Would you call this neglect?

[MrsASoprano]

Well-off parents, good jobs, nice house. Children well-fed and clothed. Extra-curricular treats like horseriding etc.

But..

• Child diagnosed with chronic asthma from age 6. Both parents smoke all over the house. Child has persistent asthmatic night-time cough. Parents choose to treat child's asthmatic cough (which leave child awake and coughing for hours into the night) with honey and lemon drinks rather opposed to administer and monitor inhaler use.

• Child aged 8 left at neighbour's house to babysit. Child is terrified of male neighour and hides behind sofa all day. Parents told of this when they pick child up. They laugh at child.

• Children live near a river but not given any boundaries re: where it is safe to go and not safe to go. Child aged 11 almost drowns in the river when caught in riptide.

• Parents take children on dream holiday to Australia. 14 yo becomes very dehydrated/ill from constant air sickness. When checking in to Ayres Rock resort receptionist has to being poor state of 14 yo to their attention. Receptionist points out that there is no hospital local to Ayres Rock and it is obvious the child is not well and needs medical attention.

• Teenage daughter age 16 experiences a traumatic incident and witnesses murder scene of a child she knew well. Parents do not discuss this at all and go out of their way to conceal the incident from family and friends.

• Teenage daughter age 18 witnesses her brother experience a psyhoctic breakdown and has to seek medical attention for him and sign consent forms to have him sectioned. Parents do not discuss incident with daughter at all and instruct her not to discuss it with anyone else.

Would any of these count as neglect?

Sure, bluntness I'm late 30s so this all took place in the 80s and 90s.

Thanks ontherise.

Am currently in therapy and it's helping a lot. But we've focused on the 'real' abuse up until now and I'm just coming round to this stuff and trying to work out how I feel about it..

Yes. That's insane.

And I agree that attitudes have changed. That's partly why it's so hard to unpick.

I know I had inhalers and was told by the GP to use them.

It's difficult some of it I understand, I don't agree with it, but I understand the mot wishing to talk about the murder or the illness for example, its old fashioned, but that sort of sttitude used to prevail,

The treating you with natural remedies. I also get and smoking was accepted then, maybe they didn make the connection.

Kids going off and playing with no guidance, was still common in the early eighties.

I think at best they were self absorbed, st worse neglectful. How old are they?

Any one thing on its own might be explained by ignorance or thoughtlessness (if you were feeling generous) but all of these things together paint a very bleak picture. It is hard to accept that those people in your life who are meant to love you and care for you could behave in such a way but you need to see it for what it is - abuse. I hope therapy is helping you heal the damage done to you.

Honestly? Now, yes. But then, I don't think so, necessarily.

Smoking in households was very, very common. Asthma in children was very common, and not necessarily caused by smoking by family (although it certainly wouldn't have helped).

Education wasn't as widespread as it is now. The World Wide Web (internet) wasn't born until 1991, so you couldn't Google advice like we can today.

The babysitting thing is sad, but I think it's difficult. If they trusted the neighbour, then they must have felt that you were being 'silly'. Hopefully, now, we would pay more attention to the worries of our children, but in that time it was a case of parents are parents and children are children. Did you ever have cause for those fears? Did the neighbour treat you badly?

The river is dangerous. Again, though, children were more free then. You must have been terrified. What did your parents say when you nearly drowned? Did they put more boundaries in after that? Did you stay away from the river afterwards?

The last two do make me think that your parents don't cope well with emotional situations. Why were your parents not involved in your brother's mental breakdown?

I grew up in the 80s and my sister had asthma, my mum still smoked in the house/car etc and she wasn't neglectful towards my sisters asthma/excema (and there were lots of other very bad issues but I can say that she always did the best for my sisters medical issues, changing diet, creams, special pjs etc) so I think that back then there was not the connection between smoking and people's asthma/other illness/cot death etc.
Now, with hindsight and 30 more years of medical research it would be but back then I would say no, that was not necglect

Again with the cough medical advice was different (and actually the new current advice is to no longer give cough medicine to under 6s)

The drowning. Possibly, not neglectful in an active way but kids were given a lot more freedom back then so hard to judge

The babysitter thing - again kids feelings weren't listened to back then, kids were seen and not heard and there wasn't the peado hysteria there is now so parents weren't as alert to possible situations

Murder scene - things like this were very much swept under the carpet and even adults weren't into 'therapy' so peopenkist ignored it and got on with it.

Mental illness was also not as accepted and so more likely to be ignored/hidden.

I'm not saying you're parents weren't neglectful but I don't think you should focus on these things as a big deal and concentrate on the bigger things that are.
You have to remember back in the 80s jimmy saville and others were able to get away with horrendous abuse as it was more acceptable, men could rape thier wives with little repurcussion, everyone smoked everywhere, people didn't wear seat belts and drove around with 6 kids in the boot and held babies while in the car,

Most people will answer your original post with the opinion of how we see and judge things NOW in the 10's not how things were perceived in the 80s

Thanks Lougle, yes the neighbour treated me badly.

I didn't tell them I nearly drowned, it didn't occur to me to mention it.

They were in another country when he had his breakdown.

I was born in the 70s. My parents did their best and things were not always rosy but some of these events are horrendous and my parents would not have allowed to happen. Leaving a frightened 8 year to babysit in another house is just awful. Children of 8 are not capable of assuming the responsibility of looking after other children in a different environment and that is basic competent parenting. My son is 8 and I cannot imagine him or any of his peers having the maturity to do this, they are children themselves.

The thought that they did not comfort you when you had been terrified all day is heartbreaking at that age, and seems extremely neglectful. I am so sorry that these things happened to you. Having to deal with your sibling's section is just too sad for words. A caring parent who has their children's interests at heart does not act in that way and that is incredibly neglectful to both you and your brother. I do remember going out to play unsupervised in a way that would not be usual today so that and the concealment of the murder (sweeping it under the carpet) may have been more typical of wider societal views.

rivers don't have riptides

Thanks for the geography lesson Coppperbeech, most appropriate given the sensitivity of the thread.

Do you know what, I'm reconsidering this, and I think that it doesn't really matter whether you call it neglect or find another word for it, MrsA, the point is that you needed more from your parents than they either could or would give you. They met your needs materially, but they didn't meet them emotionally and you got hurt and are still hurt. I'm sorry that you are trying to find answers to the events of your childhood. I think we all have to make peace with the fact that our parents didn't always get it right, as we look back at our childhood, but I guess your biggest question must be whether they did their best and just made mistakes, or whether they just didn't try. I hope therapy helps you unpick it all.

its not really a sensitive thread, is it, MrsA, if the OP felt sensitive, she wouldn't post a list of events on a public forum, to get opinions on them.

The story of being caught in a rip tide cannot be true, which does indicate possible inaccurate memories?

it depends, on lots of things, parents were generous with family activities and holidays, but 6 events ( over 18 years) are being questioned.

Asmatic children should not be denied their inhaler - but was the child actually suffering from asthma, or just coughing? Was the inhaler denied? It says parents failed to monitor inhaler use, does that mean the child had the inhaler and used it? How do you know parents were not monitoring it? a six year old wouldn't know. maybe the drinks were as well as the inhaler, maybe the inhaler was inappropriate ?

neighbour - was there a choice? Did anything abusive happen whilst in the neighbours care? Not the parents doing, if there was, although could be blamed for not listening if the child had tried to tell them and been ignored.

the river, well, 11 year olds should have more sense! And the OP clearly doesn't have accurate memories of this incident anyway.

Ayres Rock - I don't know without more details, what was wrong with the child? had been airsick, is that all?rest and rehydration then. Or was something else wrong? The op just says dehydrated/ill. depends what they mean by ill.

The other two incidents, parents prefered not to discuss, that was quite standard at the time. And still is for many people, the OP is presumably free to discuss as much as she wants, and has been for many years. Neither, in any case, were the parents doing.

so would I say this is neglect or abuse?

There is no evidence of it. It might be, but you would have to say more. It does sound like the op is looking for things to critisise parents for.

Give it up @Copperbeech33 and stop being a gf!

Copper beech. I am the OP.

Yes it's a sensitive thread, to me.

Thanks for giving your opinion, as I said, all are welcome.

Fucking name change fail.

Please do advance search this name for all of the really sensitive details, copper.

I don't need to 'look' for things to blame my parents for. There's enough shit on the other thread (that I didn't want to mention here) that I was trying keep out of this.

But there you go.

(Had no idea name changes didn't carry over onto the mobile app...or maybe I'm making that up as well)

well, you asked for opinions, and I gave you mine, based on what was said here, so I don't have anything else to add really.

Good luck, hope you end up happy

And I've thanked you for your opinion.

I hope you end up happy as well