My 12th birthday

[Twatalert]

This was in the 90s. I remember it like yesterday. It was my 12th birthday. We didn't have much money for luxuries. I received two presents from my parents. A world atlas in book form i needed for school and a pyjama. I remember crying and feeling deflated that my own parents could not think of a little something to make it nice, a surprise, just something done with love.

It was a school day and I was dreading the question 'so, what did you get for your birthday?'. I had an awful day. That birthday stuck with me forever, although birthdays were always a small affair in our family.

AIBU now and then for feeling like this?

Our birthdays weren't acknowledged because there simply wasn't the money.......we got over it..
In hindsight I think my mum could have done something to make us feel special at least. Just a homemade cake and singing happy birthday.......but they just weren't acknowledged. I think she felt ashamed she couldn't afford them. It wasn't her fault and we got over it.

It has made me always make a fuss of my DC on their birthdays tho......nothing huge. The family rule is the DC has to be nice to the birthday DC for the day. And they always get a gift of some sort. But most importantly they're made to feel special.

but having my own DC now brings these repressed memories back up from time to time

Same here.

OP I always make a big fuss of my DC on their birthdays. Not money. Or lavish presents but fuss. I get them a helium balloon. I make their birthday cake. I do them a birthday buffet (sandwiches and crisps!). I let them dictate the day. Not an expensive outing but they get to say which playground we go to or if we watch a movie they get to choose. And I write them a long card telling them about all the wonderful things they have done over the past 12 months. Lost a tooth. Got a good school report. Swam a length for the first time. That sort of thing. I try my best to make it special.

I’m really struggling to accept the way my childhood was but I do try and channel my emotions in a positive way to make sure my DC have a different experience.

On my tenth birthday I got an aha album and a second hand record player to listen to it on.

The husband of my father’s mistress turned up shortly after and set fire to my dad’s (company) car.
Still can’t hear a song of that album without a smelling hot metal, scorching paint and melting tyres.

Not sure if knowing that makes you feel any better, but there is a lot to be said for mundanity and predictability - the context probably matters more than the gift itself.

My crazy mother decided I was the reincarnation of her evil mother in law, who died when mother was pregnant with me. She claimed my father had physically abused her when his mother died (no idea whether or not this is true). As a consequence, my birthday was always a nightmare of abusive behaviour towards me on the part of my mother. My father would buy a cake and make a half hearted attempt, but would do his usual disappearing act to the betting shop when my mother went off the rails. I can't remember any presents, but as EmmaWithTheGreatHair said, I don't think that's unusual for a 1970s upbringing (and in my case, poor working class). I bloody hate my birthdays to this day, I just find it really hard to celebrate them or be the centre of attention. This stuff sticks with you. My consolation is making them special for my kids, so they don't grow up feeling like I do. You can't change the past, only your present and future.

It sounds joyless op. Might there have been a little narcissm going on? DH’s parents were much the same although no child got more than another. Both dh’s sisters buggered off to the Antipodes as soon as they could!

For Christmas when I was 16 I got a pack of 3 marzipan fruit. My mum said she couldn't afford more.

Yet strangely always had the money for cigarettes and taxis.

I don't think I even asked for much, probably albums (cassettes back then) from my favourite bands.

It made so sad that yet again cigarettes got priority over me and my brother.

YANBU
Snap and it sucked.

Society was and is in some areas about what you have not what person you are.

I went a few years when they gave me nothing! Hadn't really thought about that for a while.

7th birthday and I was given a space hopper. My older brother wanted a go and because I'd only had one go Dad came out with a knife
and burst it.

Regarding 'having your own DCs bringing repressed memories back...

That's it. I dont have kids (thank god nobody has me as their mother) but I adore my niece and ever since she was born more and more stuff comes up. I resent the way my mother treats her. Its like a deja vu...with the difference i am now an adult and understand how messed up my childhood was. And I think my mother treats my niece better than she treated me, she is still her grandchild, but some of the things she does and says to her...I find them very difficult to watch. To think that she treated me like that and worse....I just cannot comprehend how...if you supposedly love someone.

My parents didn't usually make a huge deal out of birthdays, we just didn't have the money, but I do recall my 12th as they must have saved really hard to get me a cassette player and I was over the moon!!

It's not healthy for you to still be feeling bad about this now, OP. Maybe your parents wanted you to have something educational and you also needed some new pyjamas at the time. Do you have a positive memory you can draw on whenever you find yourself thinking about this?

For my 18th I got supermarket shampoo from my mum. I do remember the feeling of going into my (relatively posh) school and knowing that was a present most of my classmates would have been offended to receive from each other, let alone their parents. But ... I dunno, what do you do? It's sad.

@Pinkfreesias

My parents didn't usually make a huge deal out of birthdays, we just didn't have the money, but I do recall my 12th as they must have saved really hard to get me a cassette player and I was over the moon!!

It's not healthy for you to still be feeling bad about this now, OP. Maybe your parents wanted you to have something educational and you also needed some new pyjamas at the time. Do you have a positive memory you can draw on whenever you find yourself thinking about this?

That's a bit mean. You sound as if you've already decided the OP's parents were in the right and she's wrong or 'unhealthy' to be upset.

But if they were mean, they were mean. I don't think it would stick in her mind if her parents were otherwise loving, personally.

OP - I remember my 12th birthday very well. (1980,s) My abusive foster mum bought me a box of fairy soap powder and a bottle of dettol. She gave it to me before I went to school and said I was dirty and smelly so this was my present. I was devastated and all day thought it must be a joke - and when I got home there would be something else maybe - a colouring book and pens which was our usual gifts. But no she was serious - there was nothing else.

I remember there was a birthday in my family - mine or my sisters - that was over-shadowed by a visiting relative, so no birthday tea was had.

My dad said we’d have ‘sticky buns’ a few days later, if we were upset about it.
When this was raised after a few days, he was annoyed and said he was being sarcastic about the buns. No alternative treat was planned. I was so bitterly disappointed, as I’d been looking forward to something nice from the bakers as a retrospective celebration. I’ll never forget the shock of realising that his promise was completely empty and to this day the worst thing you can do, is tell me there is a surprise, then for there not to be one.

I can identify with your last post op. My mother is a narcissist. I was brought up to feel I was never, ever good enough. Never as good as her. It took my 12 year old DD to make me realise it was mother not me that was the problem. And then it all fell into place.

@Itreallyistimetochangethings

OP - I remember my 12th birthday very well. (1980,s) My abusive foster mum bought me a box of fairy soap powder and a bottle of dettol. She gave it to me before I went to school and said I was dirty and smelly so this was my present. I was devastated and all day thought it must be a joke - and when I got home there would be something else maybe - a colouring book and pens which was our usual gifts. But no she was serious - there was nothing else.

I'm sorry

@ImPrincessAurora That sounds like a lovely tradition you're creating for your DC - I especially love the idea of writing all their achievements in the card. Hope you don't mind if I steal that idea!

OP I think it's very normal for those of us raised in abusive and/or neglectful families to place extra importance on birthdays - but this can often lead to even more disappointment.

As a young child I was generally happy with whatever I got but as I got older and started to have opinions and tastes of my own, it caused immense friction between me and my mother, who would always buy me presents that would have suited the daughter she wanted me to be. So I would get given pink frilly stuff - I was a total tomboy. Or some sort of makeup set, when I actually longed for a Meccano set.

At least my sister also received crappy gifts. She was the girliest girl who ever girled - but my mum would give her stuff like board games or sports stuff (which she hated, she liked playing with dolls) or those awful "It's fun AND educational!!!" toys which were a thinly disguised way to say "You're crap at maths!"

Actually this is the first time I've really thought about it - I'd always just thought she was shit at buying presents, but now I realise it must have been deliberate.

While I was still in contact with her I actually told her not to do gifts at all on my birthday, just a card, because every single year without fail she would ask me what I wanted, and I would reply with something very specific, and she would then give me something that was either completely unrelated or just in a totally different style. Like - I said having moved into a new house with an old fireplace, I would love an old wooden clock like Grandma used to have, to go on the mantelpiece, one which chimes the hour. She bought me a horrible metal one, too small to see from across the room, which didn't chime. And of course I felt obligated to put it on the mantelpiece because what kind of ungrateful child spurns their mother's gift, even if it wasn't what I'd asked for?

Birthdays are a fuck of a lot less stressful now she's out of my life.

I think you’re making mountains out of molehills. You had birthday presents albeit not exciting ones. Hardly abusive though.
My father had died the year previously. We didn’t celebrate birthdays. We couldn’t afford. Did that do permanent harm? No, not at all. You work with the hand you’re dealt.

It's normal to have these realisations, triggered by external events, that help us to process what happened in our past. A lot of people with less than ideal parents have this sort of epiphany when they have their own children and it brings up a lot of stuff.

I think when you are a kid you rationalise a lot, make excuses for your parents - because they are you parents and so they must be right. So you think, oh well maybe they just didn't love me, or maybe we didn't have enough money or whatever.
Much later you start to have these moments when the penny drops, you realise, - no, we did have enough money, and you can make someone feel reassured even with little or no money. They just weren't great parents, and it wasn't anything you did. Then you see the gulf between what was possible and what your parents actually did, and it really hurts. I understand, I've been there.

I get it OP. It’s the lack of thought and care that can be distressing. Makes you think you’re not loved.

My parents are relatively well off and they have a tendency to chuck cash at me on birthdays. I often got a lot more money spent on me than my friends did on their birthdays. But my friends got homemade cakes, balloons, cards with sentimental messages, friends and family invited round for dinner, and thoughtful, keepsake gifts. I was so envious of them. I’d have happily handed the money back if It meant I’d have a bit of a fuss made of me. It always felt like my birthday was an inconvenience.

I dont have kids (thank god nobody has me as their mother)

Oh OP

The cycle gets broken. I had a messed up upbringing, and it just means I do all the opposite things with my own children. I'm not perfect, but I love them unconditionally (whereas we had conditions) and although money has been tight at times, we've had some fab days out for birthdays.

It's not about the presents, it's about the effort. The cuddles, the bad singing, making a cake, blowing the candles, make a card, go out somewhere, celebrate it somehow. There are always ways to show you care.

YANBU but it is hurting you, not them to not move forward from it.

I spent my first Christmas with my mother. After that she didn't want me and I never spent another Christmas with her.

One Christmas I would have got nothing if it wasn't for church growers donating things and I don't remember getting much for all my birthdays together.

Let it go.

My parents bought me a French/English dictionary for Christmas one year. Don't ever remember them buying me a nice, fun present to be honest. Horrible OP, l feel for you. But now l am older l realise gifts weren't their thing - dad died years ago but my mum is still shocking at gift buying whereas l am regularly told my gifts are always thoughtful and personal.

Just get her something small, a simple necklace maybe. The cash will be great but something nice to unwrap is always good 💕

Apparently she has a bike, a tv and a chrome book to unwrap .