To be angry/embarrassed that there's so many basic things my parents didn't teach me

[Sickoffamilydrama]

This thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3568077-Do-you-have-a-separate-towel
has got me thinking.

There's so many basic things my parents (mostly my mum as my dad was never around) didn't teach me or my siblings.
As an example we always ran out of: bread, milk, loo roll, sanitary wares, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste.
We were always late it's taken me years to learn about time keeping.
The washing up, cleaning and laundry was never kept on top of.

I understand now that my mum probably had/ has depression and couldn't cope but sometimes it's really embarrassing, stressful to not know many basic life skills innately, especially hygenie things like brushing your teeth am & pm.
It's only as I came into contact with more people I discovered what I grow up with isn't 'normal' It makes me really angry even though I'm a middle aged adult with DC of my own.

So AIBU to be angry that I have to scrabble around and learn how to do these things as an adult rather than having learned them as a child/teen and being second nature?

Things that I was never shown:

Any kind of public transport- I didn't know how to get a bus at 18, different platforms on train stations etc as I literally never went on one before, we drove if we went anywhere.

Any kind of cooking skill

Ironing- nothing was ever ironed

Bills- figured that out when I moved away

How to use the washing machine

I wish my parents had taught me you had to press the button to get the bus to stop! The buttons on ours were big and red and to my mind looked like emergency things. We lived very rurally, so until I was a teenager there were no buses to get. Both my parents grew up in cities though, so they did know, but neither thought to tell me the first time I went to catch a bus to town!

I still cringe with embarrassment nearly 20 years later.

Mirrivan - I’m sure if we’re honest, all of us with older children have moments where we think ‘if I could go back to when they were babies I’d do x,y, z differently.’

None of us are perfect, and if we think we are it’s a sure sign we’re not!

When I think of the inadequacies of my childhood, I try to remind myself that my parents no doubt had inadequate parenting themselves - and back and back and back!

That’s why though it can be very helpful to reflect and process our own childhood, the focus has to be on moving forward. All we can do is try our hardest with our own kids to avoid the things we don’t want for them and create the things we do

I really wouldn't use a towel thread on MN as am example of what is 'normal.'

My DM recently admitted she did an awful job of parenting. Which she did. Emotional and physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, a whole box of tricks!

I could be angry but I don't want to waste the energy. I wasn't looking for an apology but when she gave it, I replied that I genuinely think she did her best. Which was shit, absolutely shit, but it was her best (she has a personality disorder).

I focus on the life skills I have now that you can't always teach - empathy, bullet-proof resillience, bravery, ability to keep calm no matter the situation, appreciation for every good day, etc etc.

The day to day stuff you can learn pretty easily.

Life is tough, for everyone, for a whole host of reasons. Don't hold onto anger. Life is too short.

I don't understand the argument being out forward by a few posters that you have to choose between being angry about your childhood neglect and taking steps to improve your skills now. I totally blame my mother for some of my problems in adulthood. I also try to work to improve them. Why wouldn't I?

Tbh whilst I think that I should've been shown the skills, it's regardless now and I've had to show myself- no point going on in life not knowing how to do basic things because I wasn't shown.

When I had DC in started to feel angry about some of the things I found neglectful in my childhood.
We were taught basic hygiene but nothing else really-certainly not cooking/budgeting/being on time etc.
Most things I know I taught myself (riding a bike etc)but I spent most of my life feeling on the back foot and never tidy enough or competent enough.
So I understand op, and I think your situation was much worse than mine, as mine was generally affectionate benign neglect.
On the flip side, I think some of these lists of what we ought to be teaching our kids are excessive..I have tried teaching cleaning, laundry, budgeting, organisation etc but it goes in one ear and out the other! Sometimes you just learn these things when you actually need them.
If my generation (born late 70s) was under parented I think we maybe over parent our own children, and worry too much about being perfect parents because our own were SO not!

You think your mum had depression but you're angry about not learning certain stuff?

Wow.

Unless she was a shitty mum you need to chill out. Youre an adult now so get a grip.

Bumpinthenite- great post. I agree, it’s worth remembering that some qualities may have developed as a result of the challenges! I certainly think I developed a level of resilience because I just to put up with things that were far from ideal. And resilience is a quality that you can only fully develop through actually experiencing difficult times- you can theorise it to explain to someone what it means, but they won’t fully understand it without living it.

Also agree with iIfNotNowThenWhy that there’s a balance to be struck. The list of life skills upthread is useful as a kind of overview, but there’s a danger in going OTT and making parenting into working through a tick box list of desirable skills.

To me, the important life skills are a much shorter list:
teaching children how to use public transport and travel about with regard to personal safety,
cooking and healthy eating
budgeting.
Medical checks - keeping up to date with dentist, screening tests etc

Those are the key skills to develop independence and a healthy lifestyle
Actually if I were a parent of young kids nowadays I’d also include internet safety on there too.

And along side the skills, perhaps most importantly is to model positive relationships within the family and with friendships so that the kids learn would good relationships look like.

Of course there are many other desirable skills too, but I think those are the essentials

There were many, many things my mother failed to teach me, if failed is the correct word. I think she tried her best in very challenging circumstances.
I’ve learned and continue to learn through my experience of the world. I am an adult and it’s absolutely my own responsibility to find out what I need to know, to determine my own life course and to create my own happiness. We need to stop blaming others for our own shortcomings- and that includes parents.

I think as a parent you are guided by your child, some kids are very resourceful and don't need much help to figure things out, they take pleasure is sussing out stuff themselves, for these personality types - their parents failing to instruct them isn't going to hold them back. But we are not all the same and some kids need instruction in what some of you would call basic common sense...my ds needs instruction in social situations - he struggles to pick up on things that his sister susses out quickly. When we notice him struggling we help and just that little word on the side sets him off on the right path again, he learns and moves on, we need to do this less and less for him...but when he enters a new social situation he often needs it.
All kids need different levels of support and the posters who are saying they didn't get it but had no problems figuring it out for themselves - are just that type that didn't need it or did the lack of support make them that type - it's hard to know how you'd be if you'd had the support.

Yanbu OP, and I'm not sure why you've got such a pasting from some posters.

My parents taught me a lot. Their words of wisdom often pop into my head now.
There was a thread on here yesterday by a mum who couldn't be bothered with ever taking her children abroad, despite her husband wanting too. I thought what a shame that her DC won't learn about travel, other countries, useful skills when abroad that most children take for granted. They'll either have to pick it up the hard way when they are adults, or be too fearful/lack curiosity to go abroad when older.