Things your parents did with you that annoyed you soooo much (light hearted)

[bodenbiscuit]

That you make a conscious effort to do it differently with your own children.

Mine is that my mother was terrible at coordinating my clothes. She made me wear odd socks, clothes that didn't match and black school shoes with party dresses. And her response was always 'who's going to notice?'. This infuriated me because when your clothes don't match, YOU notice and of course other people notice. Disclaimer: my parents were well off - they could easily afford coordinating outfits.

So as a result my own children always have perfectly matching outfits and I go to great lengths to make sure their party shoes match their dresses.

What's yours?

PMSL at covert martial arts tournaments and handwashed socks

I had a crap childhood. I'm going for the still-rankling minor injustices to be in keeping with the thread, but I just wanted to add the caveat that it wasn't just first-world problems.

Now to the first-world problems! We never had takeaway. Ever. We didn't go to McDonalds or get fish and chips or anything. Or have barbecues.

My mum never wore normal clothes like jeans. She wore frumpy skirts that were just the wrong length with her blouse tucked into them. My dad's trousers were also ever so slightly too short. I was so jealous of people whose parents wore jeans.

I had an extra middle name (religious thing) that I hated. It was after my great-aunt. My dad used to tell people what it was and kept insisting he didn't know he shouldn't. He also used to walk in when I was practicing piano and tell me to ignore him and carry on, then sit there randomly humming.

And can I include a grandparents one? My gran drove me bonkers by loudly suggesting things I should do. Go and offer to help with that. Say hello to those children. Ask if you can join in that game. I'm a dreamy introvert and I found it absolutely excruciating.

No hugs, ever. But all my toddler friends at birthday parties, would be hugged and sat on my mum's knee...she always liked other peoples' children. Always boasted about friends' children and compared me unfavourably.
If I asked for a hug I got "What are you after?!" in a cross tone.

Made fun of in front of their friends "haha, doesn't Gourmet walk funny!".."You've got such a big nose/bum (etc) Gourmet".

Only allowed a few new clothes each year (just for birthday and christmas) so hardly anything to wear. Not allowed patent shoes or frilly blouses as 'tarty'.

Not allowed to have my hair cut at a hair salon...so hideous hair style by my mum until a teenager.

We had to eat together at a table, but my dad would get really irritable and cross if we spoke.

No say in family holidays or days out. Nearly always endurance tests, cycling long distances, no stops to look at anything, moaned at if we couldn't keep up with them (yes 8 & 13 year olds can cycle as fast as an adult!!)

No 'mother & daughter' days out shopping etc, right up until my 20s she would refuse to spend a day out with me alone and is still not happy doing it now. Consequences are that I, to this day, find it hard to make friends with other women, I don't think they'd really want to hang out with me
She hated any friends I had (& there weren't many!) from age 10 + and when I went on holidays with a friend in my late teens/20s, she & my dad would show no interest and to this day have never looked at any of my holiday photos. (They had no need to be jealous as they had several holiday/ mini breaks a year with their friends).

Neither had any interest in how I did at school and when my GCSE grades were quite good, I don't remember them congratulating me, just seemed to go totally unnoticed.
When I finally decided what I wanted to study age 21 (after a few unsuitable college courses) I got "we're not helping you, you've had your chance". Never have had a career, just gone from low paid job to low paid job.

..sorry, not that light hearted!

had very little say on clothes and shoes.
not allowed to chose how bedroom was decorated.
some cherished posters ripped off the walls and binned.
much loved comic collection binned while i was at aunt's house.
took money that wasn't paid back.
no choice on hair styles.
finger nails cut and never allowed to grow even a little bit.
gifts taken away which were then lost.
no arts or crafts allowed for fear of making any tiny little bit of mess.
forced to hop around when ankle was sprained because parents wouldn't push for crutches at the hospital.

So sad, some of your parents were really cruel

My mum made me wear nylon PE knickers from a jumble sale instead of the regulation school knickers. They were roughly the same colour, but that was about it. Also hand-knitted school cardigans, and weird sandwich fillings (eg cold leftover potato and sliced beetroot) for school lunch which made everyone else on the lunch table go 'eww what is THAT?' How I envied their brand name crisps and shop bought snacks in proper wrappers.

One year I got a bike for my birthday. It was no ordinary bike though, it was one my dad had assembled from bits he'd found in skips and the council tip.

Never ever ate out in cafes or had takeaways, and wore the same pairs of trousers with the hems let down year after year (or extra bits of material sewn on to make them longer)

Now I look back Ithink fondly of those times, and I can see how hard they tried to manage with hardly any money, but at the time I wished the ground would open up and swallow me!

Things I do differently: go to cafés with DDs once in a while, buy clothes that don't make them look like a dork, let them choose their own lunches. I can't bring myself to buy those little snack pack lunch box filler things though, they seem so extravagant, and they have so much plastic packaging for such small amounts of food

Dogs we had a lot of hand me downs which was normal round our way in the 80s.
BUT my mum couldn't understand why it was different for me (exceptionally small child) who was mortified ... by wearing her beanpole little sisters hand me downs. Which my sisters would declare to other kids loudly "Squizita is such a titchy. .. She's in sister's old dress. .." Had "FML" been a thing then it would have been apt.

I was never allowed on overnight school trips, or to sleep over at friends houses, if their dad lived there. My dad's motto was pretty much 'every man is a potential abuser until I know better'. I allow my DD, 10, to sleep away from home.
Clothes are bought for them brand new, regularly, rather than just on a special occasion. I only ever wore second hand, and had the humiliation of being given my year-younger cousin's old clothes.
I buy her good, expensive shoes rather than a cheap brand, so she doesn't get holes in the toe which she tries to cover with the other foot.
I pay dinner money for the week every Monday, rather than wait for the teacher to send home a letter from the office asking for the last 3 weeks payment.
I give her a good Christmas at home, rather than forcing her to spend the day at her (paternal) Grandparents' house, who blatantly favour their daughter's children. (Luckily for my DD, her paternal Grandparents love her).
I buy her presents for her birthday, and have a cake with candles, and a party if she wants, rather than buy a birthday card at 11am on the special day and think that ok.
I also go to Parents' evenings.

Oh that's another thing I love spending some time with both my DC doing nothing much like going to the park cafe, to friends houses, on an outing somewhere, holidays with friends too. My DM has only rarely spent 1 to 1 time with us especially individually. We did quite a lot of things either "as a family" or with DF but rarely just with DM. It's meant the relationship has never really had a chance to fully develop.

Mine always used to say "stop showing off" if I ever had a laugh about anything or said anything silly and anyone other than our family were around.
they still say it now

I was very fussy as a child and in order to eat the vegetables I was forced to eat, I had to have them with tomato ketchup (yuk!) and my dad would rant on and on and on about it at mealtimes. It really bothered him and made mealtimes hell for me - I used to dread sitting down for dinner together. I'm much less ranty about eating food than he was.

DM was always late picking us up. Many a time was I left crying with worry that I'd been forgotten or something dreadful had happened.

Not allowed to watch Grange Hill because the kids in it were 'very badly spoken' and it might make us suddenly start dropping t's and h's.

Having to call them 'Mummy and Daddy' all through my teenage years. I used to avoid having friends home in case they found out - always referred to them as mum and dad at school.

Not being allowed to grow my hair. My DM's home haircuts were quite something - I'm sure she took her style inspiration from medieval monks as I invariably had a too short fringe that curved around mirroring my skull! I always looked like a boy and was dressed in boys clothes so they could be handed down to my younger brother.

Consequently I am a much different parent to my own DC!

My mum was obsessed with me not eating enough ( I was very skinny, just had no interest in food).
And hated it when my niece was a baby (DM 1st grandchild and a few years before my DC born) and DM would fuss about her eating, coax etc.
My own DC have never been coaxed to eat - if they are not hungry - not hungry. But never have snacks in the house, so they eat a bit at meals, but only as much as they want. Have only rarely plated food up - only when there are just enough of thing - chops etc to go round).
It is funny, sometimes they will eat everything except for eg one chip I have always resisted the temptation to tell them to eat that chip/sprout etc - tickles me that they judge they have eaten enough and have no compulsion to 'clear their plates'

Mine didn't do much 'parenting'. They were lovely but were not into rules or other such mainstream nonsense We were quite feral. I ate lots of sweets and wasn't taken to the dentist and I think I might have been a bit dirty at times. It's amazing I turned out so square and hardworking.

My Dad also did quite a lot of drug dealing which was akward when it was in the local press.

The were and are very loving so I'll forgive them the other stuff.

Spog your parents sound very like mine!
I also couldn't have my room how I wanted it...all their choice.

No posters on the wall.
Was told it was because it would be " & 's room" when I left home (a couple who are their best friends & still visit regularly).
Gifts taken from me too...TBH never felt any gift from them was actually 'mine'..kind of 'on loan'!
Came home from a holiday to find they'd given my beloved Miss Selfridge coat and some of my other winter clothes (that I'd recently bought with my pay) to a charity shop.

MrsUltracrepidarian . My kids are adults now but they do the same thing with their food and just stop eating when they feel like it. I think it's good but It's hard not to say anything when it's just one single chip that they have left.

Summer holidays with the caravan were spent at museums, churches and castles/stately homes. The only highlight of the day was the obligatory mc donalds/equivalent stop. One year when I was 11, I dared to moan about getting hot and hungry and my feet hurting from all the walking, so DF thought it justified to give me a slap. One year, I had to write a daily diary about what marvels I had been seeing with DM standing over me and telling me to write more facts and draw pictures. It was all in and out of my head very quickly, so has served no purpose at all, but to make me bitter.

I weren't allowed Levi's 501's (everyone was wearing them) although we weren't poor by any stretch of imagination. DP's just resented spending money on anything they deemed to be of bad value, and that included riding lessons, which I so desperately wanted. They paid so much for instrument, art and sport hobbies for us, but for some reason thought riding was really overpriced. I got the odd lesson here and there, and I would have happily swapped all the other hobbies, which I did begrudgingly, to be able to ride twice a week.

Girl's World was deemed ridiculous and corrupt, so I never got one. Beither did I get a Barbie until my sensibke DGM bought me one. My DM is a very practical engineer who did not get my quite normal fascination with fashion and hair styles.

I now make sure I buy the clothes and things DS wants (within reason, of course), so as to not make him feel like an outsider. I akso make sure he enjoys our holidays.

Ooh, did someone say else have compusory Judo? I had it for a few years for "self defence". Really disliked going. TBF, I still remember lots of useful stuff that would allow me to defend myself

Ooh castles Toys. Mainly Manorbier IIRC. But also graveyards. There's one in Morthoe IIRC that is on the top of a cliff. It was awful, really creepy. The graves had flowers under glass domes and I used to hate it.

Sorry for typos.

We travelled mostly in Central Europe. Saw where e.g. Goethe, Schiller and Martin Luther lived. How very exciting for a child. TBf, The place where Luther was supposed to have thrown an ink bottke at the devil was mildly interesting.

Aargh,and mym mum still taps me on the back and tells me to stand up straight and put my shoulders back. That just makes me want to be walk like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Just leave meee alone, mother! I am 35, ffs!!!!

My parents just let my siblings and I run feral. We lived in India for my childhood and my parents were not really interested in us. The family home was quite large and I would camp in our woods for the summer months and would present myself each morning in the kitchen for the cook to give me my food and drinks for the day and then dissappear off out to my camp. I would go weeks without seeing my parents but would see my ayah everyday and knew she would do anything for me. It was hurtful to know that my parents had little interest in me. They are still the same now and are not interested in their Gc either. But to this day my siblings and I regularly see our ayahs family (who feel like our own .
I am probably a little over interested in my DC as a result of my childhood.

Naturism.

I wasn't allowed bubble gum until I was about eleven so, of course, it became the biggest object of desire for me. My parents thought I might choke on it - they were rather over protective. I secretly bought a bag of 20 Hubba Bubbas and my dad found it and confiscated it!

My Dad worked for ITV so I was allowed to watch it!

My parents were very strict with me about revising for exams. It was a pain at the time, but I'm glad of it now. They were also very strict about boyfriends, i.e. I wasn't allowed to have a steady boyfriend until I was 18.