I’ve been to see my mum today and I always come away feeling very mixed up/angry when the conversation comes around to my childhood. I’ll be as brief as I can…
For context: I’m early 30s now and my mum was a single mum who was 41 when she had me. Very deprived council estate type upbringing and I’ve never known who my dad is. She refused to talk about when I asked questions as a child and sometimes seemed to be on the edge of a breakdown when I mentioned it so I stopped asking, and haven’t since.
I didn’t sleep in my own bed until I was 11. My mum insisted I slept in hers, she said the bed in my room was damp. It wasn’t. When I started high school she finally let me have my own proper bed. I also had a dummy until I was around 11 to sleep with.
I never had a bedtime, I would stay up until my mum went to bed at 10pm. I was often late for primary school.
I was never allowed to walk to the school bus stop alone, even in year 11 at 16 years old.
Never had the ‘growing up’ talk. When I started my periods at 13 I would ask friends to bring me supplies or steal them where I could. I was too scared to put them in the bin at home so I’d hide used pads in my school bag and put them in the bins at school. (I just got a bit tearful writing this, I feel sad for 13 year old me having to do that).
I have a sister and brother who are both 20+ years older than me. My sister picked on me and was nasty disguised as joking at times. I’m sure she used to steal my cassette tapes which were a treasure to me. My brother I barely had any relationship with at all. So I was effectively an only child.
My mum fell out with our next door neighbour so I remember being 7/8 and being up at 9pm while the neighbours teenagers and friends threw stones at our windows. I remember seeing a condom come through the letterbox, we also received a sympathy card even though no one had died. I remember seeing my mum attacked while bringing the shopping in. She would never call the police, even now she hates the police in a way that seems irrational. The neighbour used to stick her fingers up at us through the window every time we left our house.
My mum was very reluctant to let me spend time with my friends outside school. I didn’t do any teenage stuff like cinema/shopping with friends, the answer would always be no. So I stopped asking.
When I started my first job at 17 my mum freaked out because I had to wear a name badge. She hated anyone knowing my name.
We never really went anywhere. I understand money was tight and we didn’t have a car but when I look I see this massive sense of isolation and loneliness. I spent a HUGE amount of time upstairs reading books and listening to the radio. I've found out since that mum took out loans and finance for my brother and sister but they didn't pay her back so that made money even tighter.
My mum would agree to babysit my brothers kids while he went drinking at the weekend, but we didn’t have a car to get home. I must have between 6-10 years old. I remember several occasions of being awake and bored at midnight at my brothers house and then having to walk 3 miles home in the dark. I remember being scared we were going to get attacked. I did get bitten by a dog walking home in the early hours on one occasion.
My mum admitted a few years ago that she had an affair my her sisters husband (my uncle) around 31 years ago. This has made me think he might be my dad but I have never addressed it with her. I’m scared to 😅
There’s a bit more I could write but I’m aware this post is already really long. My children are 8 and 11 and the older they get the more my own childhood seems to haunt me. Their childhood is nothing like mine.
AIBU to say this doesn’t sound like a typical 90s upbringing or am I justified in being unsettled/angry/sad about my childhood?
Thank you if you’ve stayed with me this far