To be bitter about my parent's careers?

[Kplpandd]

My parents were very career focused when I was a child.

They would drop me off on the school playground at 7.30am (even if it was dark in the winter) and pick me up at 5pm.

School holidays from the age of about 8 I spent long days alone at home locked in the house with nobody (spolit only child).

I dont know why but I'm starting to really resent the fact that they felt their careers were more important than my safety. I'm also bitter at the fact that nobody such as teachers or my neighbours ever questioned them about dumping me in the playground or leaving me home alone.

I remember going to my friends house after school once and her mum was home already to welcome her and I was so jealous!
This seemed to hit me when my dd reached 8 because I cant even think about leaving her at home for 12 hours whilst I went to work. Is it even legal?

My parents were well off, I never went without material possessions and as an adult I became very close friends with them both (they have now passed). I mean even if they'd sent me to a childminder I'd at least have had adequate supervision? I guess I'm just having a spoilt rant but would really appreciate others views.

Would you have preferred it if they hadn’t worked? Would that have been better? Or would that too have presented a different set of issues.

I think we all judge our parents to a greater or lesser extent and I expect my children to judge me too. Hindsight might make me wish I’d done things differently but as I go along, I’m just doing what I think is best.

"Snowflake" has become a ridiculously overused insult.

I was dropped off at boarding school age 7. At the time it was just what I did, but as an adult, and esp as a parent, remembering that gives me pause. I know what you mean.

Back then many people were critical of 7 year olds being dropped off at boarding school.

Valanice1989, I agree. Sometimes on mn if you don't get your 4 year old doing their laundry and cooking dinner you are raising a snowflake.
Load of crap.

Sometimes parents to deserve to be criticised and judged. Sometimes their best is simply not good enough.

I don’t think it was “different times” to that extent, no.

I would say that if you left at home from 07:30 to 17:00 and took yourself to and from school. Not saying that’s fine, but it wouldn’t shock me.

But it does shock me that you were just sitting in the playground after school for over an hour. In the morning, teachers might not know how early you were consistently dropped off. But in the evening, they would.

I’m the same age as you, and no way would a child have been waiting on their own outside school for that long every day without staff raising it. It’s shocking you were let down by the school.

Posted too soon.

....and sometimes they use "doing what's best" to hide their own issues( anxieties,insecurities,neglect ,lack of interest in their kids etc.)

Back then many people were critical of 7 year olds being dropped off at boarding school.

They were. And many were not. With hindsight, it seems baffling but at the time (early 80s) I just accepted it. I didn’t know anyone else who went away to school, but when I was told I was going I didn’t question it.

My childhood was the same. Only had 1 parent and they worked full time. No childcare, I did have siblings though so not always alone. It was a different time back then.

Kplpandd I am so sorry, that does sound like a very neglectful childhood. They were very selfish and wrong to do that. You are right to be upset. Both my parents are now dead and it is hard when parents are dead to realise they did things that were wrong or could have done better, it's hard to make your peace when they are gone.

I have not read all the posts, have you had any counselling. It was not that long ago, it was not really a very different time and it was still wrong.

OP. I think it’s totally natural for us to question and often rightly criticise the way our parents raised us, especially when we have children of our own. You do seem to have been neglected. But it is true that things were different back in the 80s for many of us. My parents worked full time and I was often home alone. However I lived in a lovely safe small town, was allowed out (I remember doing daily grocery shopping from age 10) and I loved being trusted to be home alone - it was far preferable to the days I was left with a neighbour. I do hold different grudges against my own parents though. I hope you can work through yours and move on. I’m sure your parents would be different if your childhood had been now. I’m not excusing the neglect, but perhaps the fact your mum was a doctor part explains it to an extent too.

I agree with people who say it's nothing to do with the work but the sense of being neglected. I genuinely think people can work long hours (I don't btw) but still make the children feel that they are important to them and that they give them attention. SAHP can also be uninterested in their children.

OP I think it's really sad that you felt unattended to. And it's perfectly okay to feel sad about it yourself.

I think that whoever up the thread said ‘My parents didn’t consider that side of parenting’ hit the nail on the head.

My mother was a SAHM throughout my childhood, though later she childminded from home when my younger siblings were still small, but her time when I was in primary school (started in 1976) was taken up with running a house full of extended family members. I started school aged barely four, and walked a mile to school along and crossing busy main roads by myself, four times a day (everyone went home for an hour and a half at lunchtime then, and there were no school dinners).

She and my father were both from indigent, dysfunctional backgrounds, extremely poorly-educated, only semi-literate, and with hindsight, I honestly think they were so focused on food and shelter that it never occurred to them that children had needs other than those, or that those children didn’t just ‘have to get used to the way the world worked’. A primary teacher suggested that I be sent to a different secondary school — the closest was notoriously poor — but was met with ‘But people would think we were getting above ourselves!’ Two of us were abused by a known paedophile who was allowed solo contact because my parents couldn’t handle the ‘hassle’ of telling him he couldn’t.

Any suggestion from me or my siblings that things weren’t ideal is met with ‘But that was the way things were!’

Interestingly, the adult friend I have who experienced different but comparable levels of neglect is the child of TV academic talking head parents who used to take off on their boat for a month, leaving her, aged ten, home alone with her eight year old brother and not quite enough money for food.

I don't think the issue is about wraparound childcare or a child being on their own for a few hours. I think its more about being a child being on their own, all day and every day. Even when parents were present in the house, they didn't show interest in the child. So the child was still lonely even if not on their own.

As others said, some of the parents didn't know any better. They concentrated on providing food and shelter and once that was accomplished, they thought they had done their duty. Of course they themselves were products of their parents style of parenting and they didn't learn any better themselves.

I bought so many books when I was pregnant. I did an expensive course on how to care for a new baby. I use the internet ALL the time to find out solutions to my parenting issues.

Those things were not around in parent's time and they didn't know any better than to give something more than they received themselves and for children growing up in the 1940s and 1950 where food was still being rationed, that meant more food!

I am sad that I never got to spend time with my parents. One passed away at a younger age than I am now. The other has recently opened up about their youth and it wasn't a happy childhood either but it is only now they speak of it. Ironically they are somewhat resentful of their own non existent childhood.

My brother and I were usually the first to get to infant school and be dropped off. Our parents didn't have much choice, dad started work at 6 and mum was a teacher in a school a way away. They did the best they could and we were fine. I never felt hard done by - although we did used to eat the contents of our lunch boxes sitting on the climbing frame waiting for the doors to open. But that was because we could, not because we were hungry 😁

I was in primary in the 80’s. When I was 7 I used to come out of school and cross the green, my grandfather would watch from the window. He’d then watch me to the end of the green, where my mother was up the road (he could see her waiting), and I would walk up to her. Parents complained to the school that I was walking home alone, and my mum was called into school.

What happened to you, definitely did not happen to anyone I knew. Sorry you went through that. I must say my mother got worse as I got older, but that’s different thread for a different day.

But I do things with or for my dc because she never done them for me, and I got accused of babying them etc. For example because I did not allow my 11 year old to stay by himself if I wanted to go out for the night.

I went for a walk the other day with dh and decided to show him the walk I had to do as a child, this was junior school which was a seperate school to the infants so my parent went to pick my brother up from infants and I had to walk to and from school from the age of 7.

It was 2 very busy roads and no lollypop person or crossings and a mile walk. My 10 year old has just started going to the shop directly across from our house using the zebra crossing, there's no way she could walk that walk safely

Just move on with your life !!You cannot change the past ...think about the positive things that your parents did for you !! Am sure I could get really pissed off about my parents behaviour back in the late 60s early 70s if I really thought about it ,but in fact my memories of my parents are brilliant even if they were very bohemian and def enjoyed life ...good for them !

Sorry also to hear your Mum died young. I imagine that she had passed away before you had your own children? I lost my Dad in his fifties and my Mum also died before my DS was born. Now that I am a parent there are things about my own childhood that I see in a different way (both positive and negative). Eg we were regularly smacked and my parents smoked around us in the house and car from a young age. Not being able to talk to them about these things is difficult. I’ve thought about counselling, don’t really know where to start, but losing a parent when they are at a relatively young age leaves its lasting emotional mark, particularly as you get closer to that age yourself.

Oh dear. Spoilt only child is the right expression for you I'm afraid. I don't think dropping you at school a bit earlier constitutes neglect really!

Decormad38 I think your post is offensive and stupid. The OP has described a neglectful childhood not being dropped off at school a bit early.

Sorry Decormad38, that sounds really rude. But I think it takes a lot of courage to come on here and talk about painful memories from the past. I believe the OP was being ironic when she said '(spoiled only child)' because clearly she was not being spoiled at all. But of course you have your right to your option.

OP I wish you all the very best, you have been very courageous and clearly this topic is very apt for a lot of people who have also had difficult childhoods or felt they were neglected.

Oh OP. It sounds so lonely. What a sad time. My mum was a sahm but I do remember being alone a lot as I had 2 younger siblings. My dad worked long hours and hardly saw him.
Both me and DH work full time but we do so as flexibly as possible and try to always prioritise the children emotionally and physically.

Incidentally my D.C. go to a school with a big population from the local army camp and the children from there are bussed in from 4. It’s an army bus so I don’t know how they’re put on it but they’re not met the other end (although they arrive at school start time)

@Decormad38 did you even bother to read the rest of the OP where OP talks about being locked in the house alone aged 8 every day for the entire summer holiday?