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.

You would not even get in the school gates at that time of the morning nowadays. Doubt if you wouldn't be noticed left either. School holidays must have been awful. An adult shut in all day would find it hard let alone a 8 year old. However, you survived at least physically. Perhaps some counselling would help just to ensure you don't become overprotective towards your daughter and perhaps address deep seated issues you may have regarding your parents' treatment of you.

That sounds very lonely. I think if your parents were earning good money they should have spent it hiring a local teenager in the holidays to look after you. And they should have arranged somewhere for you to go before and after school. I'm sure for a small fee a neighbour with similar-aged kids would have done so. I am not too bothered by the safety issue of leaving you home alone, but I am bothered that they wouldn't care that you were lonely and bored. Did they not let you go to a friend's house? Or have a friend over? I think a little independence at that age was probably normal, but that amount of solitude is not. Kids played out in those days at age 8, and I think you would have been reasonably happy if you had been able to go out and play with other kids instead of being locked in the house alone.

I really don't think times were different. O think some families were different. I we t to school in the 70s and it wasn't normal to be alone all the time.

@ElizaDee, your snowflake category has an unusually low bar :o

They were neglectful no doubt. I was left alone with my sister but we had each other and neighbours that kept an eye on us. But try let it go. We were also allowed out to play ( Very safe area). And the early morning dropping at school is awful as I am guessing many times you were all alone. Try let it go.

I was left alone during holidays and after school from the age of about 8, also if I was off sick from school I'd be left alone in bed all day, this was 70's and 80's.
I preferred it without my parents around tbh, I was scared of the dark in the winter though.

I remember that neighbors generally seemed disapproving of my parents leaving me alone all day, I had no other friends who came home to an empty house

Did you ever discuss it with them OP?
You say your mother was a Dr., (which I sort of guessed). She sounds to have been almost my contemporary. At that time in medicine (especially hospital medicine) it was amost impossible to get part-time jobs if you had caring responsibilities, and I remember it being also difficult to get satisfactory nursery places/after school, etc (though probably depends where you live). Colleagues were very unforgiving if you had to leave work early etc. due to childcare issues and your career was at risk. Employing nannies is difficult, especially for an older child, and it may be that there simply were no very satisfactory answers for the hols if there was no family support.
I ended up simply giving up my career to be a SAHM as anything else was impossible. I don't regret it but was lucky we were financially able to do this.

I think that, as you are doing, parents avoid doing what they 'suffered' as a child.
Perhaps your DM had a doting DM waiting for her every day after school and she had no concept of what it could be like to be on her own, perhaps she had many siblings so wished she had less people around as they all fought with each other, maybe she had an angry DGM waiting when she got in the door.
Often we give what we think is good for our DCs due to what wasn't good for us as chidren.

@Lazydaisies I disagree. I think telling someone that other people are worse off than them can help them to heal. I thought that I had an incredibly shitty life, as I pointed out I had an absent father and an abusive mother. And I didnt know anyone who had gone to see their father and their father to say that he didn't want to know them.
I went round for years in pain and hurt. Meeting people worse off than myself has helped me and given me perspective. This year I spoke to refugees from Syria. They told me about seeing children being killed, about waiting for five years to be accepted as a refugee somewhere and about now not being able to see their adult brothers and sisters for years at a time as they are refugees in different countries.

I am pointing out that the OP had two parents who went out to earn for her, two parents who stayed around her all her life , and that she wasn't poor.

It might help her to look at it that way, to stop her own suffering

OP I completely understand.
Its brutal when you realise your childhood was basically shit, and of course anger comes out, especially as you probably weren't allowed to express it as a child.

I'm not qualified in any way but my recommendations:
Psychology Today does some great stuff on Childhood Neglect which I've found really useful in helping me address that latent anger inside at my parents and at the teachers etc who did nothing and failed to protect me or keep me safe.

Huge hugs. It's ok to be angry. It doesn't mean your parents were all bad or all good, and you'll need some time to reconcile your feelings.

It might help her to look at it that way, to stop her own suffering

Understanding past experiences, accepting and acknowledging them for what they were (neglect at best) and recognising the feelings attached to them(more importantly having them validated) , is what will help OP heal and move on.

A lot of people had it much worse, a lot of people had it much better too. It's not a race to the bottom!!

When I was 5 we walked to and from school alone. Sometimes got on the bus without an adult (not even a school bus, just a normal bus). Can you imagine that happening now? Often stopped off in the park on the way home to have a play. Just the way it was. And your childhood was just the way it was too. Your parents did what they thought best for you (even though it obviously wasn't). Nothing to be gained by being angry with them now they are dead.

Don't waste time and energy feeling angry with your parents (who are not here to receive your anger). Your childhood sounds very lonely but you have learnt from that and are bringing up your dc accordingly. It is something we all do - try to give our dcs a better childhood that our own.

I suspect your parents were thoughtless rather than deliberately cruel. If they were still alive would you really want to challenge them? It sounds as though you had a lovely relationship with them as an adult which in itself is enviable, and is something you will hopefully repeat with your own dc.

Enjoy your own dc and the past where it belongs, behind you.

This still happens. People always think neglect only happens to poor people but this type is so much more common. You're bitter because essentially they didn't do what they should have done as parents and you have every right to feel angry and upset.

Or...here's a novel idea. This is all new to OP. Her feelings are only just surfacing for some reason and she's trying to make sense of them, to figure out what's right,what's wrong and why she feels this way.

How about we let her make up her own mind,own her feelings ,possibly adjust to her new reality and then move on when she fucking feels ready.

Instead of badgering her with "it's done,they're dead,get over it".

Would you tell her the same if she was in a hospital with two broken legs after someone ran her over? Well it's done now,and he's dead so get over it...oh and someone else died,so you know it could be worse.

People are entitled to their feelings,even when they are negative feelings.

I think standards of safety have changed an awful lot. I remember my mum going out when I was about 8 maybe 10 and leaving me and sis at home for a few hours...now if u even leave them for 2 seconds it is frowned upon . I walked to school . With a friend age 10. I remember an older colleague of mine saying the shopkeepers used to say to leave their baby in a pram with the shopkeeper if they was asleep so they could walk round and do their shopping more easily. It's not that they thought they was neglecting you it's just standards were probably different then (you only have to watch an episode of my long lost family to realise that even in the 1960s sex outside marriage was frowned upon etc etc). We live in a very safety conscious age..where we've learnt lots of things and made lots of progress in technology and your parents thought that they probably had to work to give you a good life...

I can understand why you feel the way you do though hun - but it was probably more of a social norm back then ...

I started primary in the early 80s and it was a huge problem for my mum trying to sort childcare - no breakfast club / after school clubs, no holiday clubs and no local family.
I remember going to neighbours before school who clearly resented us being there so begged my parents to let me just go to the playground early. I can remember lots of different ‘childminders’ over the years, all just neighbours or school mums who were doing it for pin money, no formal childminders like you get today.
Not defending your parents, especially the holidays but it really was a different time when it came to actually finding childcare.

And it probably was neglect by today's standards ...but maybe not so much then ...

Is there more going on here op. Sometimes people make mistakes. It sound awful and I can understand that it made you feel insecure and sad as a child. You are an adult now and both your patents have passed. You have no one to ask or challenge. If I where you I would just get on with life and forget it. What's the point of making yourself miserable about something you can't change x

Wow . Yes you should feel down but they probably meant well / did they best .

But there can be worse with parents who are at home when their kids come home . They aren’t necessarily saints .

My mum was very violent and aggressive and I hated coming home and being at home with her . I was much happier at school .

She didn’t want to be a mother . Particularly not to so many children and she resented having to be at home and she made my life a misery .

Processing grief does involve thinking about it. The fact OP's parents are dead means it is harder to process IMHO but still useful to process these feelings. It is perhaps because they have died that the feelings are coming up now.

I too used to get the bus to school and back aged 5. Horrifying.

My parents started leaving me in charge of the house and my younger sister every Friday to Sunday night when I was 13 and she was 10.

I didn’t start to resent this or think it weird at all until I had my son. And now I struggle with the lack of parenting I received. It has affected me in many, many ways.

The snowflake comment another poster made is absolutely dead wrong. I wasn’t a snowflake. I dealt with it then. And it’s severely fucked me up now.

Your parents let you down, OP.

Whatever memories you have of the time you spent with your parents that are probably good , just hold on to them . The main thing is that they wanted you and they loved you . I’m sure the time you did spend with them was never as bad as mine with my mother . You were friends with them before they passed .

Now I’m an adult I have very little to do with my mother . It is hard to cut her off completely due to complex family dynamics, but I would never consider her to be my friend .