I wish my mum had worked so we could have had nicer things and they hadn’t worried so much about money. TBF back then (early ‘80s) there weren’t the childcare options there are now and neither of my DGPs was well enough to look after a toddler/child for more than a couple of hours. I hated it though, never having decent clothes and designer stuff like most of my school year.
They were weird about me earning money as well; my friend got me a job with one of her relatives as a waitress. I was about 13/14 at the time. My dad wouldn’t allow me to do it as he said it was ‘illegal’ at that age. Instead they got me a weekly paper round, delivering the local free paper. It paid about £4 a week and they thought me being out in the dark/cold/rain on a school night was better than waiting on in a function room on a weekend evening for £20 plus tips. They constantly used to berate me for asking for money and would say things like “Well, suchabody got a job in xxxx shop!” Yes, because they had more experience than me, even at 16!
They were kind of paradoxically overprotective but also expected me to be self-sufficient, if that makes sense. When I was younger, I’d ask to help with things like cooking or putting the washing on but it was always “I’ll do it, it’s quicker/you’ll make a mess/we can’t afford to waste ingredients” which left me clueless when I was an adult, which I was then eye-rolled at by them for not knowing how to use the washing machine or make a simple
meal.
I couldn’t talk to them about sex/relationships; I was with my first boyfriend from 14-18/19, he was a couple of years older. When we split I was heartbroken and all my mum said was “Well, he was obviously only with you till he got what he wanted” which was unfair and untrue but she just had no clue how to talk to me about things like that and as far as she was concerned, sex was only for marriage.
A lot of my friends parents used to tell them how beautiful they were, I was never praised that way. A lot of my friends used to get financial rewards for school/ballet/horse riding exams. Nothing here.
I do think as a pp said it’s because they were what was considered back then older parents (33 & 31 when I was born) and were born just after the war. They had no real idea how to relate to children and it’s only since I’ve been an adult that we have a better relationship. They are brilliant GPS though to my DN.