to wonder what happens if no parental guidance or help in life?

[ExtraFrills]

I have been thinking about this recently.

Basically I was "on my own" once I was 17 (working, left home, completely independent). I was bright and academic but there was never any conversations about doing anything past "O" level. My mother had no further input. There was no encouragement, guidance, on matters to do with men, education, work, anything really.

I'm in my 50s now and I'm sorta OK, though there's been a lot of "sorting out" along the way. I am very independent minded and an independent thinker and probably a bit unusual in some ways! However, I suspect my life's been unnecessarily "hard" as a result. I do accept how my mother was, but I think the lack of support and guidance must have had an impact.

I suspect people who thrive best in life often have the combinations of talent and drive and luck - and parental support.

What do others think?

I was kicked out at 16 and that was the end of that! left to it. I do look and see post on here of people scared of leaving their 17 year olds alone for a week and think my life was hard compared to alot of people.

My experience of having no parental support are:

1. lived with men too early as saved money compared to living alone
2. didn’t leave awful relationships as soon as I should have as didn’t have anywhere to go to
3. never have anyone who is always on my side no matter what
4. made me very independent and not happy to be reliant on anyone else
5. when I had car accidents or other hospital stays - felt like a burden to friends who helped out
6. never had any family to look after my kids for me so single parenthood is extremely hard work

Writen down it looks pretty bleak. But I just get in with it. Can’t change it.

I also had minimal parental input. I am very good with people, I think because I had to make my own allies wherever I could from a young age. I am very reliable and a good friend mainly because I don't take anyone for granted. What I lack is inner self confidence. Which I think comes from the childhood experiences. People who know me don't recognise that I lack confidence and cannot see it but it's how I feel. I often mull over how I might have been different if a parent had taken any interest in me. But I guess it's theoretical as I will never know. The way I parent is the total opposite to how I was raised.

I also had minimal parental input from about 16. I still speak to and see my parents a few times a year though, but would never expect guidance from them.

To be honest I look at some of my friends who have had massive parental involvement and I’m glad I didn’t really! It’s made me strong and independent and I’ve never relied on anyone else to sort things out for me.

I definitely wasnt ready to live alone at 16 which is still a child really. Everyone is different I guess.

I moved out at 14 and lived with grandparents who were amazing but very rarely there as they had a business to run .
So I was pregnant at 16 , dropped out of school , married at 18 and now 25 with 4 kids and a husband who works very long hours in a minimum wage job .
I am going back into education in September but I'm under no illusion that it will be easy . I speak to my parents now but get no support from them , all of my friends from school have travelled the world , had the option to go to uni and basically have had a lot of guidance to make sure they have made the very best of themselves . My own siblings have had this too , it stings but it is what it is .

Minimal input here - I dwelled on it for years the farce of a childhood I had. Struggled in relationships because I don’t know what a happy healthy one looks like. Tell people to fuck themselves and walk away a lot because of trust. Lack a lot of empathy. Struggled with no family as a single parent and one has sen. Lack of confidence because that’s where you start to get this from childhood.

Then several years ago I woke one day and said fuck it. What is the point dwelling on what happened. I cannot change it. Yea I had no one there to push my academically, it’s me stopping me now. I had no one to push me to think about my career, it’s down to me to change. Lifestyle choices, partners etc it’s all down to me. I should be in control of my life no one else. The only thing I was taught was about personal hygiene, look and smell clean no one really questions what’s going on, and to never question anything.

I parent my kids differently to how I was patented, not that you could call it that. If I treated them the same they would have
All been in care from an early age. Unlike me who went in much later.

My kids as adults have had contact with my
Family. They came back with a new level of respect for me as the bastards sat and laughed telling my kids all the horrific things that happened.

Thank you for your replies. In my case I do think my life has also been complicated by ill-health as well, so sometimes I think its been a real slog...

I think there were very few expectations of me, and the upside, like Buster said, I made my own way and am quite independent minded.
But agree the downside was I didn't get the kind of guidance young people get to make sure they have made the very best of themselves, as NoDressSense says.

I have been having counselling lately and it’s made me realise how much i search for a parental figure. Which is never healthy really. I should have a partnership and not a parent.

It’s had a massive impact on my life. More so when crisis comes up.

I’m working on it though

I have/had a good relationship with my parents but guidance was either minimal or rather controlling so I actually did the opposite in general. I did, however, always know they were there in the background if needed. I would have appreciated more careers and.life guidance but they didnt have that kind of experience to give as they were both shop owners and knew little about other career paths or uni. I think I am trying to say that having poor guidance and support isnt just a product of more unhappy parental relationships.

DH's parents died when he was about 18/19. He didn't have any surviving grandparents either. Unsurprisingly this was followed by a year or two of extremely heavy drinking, recreational drug use and extremely poor personal hygiene / sleep hygiene. I'm reluctant to say he was depressed as I actually think he coped extremely well and proved himself extremely resilient, but obviously his mental health wasn't fantastic. However, by the time I met him he was 23, had just graduated with a 2:1 and was working albeit in a low paid job.

The things he (and by extension we) struggle with on a practical level is general lack of knowledge about financial matters and he feels sometimes there is no-one on his "side" to bounce ideas around about big life goals, such as job progression. My parents and I always have an element of an agenda!

I do wonder whether some of the problems noted here aren't caused by going NC or being left to fend for oneself at a young age per se, but an overall unsupportive childhood where one's views are undervalued and one is treated as an inconvenience?

DH really hasn't fared badly but he had a lovely relationship with his parents and dropped out of uni to move home to be his dad's carer. He also has lots of friends from childhood who deeply "know" him and share his values etc - I imagine this is often lost when a young adult is forced to move away in an acrimonious "split" from parents, or forced to take on responsibilities such as having a job and leaving education at a time very out-of-step with peers.

I believe I haven't achieved my potential because of lack of parental guidance...my mother died when I was young. My father died when I was a young adult but I would say he let me coast along doing what I wanted. I was always top of the class as a child but once my mum died, I really struggled to see the point in school work. I did little work but achieved all A's at GCSEs, decent a levels and a degree...when it came to getting a job after that i had no one to advise me really so I got the first crappy admin job I could, then had babies and pretty much no career. Girls I was at school with who were on the same academic level as me are now incredibly successful.

Rain and Sweet, I do see what you mean, there are probably very many variations and experience on this topic, from negligent parents to parents who weren't able to help or there for other reasons later on.

I think with access to the internet the world has changed. If you want money advice, careers, travel, cooking, job hunting, house hunting, banking, anything you can look it up or find video on YouTube. It is a completey different world to how things were before the internet. With life I believe that there is also an element of being in the right place at the right time and what decisions you make in life. Of course things happen in life, some people never recover from something that happens, some people move on and progress. I think that personality and health has impact

I've never received any career advice from educational institutions or family. I've made my own decisions. Money I've found out things myself. I like learning things, I guess it depends what your priorities are in life, as to what interests you.

I've never received any career advice from educational institutions or family. I've made my own decisions

@N33dm0remilk

Maybe not directly, but did you feel supported? Did you feel like you were brought up to know your own mind and believe in yourself? Did you feel able to take chances because you knew you had a support system in place if things went wrong? Were you able to take your time making decisions because you weren't in a mad rush to need to start earning money?

A friend of mine’s Mum leave when she was only 12 - she met a man abroad and left my friend and her dad. Her dad was a bit hopeless and didn’t really know how to talk to her. He worked almost around the clock and then would go to the pub for hours, so she was on her own a lot, occasionally she would end up at aunts/grandmas but nobody showed much interest. She learnt to grow up very fast and look after herself.

I would say she’s done brilliantly as she’s well adjusted and has built a nice life for herself, but there are impacts im sure have come from her lack of parental figures growing up - she’s quite closed off, doesn’t trust people easily, if someone lets her down she will cut them out almost immediately - which has had a negative impact on her friendship circle.

She’s only just now getting counselling in her 30s after realising

Well I'm in my late 50's and didn't have any parental guidance but tbh wasn't that normal in those days?

Despite getting good 'O' levels nobody talked to me about further study/uni I was just expected to go out to work and earn some money for the household. However this was the norm for the mining town I lived in; I would say less than 5% of my schoolmates went to uni.

As a result I worked hard and made a decent life for myself along with DH. We have two DD's now in their 20's and they have always had lots of support but it appears to have made them 'helpless' and they rely on us a lot, which if I am honest irritates me sometimes.

So what I am saying is I don't know what is best I suppose you do what you think is right at the time and hope it works out ok.

I work in a safeguarding role so come across many children and young people who, for various reasons, have not had much (if anything) in the way of parental support/guidance.

There is no doubt in my mind that kids whose parents are actively engaged in their education, interested in their well-being and development and offer emotional and practical support into adulthood are at a distinct advantage. Some young people may have grandparent/other relative, a Teacher, youth worker, sports coach, spiritual figure etc who fills that gap and encourages them to believe in themselves and gives them a determination to succeed.

Then every once in a while you come across a kid who, despite having no one (at least no one positive) and havung been dealt a truly shit hand in life, seems to have an inner resilience and determination that shines through and you know that somehow they're going to beat the odds and do ok because there's just something about them. Those kids are the exception rather than the rule though, sadly. Most of the young people I work with whose parents couldn't give a shit are (understandably) deeply affected by it, which means they find it difficult to trust anyone and are hard to engage so despite our best efforts we often end up losing them to drugs, to crime, or just to general apathy.

I moved out of family home age 20. My family supported me through university of my choice, it was 100s of miles away. From that point I was independent. The uni were only interested in getting people onto MA courses and zero career advice. I graduated and moved to another town, I've never asked my parents for advice. One of my friends once offered me a job in another industry, I weighed up the pros and cons and declined. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like now. I once got on a train (turned out to be the wrong train) a person started talking to me, I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed on the train. Do I feel supported, I guess in some ways, but other ways not. I've learned to be independent, I've had good times and bad times. I have a good life now, compared to when I was younger.

It has a devastating impact OP. I had NPD mother & a Dad always abroad on business so, I felt worthless, because if your mother has only contempt for you, won't hug or touch you & sees mothering as only feeding & clothing you, you look at other mothers and think it must be me, I'm not loveable. Always went for Daddy figures who exploited my lack of knowledge about men(bullied so no peer group to learn from either). Kelly Clarkson's Piece by Piece about her absent NPD Dad says it all. A friend who had same childhood told me to Google it. I bawl every time I hear it.

To answer was I in a mad rush to earn money - yes. I didn't contact my parents to ask for money. When I graduated I did temping jobs daytime and I had a part time job in the evening. Then I did one job. Then paid to do some courses whilst working, then was lucky to get a graduate entry job. I also worked part time from 16. I'm not afraid of hard work.

N33dm0remilk what you are forgetting is that people who haven't had parental support due to neglectful, abusive parents or parents who have abandoned them or died are often dealing with huge emotional trauma on top of having to form their own independent life.

I feel like I have been hugely disadvantaged by having a total lack of parental support in my life. My parents split up and abandoned me when I was a few months old and I was brought up by my maternal grandparents who didn't want me either and made no secret of this fact. I don't think anyone loved me until I was in my late twenties, by which point I'd already made loads of seriously poor decisions trying to create or emulate love and support.

I did do well in my exams, despite a total lack of interest and occasional sabotage by my grandparents, and even have a degree but it's been a long, hard slog to make something of myself thanks to lack of support, advice, financial help and somewhere to stay when things go wrong etc. I have virtually no self confidence, suffer from depression and have repeatedly found myself in abusive relationships because I don't have the means to extricate myself and tbh don't really know what a good and healthy relationship looks like plus when it all goes wrong.

This all sounds horrible but actually, a lot of people think that my life, from the outside at least, is pretty great - I have an interesting career, travel, do cool things etc but at the heart, I feel empty and desperately lonely all the time. :/

Sorry that should say 'plus when it all goes wrong, I have nowhere to go and am scared of being on my own'.