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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Did anyone grow up in a really isolated area?

236 replies

Sarahpaula · 01/09/2020 16:06

I was born in a city in England. When I was five my parents divorced,
and my mother moved with me and my brother to a really isolated part of Ireland.

The house was not even in a village, it was not even on a main road between villages. You have to drive one mile outside of a tiny village, and then turn and drive down another two miles down a tiny bog road.

We were so isolated. I couldn't even walk to the shop.

I have had many arguments with her about this over the years. She said "well I could drive, I could drive to the shops". I said "me and my brother couldn't drive, we were totally trapped there".

I feel like isolation is abuse. I went to visit her this week, went to the house, and I feel total rage at her making me live in that isolated area all of my childhood. My brother is angry about it too.

Anyone else grow up in an isolated area and feel anger about it?

OP posts:
Sarahpaula · 04/09/2020 13:44

@feagle don't accuse me of conflating issues when I have said many, many times on this thread:

Children can have good childhoods in rural areas.
Children who live in isolated areas with parents who do not drive them anywhere - are being mistreated.

Can you read?

OP posts:
Feagle · 04/09/2020 13:48

Children who live in isolated areas with parents who do not drive them anywhere - are being mistreated.

I can read perfectly well, OP. I simply think you have a bee in your bonnet about this particular issue due to your own unhappy childhood, and are conflating isolation and abuse.

You are also being incredibly aggressive with that last pair of double posts.

Sarahpaula · 04/09/2020 13:53

@Feagle yes because you wrote an idiotic post.

OP posts:
Sarahpaula · 04/09/2020 13:54

@feagle we can agree that I have said SEVERAL times that isolation COMBINED with a parent not bringing you anywhere, is abuse.

And it is

OP posts:
Feagle · 04/09/2020 13:58

I have said SEVERAL times that isolation COMBINED with a parent not bringing you anywhere, is abuse.

We disagree on that. You don't seem to be able to think beyond your own childhood.

Marlena1 · 04/09/2020 14:04

I do think you were abused and it was made worse by where you lived, not caused by it. Another parent would have eased your transition. I'm Irish and one of my best friends moved here from London when she was 11. She had no issues but that's just chance and she was lucky (although she had a lonely home life also for different reasons). Had she been rural, it would probably have been worse for her to blend in (due to transport etc).

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 04/09/2020 15:09

@Feagle - I have to agree with @Sarahpaula - I think that what she is describing is parents who neglect their child’s emotional and social needs - and that is mistreatment and could be abusive.

My parents moved us out to a remote village because it was their dream, and I honestly feel that I was dumped there with little or no care whatsoever for my needs. I had no friends because we were outsiders, with BBC English accents, and all the other children had grown up together, and spoke with the local accent, so dsis and I stuck out like sore thumbs. The other kids had all grown up in a rural, agricultural, outdoorsy culture, whereas we were indoorsy bookworms who knew nothing about the countryside.

It might have been OK if our parents had understood that we needed help, to build friendships and maintain them, and to fit in, but I think we were left to sink or swim. Even when I was in tears, due to the bullying, and went to mum for help, I was brushed off, and left with the feeling that I had to deal with it all on my own, at age 10 - and that, if I didn’t cope, it would be my fault.

I had a really good friend, who lived two doors down from me, before we moved, and that friendship was lost overnight. I know it would be unreasonable for me to expect that my parents shouldn’t have moved, so I could stay friends with this girl - but it is not unreasonable to expect that my parents should have helped me deal with this and make new friends.

Children need a social life, and they need friends, and if the adults in their life are going to choose to move them to somewhere where it is hard to have friends and a social life, then the adults have a responsibility to facilitate friendships/socialising. To just drop kids in a totally new, remote area, where they know no-one and may struggle to fit in, and expect that this will give them an idyllic childhood without any effort from the parents, is pretty heartless.

Why do you think it is OK to ignore a child’s emotional and social needs like my parents did?

Sarahpaula · 05/09/2020 01:46

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I think that the parents who are like mine and yours, do not really see their children as human beings. They see them as dolls, as things that they own.

Those kind of parents think totally about their own lives, and give zero thought to how it affects the child as a human being.

It is sad to say but some parents do think totally about themselves, and do not think about the child.

I send you a huge hug. I understand you. We are free now.

I am visiting my mum who still lives in my old childhood home, this week, and I cried, remembering the absolute misery of living there.

But we are free now. I send you love because I understand ❤️

OP posts:
Sarahpaula · 05/09/2020 01:48

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius my mother - if she wasn't shouting at me, she used me as a servant.

I am proud of myself for surviving that childhood, and you should be proud of yourself too. We have got this far ❤️

OP posts:
SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 05/09/2020 19:10

I’m sending you an equally big hug back, @Sarahpaula! Thanks

YouJustDoYou · 05/09/2020 19:14

I wasn't driven everywhere. My mum couldn't afford it (And was a drunk). I just roamed free. It was utterly fucking lonely. But it had some amazing moments. But what can you do? You can't change how things were.

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