All the other mums hugged their child

[Whatdowedowithournightsnowitsfinished]

Since having my own Dd four years ago, I’ve had sort of flashes/memories of my own childhood. When I compare how things are with my own Dd and how I feel about her, with things from my own childhood, it feels different.
One that comes up in my memory a fair bit is when I went away alone from home with brownies for a few days camping. I was a shy child and remember finding it quite hard, although I had friends there, I missed home really. When the parents came to pick their kids up, I remember waiting quite excitedly as I saw other parents hugging and picking up their kids etc. When my mum arrived, she didn’t even really greet me in any proper way, certainly no hug, we barely talked on the way home and I remember arriving in my bedroom and thinking how I’d missed it and how it seemed different, but that nobody had missed me at all or even noticed I wasn’t there. It probably sounds a bit dramatic and I probably was a sensitive child, but I can’t imagine being anything like that with my Dd.
I had friends who had similar, half the time our parents never knew where we were, I can’t remember my parents asking much about school or my friends, just so different to now or at least how I am.
This was 80’s childhood, 90’s teens
Was this emotional neglect or just one of those things?
Could this have really had an impact on the person I grew up to be? Eg I find it hard to show natural affection for anyone but my Dd & children & animals and all sorts of other issues that I seem to be acknowledging now in my 40’s

My parents weren't outwardly affectionate either in the modern sense. They showed they cared through practical ways & my grandparents were the same. We forget that they grew up during the war & were products of a traumatic post war environment. The previous generation weren't brought up with affection so are unable to show it themselves.

@Stripedbag101 I could have written this.
it doesn’t sound weird - I do it too. Think I read about it on The Body Keeps the Score

I have a relative in her 90s whose parents sent her to live with an aunt when she was 4 and she never returned home. She had a good life and is a very cheerful and highly educated person but I don’t think she ever fully got over it. One day she happened to be talking about it and she stopped mid-sentence and said, I just don’t understand how a parent could do that.

I was born in 1970 and don't recall my DPs hugging or cuddling me. they were decent enough DPs in other ways, but just not physically.

My DM now seems to want me to do personal care for her and the thought of it repulses me. It's very instinctive and hard to describe, so it's a bit of a relief I'm not the only one with these emotions.

This the thread I never knew I was looking for! As my DD gets older I can feel myself shutting myself off from her and I’ve put that down to how I was treated as a child. I know I was so loved as a baby and young child, however due to family circumstances, my Mum worked a lot so I spent most of my time with my grandparents. My Dad died before I was born and I have 2 older siblings so it was just how it needed to be.
I can’t remember being hugged by my Mum, but looking back now and thinking about what she went through, I can see that it was extreme trauma and I was born into a whole world of grief. So it’s completely understandable. I just don’t know how to navigate it.

Same here (child of the 70s). My DF died when I was quite young and from that point onwards it felt like DM basically made sure we were fed and clothed but that was it. No I love yous, no affection, no hugs, lots of rules and resentment and anger. Any presents she bought was stuff she thought I should have / needed, or cash, she never really got to know me well enough to be able to buy me a gift I would really love. In her old age she has mellowed a lot, but she's also become very OTT affectionate and emotionally needy and wants lots of love and hugs from me. Like a PP I find that very, very uncomfortable physically amd if I'm honest with myself it's one of the main reasons I don't see her much. It feels like some random old lady in a shop suddenly clutching hold of me and expecting me to hug her back lovingly, and hold her hand while we're chatting. It's incredibly hard to give that when it's not something you were ever given, or was part of your relationship growing up.

I do love her, and I know she loves me. But she wasn't a great mother, and she's done a lot of damage She will never acknowledge it though.

OMG same here!! I had never really joined up the dots. She needs a lot of physical help and I am screaming inside my head when I have to do it. I'm not squeamish in any way in other situations. Iv'e dealt with lots of bodily fluids. Sorry if Tmi

Strangely my mother could never cope when I vomited as a child. just left me to it. I suppose she must have dealt with it when I was a baby. My father certainly wouldn't have.

I cried when reading this thread last night. Iv'e always felt odd, and disconnected with people. It's such a relief when you realise that maybe there is a reason for why you do things. I feel it's too late to be cured but I feel better anyway.

This has really resonated with me. My mum loves me but was never cuddly and her mum was the same but much worse, distant and emotionally cold(nice woman but not motherly at all). I think it's impacted my ability to connect to and deal with my own emotions. I have 2 DDs and I hug and kiss them all the time, they are the only people in the world who I actually enjoy physical affection with!

There was very little affection growing up in my house and that's just the way it always was. But when my dm was older and needed me she tried to rewrite history. Being affectionate and trying to force feelings that I just didn't have. I found it very difficult when I was suddenly expected to say "I love you" and hold her hand. While I did care about her, the level of demonstrative affection she wanted towards the end of her life was not like anything she had ever shown me in my childhood or early adulthood and was honestly just fake.

Well I think life can't have been too bad in general if you were missing home whilst on your trip? Whilst not great perhaps your mum was having her own crisis whilst she picked you up? Parents weren't as emotionally aware as we are today maybe for her to to think to brush it aside for you.
I can't remember hardly anything before the age of about 13...my sibling has mentioned we had an abusive childhood and I have a couple of snippets of that but it's very much not talked about in our family so I do suspect the reason I can't remember my childhood is due to trauma but it's not something I really want to go unboxing tbh.

Never been hugged or kissed by my mum because that's how diseases spread apparently. Used to find it weird then as I grew up I just realised she was a mental and can't help it.

Think some people are good at emotions and some people aren't, I think as well that some people just let it wash over them and other people can't for whatever reason

@NewHopeNow yes I'm nodding my head to this.

I'm at the stage of doing a bit of parenting my own DPs and whilst I'm more than happy to do practical stuff for them and provide solutions for things, I have very little energy or inclination to provide much emotional support which is being asked for, or to engage in strange lurchy hugs when I can't recall being hugged at all.

Up until I read your post a minute ago, I assumed this was because I'm just a cold hearted bitch, but actually now I reflect on it I'm just working within the confines of our existing script based on how we interacted when I was a DC.

I hate feeling like this but it's very instinctive.

My family weren't huggers. Still aren't. I hated hugging as a kid. I hug mine now but I don't feel any sadness from it. My mum and dad were brilliant parents and showed me love in many many other ways.

This could be me. I was very promiscuous as a teen and it's only in recent years that I have linked that to my desperate need to feel some kind of affection.

Since becoming a grandparent my mum is actually much more affectionate - that's even recently extended in trying to hug me and my sisters goodbye along with the grandkids. None of us know how to reciprocate hugs with her though as it's just such an oddity. Sad really.

I am very affectionate to my children although it doesn't come naturally. And I find that really hard. I'm not forcing myself to hug and kiss them - certainly not, but it's something I have to consciously remember to do.

I craved physical warmth and touch, which led to me being extremely promiscuous in my teens and twenties, using sex in place of love this is such a common thing I've found, between friends and myself. The craving of feeling a person 'cares' about you.

Mine was a little different, I certainly Didn't know I was loved by my parents - as soon as I had a job which paid enough (at 19) I left, preferring to pay rent to a stranger than to pay for my dad to spend more time in the pub (I told him this too) I do not ever recall feeling like I was a part of any kind of family around them, we all spent all evening from after school to bedtime in our own rooms - had a key each from being 11. I was never asked where I was, never asked where I was going. I was fed and housed and that was the extent of the care.

My Grandmother however, her home was absolutely filled to the rafters with love and warmth, she hugged us and held us and told us she loved us, she would sit for an hour after a bath brushing my hair telling me stories about the prisoners of war her farm had when she was only a young girl, she came from a family of love and it showed......so I have no idea what happened to my mum when she met my dad.

Oh gosh again little bells going off in the back of my head.

I was never told I was attractive or loved, and as soon as I was at university I was very promiscuous in fairly desperate ways.

Crikey, she sounds like how my mother was too.
My father would no sooner have shown any affection than flown to the moon.
An upbringing completely devoid of love or affection yet an expectation that you’d show everlasting gratitude.
So sad.
I spent my childhood asking if I’d been a good girl, I was so anxious to please yet I was never good enough.
Very different to my DCs upbringing, love, hugs galore!

It's funny though, on this thread it has been said several times that some of our grandparents were cold and unaffectionate so our parents didn't know any different. But WE know different, it sounds like our children are not short of demonstrations of affection, mine certainly aren't. So why couldn't they realize and break the cycle.

I broke it, I'm so so disappointed in them.

@rookiemere I've had to explore all these feelings because my dm was terminally ill and because our relationship had always been cordial rather than loving, I was coping with it. I thought that meant that I was some kind of monster. But I felt very different losing my sister and dad so I've had to find out why and there are reasons there and it's not that I'm a cold hearted bitch.

It's still hard and complicated though. I've realised that my dm was a narcissistic parent and it explains a lot of her behaviour and a lot of why I feel the way I do. And why I parent so differently.

This puzzled me for a long time too, but I think partly it’s generational trauma - in the UK we have the backdrop of 2 world wars which traumatised a good chunk of people and would have influenced how emotionally present parents were able to be with their children. And then there was the threat of nuclear war during the Cold War, and other stressors - it’s been an incredibly stressful period in history.

Add to that the growth of media which means day to day stress has increased massively - rather than worrying about your own backyard there’s the global stage to worry about too.

Ans also the growth of media and the internet on the flip side - nowadays we have access to much more information which has aided the spread of psychological education. So we are much more intellectually aware of things like the importance of parenting in the early years for mental health in later life.

Perhaps the rise of the American dream and even Hollywood beaming films into our homes has played a part too? Follow your dreams, trust yourself etc.

Many many factors make for a more awake generation but I think we’re really only just starting to tip into the momentum of that as today’s parents are probably the first to really understand (on a huge scale) how important parenting is. And that in turn will hopefully raise a more emotionally healthy generation who will learn from the mistakes our generation has made with social media and the internet etc.

I’m in my late 30s btw so speaking from that perspective.

I am very sad for all of you who were not loved, but I do want to say that I don't think it's necessarily a time thing.
I was born in the 60s and my parents were loving. My mum was born in the 30s and there was a lot of love between her and her parents born 1900s. My gran spoke of her own mother with love. Some people are talking about the 80s and even 90s as though it was way in the past it wasn't long ago at all.

Nothing much wrong with my childhood but do remember camping with the school and parents coming and everyone else got hugged, mum scolded me for washing out socks and bed being a bit messy!

I have wondered how the upper classes cope with this, especially in the past, dropping the boys off at boarding school but it being ' a poor show' to show any emotion.

Oh my gosh this thread is resonating so much with me.

Same here OP, kid/teen in the '80s and early '90s. Never told I was loved, rarely hugged, no conversations about how I was feeling or room for dialogue about my problems. Basically I was allowed to exist within a very narrow emotional range. I can think of so many times when I needed my parents to be there for me - to be reassuring and offer guidance and basically parent me - and reaching out and getting no response. So I learnt early on to keep my feelings to myself and to deal with problems on my own.

But ... I had a roof over my head, I was provided for and you hear such awful stories about other people's childhoods that I would never have named it 'neglect'. But it was a type of emotional neglect and now as a parent I look at my DS and cannot imagine treating my child like that. He's hugged and kissed and told he's loved on a daily basis. I ask how he is and listen to what he tells me.

A few years ago my mum told me that at a point in my early 20s when I was really struggling (I was quietly suicidal) she had thought 'something was up' but never said anything to me at the time because she quote 'didn't want to interfere.' My DM could see I was in a bad place and said nothing and I was left to get on with it and sort myself out. I will never do that to my DS.

@NewHopeNow @rookiemere I could have written your posts. As an adult I've had a 'cordial' relationship with my parents. I'd see them once a week at most, but wouldn't miss them if I didn't. To be honest I could happily have gone weeks without feeling the need to call them if it wasn't for guilt and obligation. I see that as a natural result of my upbringing and not 'being close'. But once they retired and had time on their hands, my parents suddenly wanted to rewrite history and be a 'close family' with lots of phone calls and Sunday dinners etc. So I've spent the last 20 years alternating between feeling guilty that I'm a bad daughter because I just don't want or need to be close to them, and feeling angry that I'm expected to be there for them when they were never there for me.

My DM passed away at the beginning of the year. I was sad and then I was over it. She wasn't a big emotional presence in my life, so there's no gaping hole or moments where I think 'I'll ring DM and tell her about ...' We weren't close and it's just a fact that she's not here anymore. I do my best to be a good daughter to my DF. I see him weekly and talk to him twice a week on the phone. But again, there's a definite sense of expectation from him that he should be fussed over and supported at a level that I'm just not able to give.

It's something I've thought about quite a lot recently. My conclusion is that my parents weren't bad people, but neither of them had role models of what parents "should" do. They both came from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds and neglect was the norm for them growing up. And back in the 80s and 90s things like counselling and parenting books about emotional support etc weren't really a thing.