is it horrible to treat a child like that?

[JazbayGrapes]

my husband has zero photos from his childhood. MIL had plenty of photos of his older brother. my husband was also sent to a boarding school and his brother was not.

I would assume that there is a huge backstory.

I agree on the info given awful.😞 is there a difference in father?

huge back story that it was a horrid family. When MIL died i got to meet a lot of them and they were most unpleasant people except one sister.

hey. is my story not interesting to anyone?

Hi @JazbayGrapes
Yes of course that's an awful way to treat a child.
Zero photos if them as a child so no record of childhood growing up and essentially being sent away for someone else to parent their child.
Disgusting.

You don’t really know what lay beneath the behaviour- she could have had post natal depression and failed to bond, been raped, all sorts of things.

I do think boarding school is better than remaining with an abusive parent. My brother and sister had better mental health a a result of spending 11-16 away from home.

Honestly… not really. You’ve told us there’s a huge backstory of a horrible family. What more do you want people to say? What’s the point in anyone theorising when you’re the one with the information?

What are you actually wanting to get from this thread? Is your husband looking to you for support and you don’t know how to give it?

It depends though- there could be no photos because they can’t find a certain photo album or something, up until the 00s people had to get photos printwd and you definitely couldn’t take a tenth of the photos you took now as a result. We’ve a decent amount of photos but only because my dad loved photography. And maybe the boarding school was a better school? My niece went to boarding school because it covered subjects she couldn’t in her local school, all of her siblings went to the local comp.

It all depends on the background and backstory really- everyone remembers things differently

You’ve already made it clear that you know your husband’s family are/were horrible and treated him differently from his brother.

What you actually want from this thread? You obviously have a firm opinion on the situation, so you’re not asking ‘AIBU’. You’re not going to change your mind. So what attention is it that you want? Are you just keen to gleefully share details of your husband’s shit childhood, like it’s some kind of misery memoir?

What story? You've hardly written anything! Sounds like your husband's parents weren't very nice 🤷‍♀️ what do you want people to say?

Just from those details, we can’t really say it is horrible. Maybe the life circumstances radically changed. Maybe one of the parents was dealing with a profound illness. Maybe one of the parents died and the other was struggling to just get through each day. Maybe any number of things happened.

If he’s still in contact with old school friends and/or prepared to try and track some down they may have class photos with him in them that he could get copied.

It depends. Family circs could dictate stuff, e.g boarding school while they're abroad. That was the case with DH and the firm paid. His siblings didn't go because circs had changed. MIL hated it that she never saw him. I've only seen photos of him as a young child and after he left, apart from school photos. Maybe your DH's parents just didn't have photos of him.

Not really, no! Plenty of people have not very nice parents, it doesn't really sound horrifically abusive or all that interesting 🙄🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s not ‘your’ story!

It's your husband story, share or not share.

Story?

Based on the information provided so far, not particularly. Your husband has horrible parents who treated him badly.

I was born in the 80s and my parents didn't take any baby photos of me. There's quite a few of my eldest brother, a handful of the next eldest and zero of me. The only time it's really come up is when we were asked to take a baby photo into school for some project. I did ask my Dad and he joked that all babies look pretty similar and it seemed like a waste of film! I guess if your husband was born more recently when digital cameras were normal, that's pretty bad as it would be easy and inexpensive to take photos.

Without more facts it's impossible to say

I think sending any child to boarding school is horrific but presumably the people who use them think they are brilliant so on that basis it could be argued that your husband was the favourite child

Maybe the camera broke before your husband was born and never replaced due to the financial burden of sending their favourite son to Eton

My husband has no baby photos as his dad could not afford a camera.

… never mind boarding school!!!

You haven't given much detail apart from a few lines, it's not a story. Maybe if you want more comments then give a bit more detail?

You haven't given enough information to make it a story. Are you just looking for confirmation? Yes perhaps his family were awful, no one here knows except him, you, a few others.

"my husband has zero photos from his childhood."
Is it that he doesn't have any but other family members do have some of him? Or is it that photos of him don't exist at all? Is it that MIL didn't have a camera when DH was born?

"my husband was also sent to a boarding school and his brother was not."
Was this because she didn't like him and wanted him out of the way? Was it because she wasn't able to parent him for any number of different reasons? Was it that he was academically gifted and his primary school encouraged a scholarship to boarding school for his academic benefit?

No idea about baby photos but maybe they didn't have a camera then, or if he is the eldest maybe they were destroyed in a house fire.

Maybe they thought the youngest would get more out of boarding school than the other child, or they had more money etc

Perhaps expand on "your story" first.