To not want any child to grow up like I did?

[sweetkitty]

I’m so angry just now with this heating cost thing and it’s triggering for me. As a child I grew up in a poor family. We shouldn’t have been my father was a plumber and worked and did odd jobs but he and my mother were terrible at managing money so they never had any so we frequently went without.

We lived in and old council house, my bedroom was on the ground floor, stone floor, 3 external walls, single glazing. The wallpaper used to fall if the walls with damp and mould. There was one wardrobe you couldn’t put clothes in because they would turn green! We used to play a game of pick the white fluffy mould off the walls around the window. The window itself either had condensation or frost on it. I have a terrible phobia of slugs because they used to come in through an air vent and wander over my carpet and toys when I was a young child.

Later on we got fan heater heater things but we were never allowed to put them on “can’t afford it” sleeping under 3 duvets was normal. Getting told off for taking too many showers. Eating too much food. I have a thing about always having my cupboards fully stocked as well now. Loads of crisps, cereal, snacks for the DC. My parents managed to afford to smoke 60 cigarettes between them a day though. I was always getting the cold and chest infections when I was a child (little wonder).

This was 40 years ago and it had stuck with me and still triggers me. When I had DC I vowed never to let them go cold or hungry, I am very very fortunate that we will have our heating on this Winter, we put it on tonight for the first time DD2 complained it was smelly and warm ( I said you shouldn’t complain at all there’s a lot of people won’t be even putting their heating on this year your very lucky).

I just remember how bad it is to grow up in a cold house and no child should be having to do it in 2022, I hate this government!

Apart from the damp, I had a very similar childhood and I look back fondly on it.

I used to love going to bed in thick PJs, socks and taking my hot water bottle.

If we were hungry outside of meal times, we'd have toast or cereal and it was just 'normal'.

I know what you're saying but I do think the pendulum has swung far too much in the opposite direction. Most houses (and schools for that matter) have been totally overheated and snacking on shit foods has become completely 'normal'.

I don't want to go back to exactly how it was years ago, but I don't think it'd do us any harm to get the pendulum in the middle. Although I do appreciate that for some, it'll be far worse than for others.

YANBU, I remember having to turn the gas fire off early enough that the clanking, as it cooled, wouldn't alert "the man of the house" to the fact we'd had it on before he got home.
Ice on the inside of the windows.
Interestingly VAT on installation of energy saving measures is 0% but if you buy e.g. roof insulation and install it yourself you pay VAT on the insulation. Have I got that right? If so... Jeez

You poor love, OP. It is awful thinking our children may have a worse childhood than we did.

It really bothers me that, so often, these discussions become a race to the bottom. You had a childhood where you scraped ice off the windows? Goodness, we couldn't afford to scrape the ice off the windows, you were lucky!

I find it disgusting that, in an era where we've got so much scientific and technological knowledge, we can't seem to ensure warm houses for everyone. As an adult I've lived in houses with no central heating (and yes, the iconic ice on the inside of windows!), and I can't understand how anyone would think that is ok for children in 2022. It would be perfectly possible for the current government to take real steps to prevent hardship - but they're too interested in tax breaks for the very rich.

It’s shit and I’m sorry to hear that but maybe you could go out more to warmer places like shopping malls during the day. At night use a hot water bottle in bed or even during the day on your extremities. Get active and work out and you will get warmer.

@CheezePleeze im so glad you look back fondly on your childhood but if the house is so cold and damp no amount of fluffy clothes is going to make that better. And you said about filling up outside of mealtimes - what if there is no food at mealtimes or nothing in the cupboards to fill up with (common for a lot of children today) I’m a teacher and I know children who come to school hungry.

Sorry posted too soon what I’m trying to say is that even years later as an adult who is comfortably off thankfully and won’t be worried too much about heating I am still affected by my childhood (there’s obviously a lot of other triggers it’s not just poverty). I’m heartbroken for all these children who will be sorting cold and hungry this winter

Weirdly I also gave dogs memories of being cold and wrapped up in a big duvet. We didn’t have mould though!!!

*have fond

My DF was born at the end of the war and remembers being hungry due to rationing. He had holes in his school jumpers, and cardboard to cover the holes in his shoes.
He now hoards food and won’t throw out old clothes/shoes. It really does affect you for life.

Sorry you have such unpleasant memories OP.

What stands out for me, is when you said your parents still managed to smoke 60 a day despite all the above.

It sounds to me like you have different priorities and would always do your best to provide for your child - I don't know you but I have a suspicion you wouldn't be spending money on yourself rather than heating your house for your kids.

That in itself, I think, sets you apart.

I’m the same op,I can’t abide being cold,thin blankets,hats,socks on in bed when I was young,one bath on a Sunday,ice on the inside of the windows,I frequently burned my back sitting in front of the coal fire.

Similar childhood here!

Central heating at night gives us all horrid headaches. No idea why!! So we have it on in the morning so it's cosy for getting dressed and on in the evening so the ambient temp is warm before bed.

But we keep it off through the night.

We use hot water bottles or electric blankets through the night (or will be!) 😊

My DF left my DM and we were poor. We had no heating whatsoever, and the immersion heater went on once a week for a shallow bath for me, and to fill the rented twin tub.
I myself look back and think yes, we were poor, yet my DM still smoked 20 cigarettes a day and went out two nights a week drinking. I look at that and know that , in her position, I would put that money towards making us more comfortable, I wouldn’t spend that on myself . Yet I can’t be mad at my DM as she was a young woman, left in her prime, and that was her only pleasure. The rest of the time she was working crap jobs while I was at school, and while I spent Sunday afternoon with my DF. I can’t blame her.

I can sympathise OP. I grew up in a big old house that my parents couldn’t afford to heat. The radiators didn’t work very well (and we’re too expensive to run) and we only had a fire in one room to stay warm. I remember being freezing most of the time. Going to uni and living in a small, well heated room, felt like such a luxury! I was finally warm and it only occurred to me then how miserable I was growing up cold. I didn’t know any different before that.

Huddling under blankets, sitting on hot water bottles and wearing so many layers you look like a stuffed goose is (in my view) not the same as being comfortable in a heated room. I understand that is necessary for many people right now - including us we can’t afford to have the heating on either.

Its horrible and I think we should all be able to heat our homes without being left completely skint. Growing up as I did, I’ve sucked it up before and can do it again, but it’s upsetting and reminds me of being cold as a child. I really do feel for families with very small children and older people who are going to struggle this winter. As a society I’d like to think we’ve moved on from huddling around fires and going to bed wearing a bobble hat, but apparently not.

Smoking makes you feel less hungry.
A lesson my DM and DF learned as children.

Yes. I'm really angry, too. I think a lot of us are about a similar age to Truss, and that makes it worse. What does she know about transgenerational poverty? Were her parents made redundant under Thatcher in the 1980s? No. Can relate to what you have written. We are trying to provide a better future for our kids and it feels like we are being penalised for it. FFS we've been through lack of heating, high food bills, and problems associated with poverty once. Why should we go through it again?

Oh no, that sounds awful, I got to the bit about both parents smoking and it all makes sense.

You are not making the same choices.

I totally agree OP it's heartbreaking and infuriating kids going cold and hungry this winter again, but as a teacher you know better than most this happens every winter. It's not a new problem, just one that's getting worse and worse. I feel very similar to you but about interest rates impacting on mortgages... I grew up in the 80s and remember the constant screaming rows about money as my parents desperately tried to keep their heads above water ... Every time something broke and needed replacing it was a catastrophe. We definitely should want better for every kid today...

Well I was born in a council house with no central heating at all. We later moved to another council house that had crappy vent heating in one room downstairs. We were never allowed it on anyway because we were on a pre pay meter. My dad never let us have throws or duvets downstairs either because they looked untidy.

We even had a tv that was rented and you had to put coins in it. I distinctly remember one year my mum asking a neighbour if her daughter had an old winter coat I could have. Yet my parents always had money for cigarettes and alcohol.

Yes it was shit, but I don't think that means my children are going to have the same childhood that I did just because energy bills have gone up.

Just those that say yabu

Yes I keep saying to dh that history is repeating itself. My childhood is coming back to haunt me.

I feel like this about the interest rates and talk of people losing homes etc. we were very skint growing up and although my childhood was idyllic in a lot of ways, we just never had any buffer against hard times.

As the eldest, I think I absorbed more than my siblings and I remember so vividly the stress and worry my parents were under constantly to keep the house.

I also ended up at a horrendous school. The worst in the area. I'd always sworn that would never happen to my children. Yet here I am facing the fact that our nearest school has nosedived and my plan to try and move us into a better catchment has been obliterated by cost of living, interest rates etc etc. it's been very triggering and I worry myself sick about it.

I was very much loved and I'm still extremely close to my parents. But I understand that feeling of wanting to do more for your children regardless.

I remember my parents not being able to afford coal for the fires so we'd be sat in our coats in the house. I told my granny when she phoned one day and she sent my Dad some money so he could buy some.
I hate being cold now, but have to have the window open at night as I can't be hot at night.

@MissyB1 I said exactly the same thing.

I remember living in a pokey 1 bedroom flat with my mum. It had no heating at all so a family member bought us one of those gas bottle fires which we were allowed to put on whilst I was getting ready for school and one hour at night. I was so cold it was painful.

One winter my mum had this amazing idea that we could expose the original coal fire and we’d always be warm. She got family members to come and do it … bought coal and when the family members left she went to start a fire - turns out she didn’t know how to start a fire and she had already got rid of the gas bottle fire. It was minus 2. We had no heating at all. I don’t look back on those times fondly.