and they tried so hard to be the best parents they could. They really did, and we had a lot of happy times. So for the posters being scathing about blaming parents and a 'victim mentality', what I'm about to post isn't about that. And it certainly isn't about my parents not playing with us . If you think that's the only reason people could wish that their childhood was different, well, you must have had a lovely, sheltered upbringing. Lucky you. I'm dealing with my problems, and having counselling, and I don't blame my parents for them. However, I dare say I'd be a bit more mentally stable if I hadn't had to deal with (and this is what I'd change):

Both of my parents having affairs. My little sister being devestated when a girl in her class at school told her that our Dad was seeing her Mum, and that he tucked her up in bed every night and read her a bedtime story. Yeah, he never did that with us.

My Mum deciding when I was 12 that I was going to be the one she confided in, telling me about her affairs, and expecting me to mop up her tears when it went wrong.

My Dad sometimes loathing me. Every time he and Mum fought, he was horrible to me. When I was younger, I thought it was just because I looked a lot like her, so when he was pissed off with her, he got pissed off with me. As I got older, I heard more fights, and discovered that he suspected that I wasn't really his child. That was fairly traumatic. I still don't know and am afraid to mention it.

Waking up one night to lots of banging and screaming. I still remember the song that was playing on the radio. Even now, over 20 years later, if I hear that song I panic. Going downstairs to find the kitchen door barricaded from the inside, lots of thumping sounds, and my Mum screaming. Not knowing what to do.

My little sister telling me that another night (I was staying in my Grandparent's house) that she woke up to screaming, and went downstairs to find my Dad had my Mum pinned to the wall with a knife to her throat. I'll always feel guilty that I wasn't there to protect her from that.

Wooden spoons. If we were bold, we'd be told to put our hands out and get a few belts of the wooden spoon on each hand. Or be told to bend over and get a few clatters of the wooden spoon on our bums.

That's what I'd change. I don't blame my parents for the depression, anxiety and OCD I have been diagnosed with. I really don't. They were actually doing their best. And despite all that, we're now a very close family. We just pretend that none of that ever happened. So it's not about 'looking back' and blaming my 'childhood/parents'. I don't do that. But I think I'm allowed wish that none of that had ever happened. And sorry, Nyetimber, but referring to people wishing that they could change such things about their childhood as having a 'victim mentality' is bloody cruel. It's okay to wish you hadn't been brought up in a very disfunctional home.

My parents drank. They weren't abusive or negligent, but they definitely normalised drinking.Their approach was, so long as you're not being abusive or throwing up, alcohol isn't a problem for you. As a teen, I think this pushed me into some bad situations (e.g. sexually coerced whilst drunk). I was not taught to be cautious about alcohol and what it can do to your judgement, especially as a vulnerable teen.

I also suffered really badly from anxiety from a young age, and I wish they had sought help for me. They tried to refer me to a psychologist once aged 8, but I said no once and they gave up. It massively coloured my enjoyment of life from age 8 until I was about 25 and began to tackle the issue. The solutions were actually really simple, albeit requiring ongoing and consistent work. I can't help but feel a tinge of regret that I didn't have to go through all that pain.

I wish my mother hadn’t been so self centred and abusive. She had/has mental health issues. Even now she can’t seem to grasp that this had a massive impact on her children. But how could it not? We got bullied at school because of her behaviour, she hacked our hair off because “I can’t be bothered to deal with it” she wouldn’t let us move schools due to being bullied “because I can’t be bothered to sort it” we missed loads of school “because I can’t be bothered to make you go today” (definitely a pattern here).

Not to mention getting routinely battered, called names, made to lie to relatives, school and social workers, having our toys smashed up and reminded our dad abandoned us to “marry that whore”.

Me and my sister now take bets on when during a conversation our mum tell someone us “it’s time for me to be a bit selfish, to do something for ME. I need to put myself first for a change!” We laugh but it’s infuriating really.

MouseholeCat I also suffered really badly from anxiety from a young age, and I wish they had sought help for me. I can so relate to this. I have suffered anxiety my whole life. It's been a constant cloud that had followed me around. My parents never recognised it. When I was getting up in the middle of the night aged 4/5 to check that all the windows and doors were locked in case of burglars, when I was obsessively checking the smoke alarm in case the house went on fire, when I lay awake planning escape routes and was terrified at the thought of my family dying. I so wish they'd seen how anxious I was and got help for me. I'm trying to fix it now but it's so difficult.

I wish my dad hadn't been so domineering to my mum and to us.

I had a happy childhood. Looking back as an adult with kids of my own made me see some bits differently though. Maybe it wasn't quite so easy for my Mum.
One thing I would change though would have been behaviours around food. I always had to clear my plate, regardless of being hungry or not, or whether I liked the food or not. That has set me up for a lifetime of issues. I was bulimic as a teen and still find it hard to leave food on my plate. I have not repeated this with my own children and they seem to be slim, healthy kids with good attitudes to appetite and portion sizes.

I wish I'd had a different mother entirely.
Hash but true.

Different parents who wanted children.
Parents who put their kids needs ahead of drink and fags.
A clean, warm house with enough food.
Clothes and shoes without holes in them.
To know what it was like to be loved and shown affection.

To have been taken to some regular clubs or sports to learn how to make friends. It took me a long time to feel confident to make friends when i went to secondary school and i still do struggle to make the leap from acquaintance to friend.

For my parents to have been a little pushier and been able to give more guidance. They always let me do what i wanted to do but i've drifted into education when my strongest subjects were sciences, and i daydream of a career in that field now, but can't afford to go back to uni. I also knew nothing really about some universities being more prestigious, and my grades meant i could have gone to a better uni.

More understanding of what healthy food is, so that i didn't have to wait until my 20s to find out that a tuna mayo baguette every day was not helping my weight problem.

Everything. Spent my whole childhood wishing I could live in a childrens home.
Very happy now and doing everything I can to make up for lost time but can never completely block out the systematic abuse and neglect I suffered as a child.

I would have preferred a childhood where I was safe and did not have to walk on eggshells around my DF. Where I did not worry about my mum being hurt or even killed by him.

I wish I had been a nicer child. Nicer to other kids- I lashed out a lot at others. I was a very angry little girl. I wish I had been less needy too, and not tried to manipulate other girls and adults into caring for me

This sounds trivial but I wish I had eaten less- I used to stuff myself with sweets and chocolate and grew up fat. I am in my 30s and struggling to undo the damage I have done to my body.

recklessgran

from a fellow survivor (although with me I think the abuse was not systematic so much. Did happen frequently though).

ABypassRunsThroughIt - thank you, your post just made me realise how hurt I still am as it made me cry a little bit. Hope you're O.K. too and also managed to create a lovely happy family yourself.

I wish my mum hadn't died when I was a toddler.
And after that, I wish we'd had family outings and holidays together.

I'd change my mother's alcohol and precription drug abuse and her obsessive compulsive disorder and her regularly thumping me right up until I was 21 years old . Or, better still, I wish my father had found the courage and strength to leave her and take us with him.

Parents who loved and cared for me unconditionally.

I wish dm had kicked out my dad and had him arrested after he viciously attacked my 5 year old brother. Or better yet, before it happened. He did other things but that one haunts me.

But who knows what I'd be like today if my past were different.

So many of us with alcoholic parents :(

I wish my mum had been less over-protective and both my parents had been less convinced that academic excellence was the only way to go.

I also wish that instead of wishing I wasn't "weird" and trying unsuccessfully to be the same as everyone else, I'd embraced being eccentric and made my unusual interests my sort of trademark thing. It might not have pleased everybody, but I bet I would have found a few people who found me more interesting than when I was desperately trying to fly under the radar.

Wish I'd never endured physical abuse and bullying.

I wouldn't be the doormat I am today.

Also, wish my dad did flirt with women in front of me whilst my parents were still together 13 year old know what flirting is.

didn't flirt with

The only thing I’d change would be my mother’s religious beliefs that she tried to ram down our throats periodically. That was her only flaw though, in general she was wonderful, but this definitely put distance between her and my siblings - and put us all off church for life!

A different mother.